Bubbles *pop*

I sit at a wooden high top in my office, in a swivel chair, lit by nothing but the glow of natural sunlight. Sometimes, when I’m thinking, I spin around in my chair - mostly because it’s fun, sometimes because it shakes up my brain juices. On Friday, I kept swiveling to my left, facing the bookshelf coating the far wall of the office. I scanned the spines, half absentmindedly, half mentally pleading for a title to jolt my curiosities. Bubbles. I found a book called Bubbles. And it looked like it would be a fun book, because who writes a book about bubbles that isn’t fun? I probably giggled quietly, and then swiveled back to the right, resuming the task at hand.

*pop*

Bubbles, huh? I always hear how Harvard is a bubble. In fact, I usually resort to that excuse when my Babson or Bentley friends ask why I hardly venture out towards them. Harvard is a bubble. A small, cozy sphere of amenities and adventure. So contained that it’s virtually undesirable to escape, to pop the film, to dance in the rainy burst of aftermath. 

*pop*

On Sunday, after having a day full of ~me~ time (think unplugging and escaping to an off-campus coffee shop to purposefully pop the campus bubble in order to reconstruct a temporary one around myself, napping, and laying by the Charles). My last activity, brought me to the riverbank reading a book of Love Letters, returning me softly to my bubble. Within a few stanzas, my friends found me, laying on the riverbank reading. An invitation to sit on the bridge with them materialized, and I figured I’d had enough me time to be a revitalized social butterfly. 

*pop*

We sat precariously on the ledge of the bridge and watched the sunset. As the tangerine film faded on the sky, it was slowly replaced by the rainbow like halo of bubbles glistening in the sky. Floating. Bursting. Being filled with a passerby’s vape. Sometimes the bubbles were big enough that they looked like they were swallowing the colossal campus buildings. Other times, they were so teeny that they floated way up to the clouds. We relished in this childlike joy, trying our hands at the magical bubble wand provided by the bubble man - someone who apparently does this on a regular basis. Hey, while some guys take their dogs on walks to attract company, others blow bubbles on a bridge to bring the community together under the shared desire to pause from the rapid pace of their daily lives. 

*pop*

Now it's Monday, the gateway drug back into the rapid pace of daily lives. I'm swiveling in my desk chair, the power is out in the office, and I stare back at the bookshelf. Bubbles. Maybe I should see what lies in between the sky blue covers. So I picked it up for a lunch time read. It was definitely denser than expected, in sheer paper weight and content, especially for a topic you imagine to be effortlessly airy. The first page boasted "microspherology," which I took as a green light to skim and see what popped out at me. 

*pop*

"The child stands enraptured on the balcony, holding its new present and watching the soap bubbles float into the sky as it blows them out of the little loop in front of his mouth. Now a swarm of bubbles erupts upwards, as chaotically vivacious as a throw of shimmering blue marbles. Then, at a subsequent attempt, a large oval balloon, filled with timid life, quivers off the loop and floats down to the street, carried along by the breeze. It is followed by the hopes of the delightful child, floating out into the space in its own magic bubble as if, for a few seconds, its fate depended on that of the nervous entity." - Peter Sloterdijk, Bubbles Sphere I

*pop*

"In the place where the orb burst, the blower's excorporated soul was left alone for a moment, as if it had embarked on a shared expedition only to lose its partner halfway. But the melancholy lasts no more than a second before the joy of playing returns with its time-honored cruel momentum. What are broken hopes but opportunities for new attempts?" - Peter Sloterdijk, Bubbles Sphere I

*pop*

"Because living always means building spheres, both on a small and a large scale, humans are the beings that establish globes and look out into horizons. Living in spheres means creating the dimension in which humans can be contained." - Peter Sloterdijk, Bubbles Sphere I

*pop*

So, I guess the Harvard bubble really does exist. But so does the Boston bubble, and the American bubble, and the earthly bubble. But I'm not here to get all existential. After all, aren't bubbles supposed to be airy and whimsical?

Xx, Maia