If you’ve spent any time reading my writing, and I hope you have, then you know that I have always been something of a nervous flyer. I avoid traveling when I can. Still, I’m writing this as I’m sitting in the airport to fly to Denver, Colorado. To visit the University of Colorado – Boulder.
Why make such a trip? Well, it’s business. And my business is education, so that means that this trip is also about relationships. About loving people and working with them to build things that matters.
My former high school student Ben is defending his dissertation this week. I’m serving on Ben’s dissertation committee. Ben is using his dissertation research to study how improv can be used to contribute to climate justice. He is building something that matters and I’ve been honored to be alongside him in the process.
Sure, I could have Zoomed into Ben’s defense. That’s what I would typically do for a student at a different university. Still, I’ve known Ben since the summer before his 9th grade year and it felt important to be there in person. Thus, I’m waiting in the airport, not all that nervous about flying, and sort of looking forward to a trip to Denver. I’ve never been.
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I kept trying to understand why reading Ben’s dissertation moved me so much. Yes, he wrote about me exhaustively. And he cited my own research. But Ben did this in way that didn’t feel like sucking up. I’ve had lots of students suck up to me. In high school and college. My relationship with Ben never felt that way. That was true when he was in 9th grade and, all these years later, it remains true. Ben worked hard in his dissertation to characterize the way I affected him when I was a teacher nearly 15 years ago. And I found myself being affected by how he was writing about and understanding my influence in relationship with his own work. And he was doing so in such a powerful way. I realized, a few pages in, how proud I was of what Ben was doing in his dissertation.
Reading Ben’s dissertation was surreal. And here I want to share a nugget of Ben’s work, so that you can share my surreal feeling:
For me, Sam’s influence has long-governed how I approach improv and collaboration. I have written about him throughout this dissertation more than he would probably like. But as I reflect, Sam’s presence made me slightly anxious because I wanted to perform for him that I was a smart, successful graduate student. At the same time, I also felt very comfortable fumbling forward in front of him. I knew I could just exist as I was, being a graduate researcher in the ways I knew how at that point in time, without judgment. I experienced a full circle moment when I facilitated VROOM in front of Sam while simultaneously remembering myself as a ninth grader in his drama workshop class, horrified at how much he has aged since.
(Ben’s dissertation)
And there you have it. I was simultaneously moved and offended by Ben’s writing. I laughed out loud even as I thought of how proud I was of what he was doing.
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I haven’t gotten to Boulder yet. I’m looking forward to a few days away. A few days with Ben. A few days in the mountains. I’ll attend his defense, do a guest lecture in a class he is teaching in the theatre department, and bum around Boulder. I’ll have a hotel room to myself. I’ll have a few days of peaceful disconnect. That sounds really good to me right now. Good enough that I’m not really dreading traveling.
I remembered, recently, that the first commercial flight I ever went on was to Colorado. My mother and my step-father Jim took me with them to Steamboat Springs. The construction agency Jim worked as a foreman for organized a skiing trip. My first flight was exhilarating and terrifying. And that trip with Mom and Jim was really quite nice. It was almost a normal moment in a wild childhood. Mom and Jim couldn’t drink too much because there were other people around. I did a little skiing, remember flirting with one of Jim’s colleague’s daughters, and spent time in the mountains. I hadn’t thought of that trip for years until it came up in therapy when I was telling my therapist about my upcoming trip. Therapy is wild. So is being alive.
I might more about my trip to Boulder next week. For now, I’m looking forward to traveling. That is cool.
Samuel Jaye Tanner 