One foot in front of the other and now it is the spring of 2025. Well, it isn’t actually spring. It’s -4 as I write this. Real feel -155. Still, as a person who follows academic calendars, I think of January as the start of the spring semester.
I’ll teach a graduate class this semester. I’ll manage academic programming. I’ll write, I’ll read, and I’ll profess – all things that professors do. Yes, this semester promises to be weighed down by service. But I think I’m okay with that. At least right now. Check on me in a week. I might be in an emergency room, whimpering in the corner, and balled up in the fetal position. There’s no way of telling what will happen next. Not for any of us.
***
I’ve found my way into an old man basketball game on campus. Every Tuesday and Thursday a collection of faculty and staff gather in the Field House at the University of Iowa to play some ball. It’s a decently competitive game. I’m younger than some of they guys. Older than some of the guys. It has been about eight years since I regularly played basketball. I’m rusty.
I love playing basketball but I can’t pretend I’m great at the game. Yes, I was always quick. I could beat my defender and get to the hoop but, once there, I was never sure thing where the ball would end up. And my shot has always been a work in progress. I never played organized basketball, so everything I picked up was from friends who understood the game better than me. But, I’ll be damned if I didn’t hustle with the best of them, always push the fast break, and save my share of loose balls. After years of embarrassing myself, I became better at handling myself on the court in my thirties. I played in a staff/student basketball game at Roseville that happened every Tuesday and Thursday morning before school. That game taught me a lot about how to be of use to a team. I’d make up for my size with hustle, I’d find moments when it made sense to take shots, and I’d make sure whoever I was defending had to work hard to beat me.
Getting back on the court now is funny. My shot is pretty clean when I’m warming up, but looks ugly when the game starts. And my body isn’t as fast as my body used to be. I tell it to do things and, though I admire its effort, things don’t happen as fluidly as they used to. And I’m reminded of the importance of letting the ego go. Basketball, like improv and teaching and learning, is an inherently collective experience and working in service of the group is always a tricky thing.
I don’t know. Playing basketball feels good right now. I teach on Thursdays this semester, but I’m hoping to play on Tuesdays. It’s good to run up and down the court, sweat, and be in my body as I resist the pull of my ego.
***
This past fall broke me. I don’t think this coming spring will break me, but I guess I can’t be sure of anything. And I’m not worried about being sure of anything. There’s no controlling what happens to us here. Or, for that matter, anything. We are fragile improvisers, moving forward in an enormous, complicated universe. One foot in front of the other. Who knows where it is all going? Still, Chris Staples suggests that if you stay true, some good things are coming back to you.
Playing basketball is a good thing that is coming back to me. Drinking a hot chai latte on a cold, January morning is a good thing that is coming back to me. Taking quiet walks to campus through Iowa City is a good thing coming back to me. Appreciating me indescribably wonderful wife and children is a good thing coming back to me.
Through the woods, following the light, there’s good things coming back to me and good things ahead. I just don’t know what they are. But I don’t really care anymore.
Samuel Jaye Tanner 