Inhale wide-eyed, puff out your cheeks, and blow. Funnel your breath through the small plastic ring and expand the soapy water—are you ready to let it go? Watch as the iridescent water glimmers in the sun, as the amorphous blob floats through the space between here and there, now and never. 

Like bubbles, our memories of our youth are delicate and fleeting. 

Like bubbles, our memories shift and change in new light. 

And then they burst.

A sudden dissipation of what was, until it exists only in memory. But look—how those memories are shimmering and radiant in your mind’s eye, how they have shaped you.

Because our youth is transient, yet never eludes us. Why does it remain within us? How do we envision it now

Watching as the bubbles float away, watching even as they burst—what do you see in them?

Colors of happiness or sorrow, nostalgia or regret. A miniature world in iridescent, transparent form, reflecting back new hues of old moments.