Watch me do my wheelie.
It was a day of mountains to climb and fires to fight.
It was a Sunday afternoon in Pittsburgh, when I rolled my car to a stop at a four-way intersection. My road was flat and wide, the cross street was narrow and hilly. It was March, and you could feel the world coming to life again. Buds of bright green dotted the branches of the trees that lined my road. Sleepy yellow daffodils were nodding at me from the sidewalks.
I was on my way to work. I had a conference to plan, and it was gearing up to be a whack-a-mole Sunday of watching last-minute challenges pop up.
As I waited for the traffic light to turn green, I saw a 70-something-year-old man coming up the hill on the cross street. He was wearing dark-blue sweatpants and a grey zip hoodie, and he rocked a red-and-blue striped beanie on his head. His glorious white beard was swaying in the breeze. He rode up to the intersection on a beat-up, olive-green bicycle.
He was doing a wheelie.
He didn’t care who was watching. He didn’t care if he fell. He didn’t care if he failed. The hill couldn’t defeat him. The bicycle lane couldn’t contain his outsize grin. He spilled his personality and his vehicle into the main car lane.
He radiated joy — the beautiful, childlike, simple, unselfconscious kind.
I had forgotten what fun looks like.
Fun was a 70-year old man doing a wheelie.
Fun was a 70-year old man acting like a kid.
Fun was a 70-year old man trying to defy gravity on an uphill.
Fun was a 70-year old man looking triumphant, gleeful, and fearless.
Fun was a 70-year old man playing for himself, not for an audience.
I felt a current of electricity course through my body, this sudden surge of gratitude, admiration, and joy. Alone in the car by myself, I started chuckling, as a newfound energy washed over me.
That 70-year old daredevil was the reminder that I needed—the reminder to grin on the uphills. The reminder to revel in the sheer fun of attempting difficult things, without worrying about the world watching me fail. The reminder that I needed to play for myself, and not for an audience.
That Sunday, I rediscovered fun. Even in midst of putting out fires.
And, when I kicked off the conference later that week, I wanted to tell the audience why I still love what I do, 22 years into an academic career and 15 years into YinzCam.
I closed my conference talk with, “I’m still having fun.”
Thank you, wheelie guy.
