Boisterous Bubbles

I swear, it had to be four degrees. My hands shook like a volcano, my nose as red as molten lava – but I didn’t care. I sat on the steps of Central Park on the cusp of a wide open space around the famous fountain. All types of people passed, or stayed, or skated, or ran by. What caught some of our attention on this brisk day (to say the least) was a man and his bucket.

Standing between me and the fountain was a man in his mid thirties, equipped with two sticks, some rope attached, and buckets of soap. He routinely dipped the sticks, which he held like wands, at arms length and dipped them into the buckets. As he lifted and separated the sticks, he brought with him the most entrancing things – bubbles. Huge bubbles. Bubbles bigger than you and I put together.

Watching the bubbles form and float seamlessly in the wind, only to pop and dissolve, was beautiful. The bitter air was no longer fearful as long as I watched those bubbles. They seemed to have every color of the rainbow trapped inside, swirling and twirling and molding into each other.

I wasn’t the only one who noticed. People started to gather to watch this man make his bubbles. He gently lifted his sticks, and almost genuflected to the wind as he gracefully swept his arms in his magical bubble-making motions. Children started running around, chasing these huge mystical things. They would scream, and giggle, and skip, and just enjoy. And they weren’t alone: passersby would be pleasantly surprised to turn around to find an abnormally sized bubble ready to pop in their faces.

Soon, the fountain started to become more crowded. Children joined in with extra sticks, dipping them in and trying for themselves. Parents watched, laughed, took pictures. Friends smiled and pointed, waiting for their turn. Dogs chased and barked at them. Skaters slid around them, and some unfortunate runners ran right into them.

It was just so funny to see something so mundane bring so much joy to so many different sets of people. For a moment, we were all together. All us fountain-goers shared something once-in-a-lifetime, and I think some of us knew it. The beauty of the bubbles (that’s right, just bubbles), brought together people that never would have even look at the other in the street. I shared smiles and knowing glances with grandmothers, preteen Justin Bieber wannabes and even toddlers.

For a moment there was no sorrow in the world. Just beauty. There was no war, or sadness, but just social togetherness. Maybe Obama should send some bubbles in to the Middle East, and not soldiers. The world might be a better place.