You will have wealth.
It’s amazing how very practical a person can be, yet hold on to the simplest of dreams. Tonight we ate the first Chinese food we’ve had in a very long time and at the end, I went through my very superstitious routine to pick my fortune cookie. I took the one closest to me, unwrapped it and as usual, resisted the temptation to look at the fortune, because somehow in that moment of vulnerability, doing so would deem the fortune null and void.

You will have wealth, it read. I smiled at first and wished for adjectives such as extraordinary or immeasurable and then realized how very true the fortune had already become.

I don’t know what Christmas for other families is like, except for my own and my future in-laws, who have in the past couple years re-invented their Christmases to accommodate everyone’s schedules. But at my house, Christmas, if not a deeply religious time, is a very personal and reflective time. Instead of a formal prayer at the dinner table, there is a personal prayer in which everyone has their turn to divulge a gratitude or grace for something throughout the year. Though this year, my mother summed our year in simple words: “The cup runneth over.” Without reciting a grocery list of reasons that make that statement so very true, one should just believe me when I say that there is not one instance which readily comes to mind that qualifies as bad fortune for us in 2003. I can only hope the same for 2004.

Of course I still wish for more adjectives in my fortune and dream of my lottery winning ‘what ifs,’ but I believe that if it’s not the human condition, it’s certainly the American condition to dream of bigger and better. So far, receiving a fortune that’s already come true isn’t half bad.

posted by paula 10:30 PM