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Great day this weekend spent at Wordstock. Very comforting hanging out with a crowdful of book/word/idea/story nerds.
I was there manning the Wheel of Cogitation, a table that the studio designed and built for Oregon Humanities to take to events. Its purpose is to create conversation around ideas.
It was a great experience. All sorts of people participated, including lots of kids. The wheel seemed to create space for meaningful and meaty conversations, but in a fun way.
Here's something that happened: A woman walked up with her son, a mysterious mop-topped boy with auburn hair and big brown eyes. He reached out and spun the wheel and stared at the clicker and smiled. "He's autistic," the mom said of the four-year-old. The wheel stopped on a question.
I couldn't tell if he could read the words or understood them. He paused for a short moment, then reached down and touched a bare spot in the leather of a red antique steamer trunk that sat next to the table. "Healing," he said.