Happy New Year! There seems to be so little to say as the cold night closes in and we settle in to the routine of waiting for midnight. Deadly nights like this settle into a routine of their own as time passes slowly. Being from Miami, a city that celebrates New Year’s as a lure for frigid northerners, the holiday has a special meaning to me. There is always a spotlight on the quaint tradition of a parade followed by a football game, the Orange Bowl, that showcases the typically 70F or better daze that could pass like any other.

But they don’t. There is the north to compare to, a dream of a better easier life that once called people to Miami. That was before the city grew up and became the capital of Latin America. That was before I grew up to strike out on my own and attempt to find Reality, a state of being that I knew didn’t seem to exist in the corner of the Bermuda Triangle that I once called home.

And every New Year a bit of Miami comes back into my heart.

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