Happy New Year!

New Year’s Eve, 1995, this Calvin and Hobbes cartoon, by Bill Watterson, was published throughout North America. With it, Watterson marked the end of his beloved comic strip about Calvin, a six-year-old boy, and Hobbes, a tiger who was Calvin’s constant companion. Everything Watterson had known had disappeared. And he looked forward to the mysterious next chapter of his life with a sense of excitement and optimism.

As in most great writing, Watterson’s message was both personal and universal. I clipped the cartoon out and stuck it on our fridge, where it has remained ever since. Although twenty-seven years have passed, to the day, and my copy is now faded, food-splattered and wrinkled, Watterson’s two fictional BFFs still inspire me.

I look toward 2023 “like having a big white sheet of paper to draw on”.

I wish everyone a happy brand-new year, full of possibilities … and magic too.