I'm not sure what it is, but more than ever, I do feel like we are creating a society where we all live in separated bubbles. And, sometimes, even when bubbles bump into eachother softly, the bubble-makers don't even feel that potential tap of another world or a new environment, a challenged idea or a new situation. If you have ever seen a young child play outside with a large bubble wand, you see the whimsy. It's that feeling of creating something so mystical, so empowering that every stage from the making to the watching to the chasing to the popping is something to behold. And I think what's even more, is watching those youngsters chase the bubble to see where it goes and where it flows and where it arrives. The arrival is just as fascinating as the creation. The creating of love is just as fascinating as the delivery. 

And then somewhere along the line, we tend to shift from the bubble creator to finding ourselves trapped inside a single bubble. We don't strive to stretch to see how big we can make the space or what shape. We do not chase anymore because that could lead to an unwanted path and perhaps a scraped knee. Why collide with another bubble when we have created our own stretchy, soapy, flexible sphere of security? Plus, joining may pop our sphere. And that could be the end of the world as we know it. 

This afternoon, I excitedly told the class we were going on an official nature walk outside, with our journals, to gain inspiration from nature. The poem could be fantastical, realistic or not. The outside was meant to be the bubble wand, but they could create their bubbles in any shape or form they wanted. And my class is incredibly creative accept I saw, for the first time, a boundary outside as we were sitting on the stones that disrupted creativity and focus, imagination and intelligence and that was the bubble. One bee. One ant crawling, a spider, a crinkled leaf that looked disguised as a nature monster. But it wasn't everyone. You see-those bubble creators who spend their weekend in the woods only to tell me the tails of their magic tree house or secret path were the bubble creators today. One of my students questioned, "Have you guys never seen a bee before?" And no many how many times I tried to reassure our bubble imagineers, it was just too much. That longing to go back inside the bubble, that drawing away from whimsy happened so quickly, it was almost impossible to bring about again. It's almost like when you are trying so very hard to create another bubble, but for some reason, it pops before floating away...that is what this situation reminded me of I think. 

As creators of whimsy we are not just asked to be bubble creators and bubble designers, but we are asked to be bubble invitors. We need to be the ones saying, "Really? It's just a bee. It won't hurt you." We need to be the onest to encourage others to float and bump and slide and collide. Those gollisions are what create global perspectives and true inspiration and faith and love. So the next time you have a hard time working that bubble wand, just remember that you have a duty to pass on your whimsy through the wand of another. And however you choose to do that, is on you.