Number 19 on Woody Guthrie’s 1943 list of resolutions is about hope because as he said, …”about all a human being is, anyway, is just a hoping machine.” Like everyone else, I have big, probably unrealizable hopes for 2021. I hope I’ll get vaccinated against the virus and despair. I hope I’ll finally start a book. I hope Bob Dylan will live forever, because what kind of world would it be if he wasn’t in it? I hope for seven solid hours of sleep because insomnia sucks. I hope I’ll live in a blue state someday. I hope someone will prove that angels exist and that they have enormous wingspans.

But knowing we’re in for more months of nothing to do and nowhere to go, it’s the little things to look forward to that will help me carry on.

A glass of wine with Voodoo Potato Chips, another episode of sexy, dirty Danes on The Last Kingdom, Triscuit taste-alikes (but cheaper) from Aldi’s, looking at the full moon through my new binoculars, Fridays for some weird reason since they’re totally meaningless now, the hopeful Twitter stories of @AnneLouiseAvery, the mailman and the UPS truck, the red-bellied woodpeckers with feathers that look like vintage tweed overcoats. These are some of the things that keep my hoping machine running. What’s on your list?

Nikki Hardin is a writer of stories, musings, and memories. Her poetry has been published in Riverteeth Journal. She was the founder and publisher of skirt!, a monthly women’s magazine in Charleston, South Carolina. You can reach her at nikki@thedailynikki.com.