Why is living so big? These are the reasons.

When I started at my new job, there was a sad little pothos plant on the windowsill of our shared office that nobody watered. I took it on as my personal project.

My father is seventy-nine. He has a routine: every evening at six-thirty, he sits on his front porch with a cup of decaf and watches the street. I've started joining him when I visit.

Fossils are my eight-year-old's entire personality. He has a whole shelf in his bedroom devoted to them, labeled in his own careful handwriting. So for his birthday, we drove to a creek bed in South Carolina famous for fossilized shark teeth.

My grandmother entered the county fair's baking contest for the first time at ninety years old. She entered her cinnamon rolls, which the whole family agrees are the best in the world.

I'm thirty-seven, and until last winter I had never been on ice skates. My kids, who are eight and ten, skate like hockey players. Every Saturday at the outdoor rink downtown, I stood on the edge with a hot chocolate, waving.

My daughter's seventh-grade class had a "kindness week" in February. The assignment was simple: do one kind thing every day and write about it.

Last spring, my wife and I installed two beehives in our backyard. We'd read three books and watched countless videos, but nothing prepared us for the first time we opened the lid and saw thousands of bees going about their business.

Every Fourth of July, my brothers and I climb onto the flat roof of our parents' house to watch the fireworks. We've been doing it since we were kids. Back then we had to sneak up there. Now our mom hands us the snacks.

For six years, I've volunteered at the same water table during our city's marathon: mile twenty-two, a stretch on a long hill where runners hit their hardest moment. I'm there at six in the morning with a folding table, a stack of paper cups and a sharpie for writing encouragement on the cardboard signs.

There's a woman in our city park who hula hoops every Sunday afternoon. She's in her sixties, wears bright leggings and brings a dozen hoops in every color, some with lights inside.

For his ninth birthday, my son asked for a fish tank. He did weeks of research. He made a presentation, with slides, about water quality, fish compatibility and the importance of a good filter.

This summer, I drove my mother, who is eighty, back to the little town in Kansas where she grew up. She hadn't been there in fifty years.

I lost my wallet on the subway on a Monday, with my license, credit cards, ninety dollars in cash and the only photo I have of my parents together. I canceled the cards, filed a report and spent two days miserable.

To the tulip lady next door, Mrs. Hendricks:

Every Tuesday afternoon, at the 2 p.m. matinee at our small-town movie theater, there's an elderly couple who sit in the same seats in the fifth row. They share a large popcorn and hold hands through the whole movie.

I've been afraid of deep water my whole life. This year, at forty-eight, I got certified as a scuba diver. My son, who's twenty and a dive instructor in Florida, taught me himself.

My mother taught third grade in the same classroom for thirty-eight years. This June was her last day. She thought it would be quiet. She had no idea what we'd planned.

When I proposed to my girlfriend this year, I used the same small wooden ring box my grandfather carved by hand in 1956 for my grandmother's engagement ring.

I own a small bakery. That means I'm awake at four-thirty every morning, six days a week. People always ask me how I can stand it.

My twelve-year-old son took a pottery class at the community center this summer. On the last day, he came home with a mug. For me.