For the New Year I will buy myself a chocolate eclair filled
with custard. Eat it slowly, with an infinity of joy, without
concern of woe and tight underwear.

Susan’s mother was directed by her doctor to cut down on
salami or risk death. ‘But, doctor,’ she said, ‘is life worth
living without salami?’

For my new year I will sit down in the sun and dunk in
my coffee a little knob of bread hard as my elbow, and on
it, without concern for cholesterol, I will spread delicious
butter, the kind that reminds me of Mexico City’s Café La
Blanca on Calle Cinco de Mayo, or the clinking glasses of El
Gran Café de la Parroquia in Veracruz.

I will snooze with my dogs till I radiate love, for they are life’s
true gurus. I will wake gently so as not to disturb the dreams
that have alighted overnight on the branches of sleep, and
before they flutter away on soundless wings, I will examine
and admire each.

This season of my escape, I will push my foot down on the
accelerator of my life,