Bubbles

Before each trip downtown, the anticipation is great. Take this morning for example, I skipped out of bed early, ate an apple in the kitchen, brushed, showered, changed. I was light and my feet moved quickly. I took minimal time to prepare myself, walked out of the house and sauntered across a green carpet of grass to get to the bus stop where four ladies in wavy long dresses were already waiting with bubbles floating above their hair. I thought to myself, after completing the day's tasks, I would enjoy the clean and crispy comfort of settling at the round tables of Hazelton Lanes where I could sit back and make faces at the people having lunch buffet in the garden restaurant and write about them.

How ironic that each time I start this journey with a complete heart, only to come back with half of it, or bits and pieces of it, and I end up feeling incredibly small. The subway ride on the return trip is usually difficult because the people and the things and the ideas I gathered from the trip and the monologue that played throughout would begin to expand and whirl in my head, making me unbearably heavy. It's worst late at night, when a person is more likely to travel with a companion, when the subway cart is more spacious, making each cluster of persons visibly warm within their own bubbles. This observation, and the exhaustion from the day's walking, only magnifies my loneliness. Times like this, though, I remain hopeful, for I'm only adjusting to the heightening of my senses which will give me much to share with you when you finally find me and sit with me; or rather, I will by that time have cultivated much space inside of me to listen to all of your stories as we sit in the subway cart encased in our own bubble.