Whee

It was a warm, April evening in Iowa City. I’d just finished teaching a doctoral seminar at the University of Iowa. The class was Improvisation, Pedagogy, and Social Change. The first doctoral seminar I taught at Iowa.

The previous three session had been led by my students. They designed and ran improvisational teaching facilitations intended to inspire some sort of change in the participants. We invited outside people to join the sessions. Students explored issues such as gender, climate change, music education, embodiment, etc. Lots of wild stuff.

That warm, April evening, I was leaving a session where we processed their facilitations. We congratulated ourselves on a job well done. The room was thick with the kind of satisfaction a group feels when they’ve built something meaningful and unexpected together—when they’ve improvised.

I walked to campus that day because it was a warm, April day. A thirty walk from my front-door to campus was a peaceful thing. I readied myself to start my walk home. Zipped up my black backpack. Put my headphones on. Found a Neil Young album on Spotify. That old man had finally released Chrome Dreams. I clicked the song Will to love and starting walking. The wind beneath my feet.

Campus buzzed with life. College students, faculty members, and who knows who else. People playing frisbee. People going here and there and everywhere, I guess. I didn’t pay much attention to any of them, but I gazed all the same.

I walked off campus and through the Ped Mall. Short for Pedestrian Mall. It’s a plaza in Iowa City with bars, shops, and even a little fountain. Sometimes my children play at the playground in the Ped Mall when we’re downtown. Children were playing as I walked by. Gliding down slides. The wind beneath their asses. Whee.

The Ped Mall, like campus, buzzed with life. People here, there, and everywhere. Having dinner. Having drinks. Sitting on benches and talking. Buzzing lazily. The sun was just starting to set. Pinkish clouds hung overhead. The breeze was warm and it occurred to me that I was happy. Lost in a warm, April evening.

I rarely notice my happiness. Kurt Vonnegut wrote that people ought to notice when they’re happy. My contentment surprised me as I walked along the Ped Mall, through downtown, towards the neighborhoods on the east side of Iowa City where I lived. Got the will to love. Good energy buzzing in my stomach.

And that’s all. I was forty-three. Strong and healthy. The night around me was alive with good easy energy. I mumbled a prayer of thanks and kept walking. The wind beneath me.

Whee.