Notes from the Prairie: “I Wonder” #1

Calling All Wonderers, Both Wacky and Wonderful

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

I sometimes wonder —

No, that’s not true. I often wonder.

I wonder in the shower. I wonder sipping my morning coffee. I wonder as I load the dishwasher, launder clothes, travel, sit in meetings, and fall asleep. I wonder from the time my cellphone alarm rings at 6:30 a.m. until I fall asleep.

I suspect my brain is a perpetual-motion wondering machine.

By the way, when I wonder, my brain grazes widely. I speculate, think, conjecture, inquire, puzzle, query, question, meditate, and disbelieve.

I wonder if that sentence has too many abstract words.

I’ll try a few examples from my scattered grazing range of thoughts.

• How can a bumblebee soar on that fat body?

• Is it true that the flapping wings of a butterfly in Cambodia can affect weather patterns in North America?

• Is the universe finite or infinite? I can’t picture either of those choices. I have often tried. But I cannot understand either how the concept of a curved space time continuum resolves my dilemma.

• Is this sudden pain under my ribs a heart-attack warning or just a another belch fighting to escape?

• What would happen if, halfway through a Sunday morning sermon, I stood up, declared to the pastor and congregation, “I disagree. That is totally untrue!” and then marched out of the sanctuary?

Sometimes my speculations turn into imaginary conversations with people fictional and real, living and dead. I ask Einstein to explain his equation for the relationship between energy and mass. I ask Harry Smith to tell me how he arrived at “Curiosity” as the topic the course he is teaching at my town’s Central College after retiring as a national TV journalist. My husband Marlo is able to discern when I participate in one of these conversations: I accompany them with head movements and hand gestures.

Would wondering be a good column topic?

I’m not sure. I decide to research potential responses to it with a first draft. The first person I give that draft to looks up puzzled. “Our brains must be made of different stuff,” she tells me. That is her only response. What if I am the world’s only wonderer?

The next morning I show the draft to two more friends. The business owner grins and confesses she identifies with half of my examples. The second friend tells me he says “I wonder” at least six times a day to his wife. And that friend has a PhD in psychology!

Hope grows. I draft more words:

“Dear reader, your mission, should you decide to accept it after reading is to respond with whatever thoughts rise in you as a response.

1. I wonder whether you have similar wondering wandering thoughts or whether that activity sounds like it comes from another planet.

2. I wonder what would happen if I walked through my town’s downtown district in just my underwear?”

I distribute the new draft following a meeting of one of my weekly groups. It sparks a lively series of texts — insightful, creative, and amusing. Those texts seal the deal.

In a conversation with myself, complete with hand gestures, I exclaim silently, This series shows promise. A series about wondering might inspire readers. I can have fun with it, and they can, too. I nod vigorously in agreement with myself. Fortunately, my husband is not in the room.

With that conversation, I grow the courage to launch “I Wonder.”

Having pasted it into a post, I imagine hearing from hundreds of readers who answer my questions about whether they have wondering minds, what they wonder about, whether they can identify with me, and what would happen if someone walked in their downtown clad only in underwear.

You are now looking at that first column. At least, that is what I imagined.

Meanwhile, I’ll start on next week’s column. After all, I am also worry-wondering what will happen if not a single person responds.

And I am preparing for that, just in case.

Meanwhile, here’s the comment button. Have courage!

PS; Please share this email to all Wacky or Wonderful Wonderers in your email list! Maybe even share it with some people who might benefit by increasing their speculating, questioning, and imagining.

Carol Van Klompenburg is a writer living in Pella, Iowa. She has a BA in English and an MA in Theater Arts — and is available for reading performances of her work. Her latest book, A World in a Grain of Sand: Lively Little Stories of Household Stuff is schedule for release December 2024. (Stay tuned!) Readers can contact her publicly by commenting on this Substack or privately at carolvk13@gmail.com.