A man’s true delight is to do the things he was made for.
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
On a late afternoon walk with my children, we discover a barefoot man making enormous bubbles in the sunshine. The kids beeline for him and, together, we spend the better part of an hour darting across fields and park pathways popping hundreds of glittering orbs. A bucket of soapy water, a stick and a string are all this young man needs to enrapture a crowd of the young and young at heart.
As I watch him, I find myself wondering: How old are you? How are you free to spend a weekday afternoon blowing bubbles? Who made you so playful?
Bubble man is wearing a black t-shirt with a holy Mary silkscreened on the front, her upturned lips ceding consent. Let the children come to me. He has an open, youthful face. Laughs easily. Leaves a hat out for anyone who feels like tossing a coin in. Never mentions it though. Neverminds it. Minds his bubbles and the children and the grass between his toes. Minds the delicious March sunshine.
Marcus Aurelius wrote that a person’s true delight is to do the things they were made for.
Delight. Joy. This impulse may give some insight into why, under duress in the pandemic days of 2020, the world took up…
