Bubble Days

I don't think I can remember the last time that I had time to myself to just walk, and explore, and dream, and be.  I got an early start today.  Up at 6 and showered and dressed for breakfast at 7, giving me the rest of the morning to do as I pleased.  Knowing that I didn't have to be at residency until 1:30 this afternoon, I did something rare: I took advantage of a day with no responsibilities pressing on the back of my brain, and I actually did something simply for the pleasure of doing it.

The sidewalks throughout Cambridge, Massachusetts are made of inlaid brick, most of which have been there since the late 18th Century.  Worn smooth by time and weather, the stones are tones of sienna, crimson, ruby, russet and auburn, and to walk on such history is fascinating.  I couldn't help but wonder who had walked there before me.  Louisa May Alcott, Emily Dickenson, Benjamin Franklin, Nathaniel Hawthorne, e e cummings, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendall Holmes, and Edgar Allen Poe are just a handful of the renowned writers who grew up in this area, who went on to become some of the most revered American authors of any generation, whose feet may have stepped upon the very same stones as I did today.  I did more than walk the streets of Cambridge: I walked through history.

Today was a bubble day.  No cares, no worries, no where to go and everywhere to roam.  My husband reminded me tonight that we had some bubble days when we visited France in 1999 and canoed down the Dordogne River, just the two of us, a picnic lunch and a lot of warm July sunshine on our shoulders. Though the winter in Cambridge is hardly like July in southwest France, this day had the same carefree quality.  It was a day to absorb this miraculous time in my life where everything feels so unbelievably blissful.  I walked through the grounds of Harvard University, marveling at the banners announcing that this is the school's 375th anniversary year.  I passed babies in strollers, students with backpacks laden with schoolwork, professors with tartan plaid driving caps and worn leather briefcases.  I wandered into the Harvard Book Store and browsed the aisles, running my fingertips gently along the bindings of weathered editions of Plath and Thoreau and Longfellow.  I bought a sandwich at a coffee shop and ate it while I meandered along the streets, feeling the lettuce crunch between my teeth and enjoying the sting of dijon mustard on my tongue.  I resisted the urge to throw my hat in the air in Harvard Square while signing the Mary Tyler Moore Show theme song, but just barely.

My journey, probably a total of five or six miles walked at a beautiful snail's pace, came to it's conclusion when I rounded a corner on Oxford Avenue and saw the sign that read: "Lesley University - Doble Campus."  I expected my heart to leap when I finally saw that sign, but something unexpected and wonderful happened instead.  My heartbeat slowed down, tears formed in the corners of my eyes and had to be brushed away with gloved hands, my body warmed and my soul followed.  Amazing.  Truly amazing.  Just one look, and it felt like home.

I wish that there could be more bubble days, for all of us.  Instead of walking to something, I want more moments in my life that are simply desinationless.  Meandering, wandering, wondering.  Drinking in the rare times in life that things are truly wonderful, and remembering to be grateful for simple miracles.  What brought me here, to this moment, to this place, to this city, I may never know.  But, I couldn't be happier or more thankful that the sun shined on the worn sidewalks of Cambridge today, or that I was here to enjoy it.