The Lucky New Year's Possum

On New Year's Eve, I was standing on the back porch of a Capitol Hill house chatting with other people at what was a terrific party when a possum slowly crossed a branch of the tree about fifteen feet away from us. Wildlife is not uncommon in DC, but many had never seen a possum, especially in town. I told my friend Nancy that it's good luck, though exceedingly rare, to spot a possum on New Year's Eve. She said, "really?" I said, "oh, yeah, it's an old tradition. They call it the "Lucky New Year's Possum." We joked about it, but I could tell she wanted to believe.

About half an hour later, I was making the rounds back inside, an international crowd of people dancing salsa, champagne flowing, a great crowd of lovely, cool people. I talked to a few people who asked me if I had seen the "New Year's Possum.... It's good luck, you know." I started with "you know, I made up all that..." then caught myself. The story had circulated through the party, spread, apparently, by Nancy. What's wrong with a new myth anyway, a new tradition? After all, aren't resolutions, the sheer symbolism of moving from one numbered year to another, the toasts, and the general sense of regeneration, that we can start over somehow, all built into New Year's Eve being anything significant at all? Why not a Lucky New Year's Possum to go along with it?

I let the story go on, and it took on different international shades. Some went outside to see the possum and receive its blessing ("I need all the luck I can get," said one). In this circle, it's likely no one truly believed in the Lucky New Year's Possum, but all were willing to suspend disbelief in order to allow a little magic into the evening.

Then the possum walked across the branch, down another small tree, and vanished. At the stroke of midnight, I say.

Today, Nancy sends me this article from the NY Times: Keep Your Ball. We've Got the Possum.

"One man's roadkill is another man's icon."