Wednesday, May 28, 2014

big things

I traveled to New York in March for business. The trip there was a bit of a disaster. Long story short, I spent over 24 hours in Ronald Reagan International and a restless night huddled in a nest of coats outside of the airport Chipotle. If all I had to look forward to upon arrival in Albany was a lonely hotel room and a couple days of meetings, I'm sure I would have given up after the first three flight cancellations and either returned home or resigned myself to spending the rest of my life in "The Terminal." But I had a real motivation to stick with it! Getting to Albany meant I was close enough to visit my grandparents, a far too infrequent occurrence.

I finally arrived. My grandparents picked me up at the hotel on my second night, and we went out for a great dinner and even better conversation. My travel woes didn't seem so bad when I found out that Grampa once missed a layover in Amsterdam while en route to a meeting in Africa, and had to just come back home since he'd already missed the important part of the meeting! How I would love to read a collection of their amazing stories. I asked if they'd ever thought of writing a memoir. It's just too much work, they said, and many of the details have been lost or forgotten. Although there is no memoir or diary, Gramma did say that they have kept a book since they got married where they write down the "big things" every year.

cozy birdhouse | dinner with my grandparents

That's why I'm writing this: to keep track of the "big things" (and the small things too). I forget what I ate for breakfast yesterday. I forget whole conversations I had last month. I forget the little details of the big events that happened last year. Maybe this will help to preserve some of that. I promise not to record what I ate for breakfast yesterday unless it happens to be particularly noteworthy (I'm looking at you, Santa-shaped pancakes).

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I must mention that there was one more highlight of my trip... this adorable kiwi art from the hotel lobby! Apologies for the blurry photo. I didn't want anyone to notice me snapping this pic because it would look quite suspicious if the kiwis just happened to go missing later in the evening. (Just kidding, but I can't say I wasn't tempted!)

cozy birdhouse | kiwi bird wire art