Why We Need More Bubbles

Every day now that spring is springing, my two-year-old daughter asks to blow bubbles outside. So we gather our shoes and bubble juice and go out into the thawing, soggy backyard. Our white cat follows, collapsing into the lawn to eat grass.

My daughter takes a wand, I take a wand, and we blow bubbles. Usually we both blow bubbles.

Today, it is mostly just me blowing bubbles. The wind and bubble-juice consistency combine to make the perfect scene of a backyard filled with floating bubbles.

“Bubble!” She shrieks and runs across the yard chasing a bubble with her wand. It wafts up over the fence.

I blow twenty more into the air.

“Bubble!”

She runs back toward me, scaring the cat. “Coco!” Run after the cat. “Bubble!” Chase the bubble.

And so on. I sit and blow bubbles. She runs. Perfect combo.

It occurs to me that I have things to do: I’m a working mom with three part-time, mostly freelance jobs that I fit in around the margins of my life. I’m less than two months away from having my second baby girl. My inner resources are limited.

It also occurs to me that I don’t care that I have things to do. She is shrieking with delight over tiny balls of soap and a cat.

Our world will not always be this simple. Today will not always be this simple. (She might not take a nap later. I might receive an irritating email. She might have a breakdown over the consistency of melted cheese.)

But for this morning, we will blow and chase bubbles.

I don’t have much time for yoga these days, and as a pregnant busy mom, I feel guilty about that. Yoga should be one of my key resources of survival, but I find that just surviving sometimes takes precedence.

Blowing bubbles, though, is meditation.

Inhale, gather fresh spring air.

Exhale, long and slow, blowing bubbles into the world.

Repeat.

For at least twenty minutes.

For twenty minutes, breathe and be aware of the glorious, growing world. Shrieking toddler. Startled cat. Leaves reaching up out of dormant ground. Budding bushes.

This is meditation.

It’s not the kind of meditation I’m used to, sitting in a quiet room with a breath prayer. But it’s breathing, it’s extending my exhale longer than my inhale, relaxing into a state where I don’t care that the computer is waiting on the kitchen table. It’s a meditation on joy.

Bring on the bubbles, kid. This is my yoga.

*Photo Credit: "Bubble" by Serg C, 2011. CC License.