Summer is for bubbles, a time when children sit on their doorstep with a cylindrical plastic container in one hand and a dipper with an open round end on the other where they blow and create bubbles. It is a cause for wild squeals of excitement as they try to catch those elusive, gossamer- thin combination of soap, water, and air in spherical shapes of varying sizes that dance and float in the air, seemingly intent on denying their creator the pleasure of a tender touch. Bubbles are immensely fragile, ephemeral beauties that catch the colors of the rainbow as they drift and wander out of touch before they break into nothingness taking with them that delicate, crystalline beauty that teased their beholder.
Bubbles are fascinating, a source of consummate pleasure despite their short-lived presence as children search for a creative way to spend the lazy days of summer. Blowing bubbles is a pastime one never seems to outgrow as adults - mothers, sisters, grandmothers - join and unabashedly share the children's infectious enthusiasm on their how-to-catch-a-bubble activity of the day. Despite their fleeting, unsustained beauty, bubbles have that unique ability to entice that wondrous joy tucked most abundantly in the heart of a child.
Bubbles and childhood: both are brief, beautiful, carefree. Both are sources of almost wanton delight from the beholder in their passing fancy. Childhood is short-lived, a brief moment in that interlude between infancy and adulthood that fizzles like a bubble and carries with it those qualities one longs to always have - youth, laughter, innocence, purity, as well as freedom from worries and responsibility. That phase in our lives is something we love to recollect like bubbles we play to occupy those humdrum, protracted summer days.
I look at my grandchildren at play and marvel at the awe their guileless faces display as they discover something for the first time, a creeping insect in the grass, a dandelion sprouting a tiny yellow bloom, a firefly carrying a speck of light amid the darkened night. There is never a shortage of new things to learn and discover in a child's world of wonders and that zest to find, that enthusiasm to learn of the world around him creates that unmitigated sense of joy that is a miracle in itself. But those days are short and children grow fast and like a fleeting, fragile bubble, that aura of wonder bursts as they come face to face with hard realities that all of a sudden consume their peaceful, Utopian universe.
The joys of childhood may not last, yet the memory remains. Like a child's transient surge of raw excitement when an undulating bubble wanders aimlessly in the air, childhood joys are momentary and hopelessly short-lived. But as we journey through life, new joys are created as we become adept in finding their hiding place. As we acquire that innate ability to blend them with the knowledge that comes with the mature realization that there is beauty sans youth, laughter even with age, and satisfaction gained from responsibility and overcoming challenges in a dispassionate world, it rekindles the ecstasy of childhood bubbles and we see those realities with new eyes. As we do so, the sense of wonder that sustained our childhood summer days as we play with those fragile, ephemeral beauties that elude and dodge our grasp, transforms into an enduring, resilient, and solid source of satisfaction and fulfillment. Hopefully, as life's sizzling summer fades we can bravely confront the approaching winter of our days and focus, not on its bleakness and bitter dreariness, but on the wonders we remember, like the ethereal bubbles of those long, aimless summers of our youth. As our mind's eye focuses on their fragile, translucent outline, may we not miss the glorious rainbow of colors that dances in the sunshine.
Musings and Random Thoughts
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