As I’ve traveled through the chapters of my life, I’ve crossed paths with some truly incredible people. To say I’ve been lucky in the friend department would be a vast understatement – it’s like I won the lottery AND got struck by lightning time and time again.
This morning as I mulled over today’s Think Kit challenge to interview three people about their favorite moment of the year, I figured this could go any number of ways.
I could have tweeted the question out to the world, and waited to see who would bite. That might have drummed up a response from a near stranger, presenting a kind of cool way to get to know someone new.
I could have gone the in-person route, interviewing those I chanced to meet throughout the day – coworkers, my husband, neighbors. This might have resulted in some pretty interesting conversation, diving deeper than the simple question.
But here’s what I decided to do: send a note to a handful of those wonderful friends I mentioned above from all across the county. These are people I don’t see often and wish I got to laugh with a lot more. As I started typing out my notes, a pretty natural thing happened: I started guessing what their responses would be.
I mean, some of them were low-hanging fruit guesses:
1. Chris got married to his long-time lovely lady.
2. Erin found out she was expecting.
3. April got super-involved in the presidential campaign.
4. Edwin – Now this one was a toss up, but I expected he say getting his new job or a detail by detail account of his favorite meal.
Here’s what they actually said.
Chris Mixson is a dear friend from my college days. By day he practices water law and Indian law in Reno, NV. And when not slogging through legal research he is likely to be brewing beer in his kitchen or making his way to Lake Tahoe. His favorite moment of the year?
“My favorite thing about 2012 was getting married to my best friend, and as a bonus I got to spend an entire weekend with over 100 of my favorite and most-loved people in the whole world!”
It was a gorgeous wedding in Annapolis, and I was glad to be among that group of 100.
Erin Becker and I worked together when I lived in Chicago in 2001-05. She now lives in Portland and is working toward a bachelor’s degree in psychology, in hopes of becoming a licensed marriage and family therapist. In addition to asking her about her moment, I also wanted to catch up on what was going on in her world these days. Her response:
“I love to sing in the shower and hope to one day enter a competition. And my favorite thing about 2012 will be finding out I’m going to have 2 babies next June.”
She’s having twins! I love that I get to call her Double Decker Becker, even from afar.
April Duncanson is my long-time bestie. She lives in Philadelphia, knits up a storm and thoroughly enjoys cooking vegan delights.
To my query she said:
“Favorite thing about 2012 was a day. A Tuesday. A Tuesday in November. I watched my newly American husband cast his first vote, opened a campaign office at 6 a.m. that I didn’t close until 20 hours later, drank champagne from the bottle, and reveled in success.”
So far I was 3 for 3! Pretty darn good.
Edwin Castillo really surprised me with his answer. I really thought he’d fire back with his favorite meal. I mean, random food pic texts from him are not out of the norm and he has a bigger appetite than anyone I know. He not only takes beautiful pictures of food, but he draws a cupcake on his credit card slips to leave behind for his server AND takes a picture of that. When my husband and I head back to Chicago for a visit we always get together to share a good meal. Edwin’s favorite moment?
“Out of all the things that happened in 2012 my favorite was the Space Shuttle Endeavor’s parade through LA. It was a great video to watch and it must have been amazing to see the shuttle in person.
It’s cool and sad at the same time knowing that the United States had once regularly explored space trying to find if other planets are habitable and it’s sad knowing that the funding for such notions aren’t as important as weapons of war or large salaries.”
It was pretty cool to be able to guess some of these, then to get totally surprised as well. It was good for the soul to check in with old friends too.
This post is part of Think Kit by SmallBox
Today’s prompt:“Interview 3 people about their favorite moments of the year. Share what you heard.”