Saint Petersburg, Bubbles
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
— Leonardo da Vinci
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Children chasing after bubbles, adults observing. Could a narrative be any simpler than that? No deep drama, just simple fun. And yet, nothing is ever as simple as it seems.
Why was I attracted to this scene. Was it the adults lined up like a Greek chorus cheering the kids on? Was it the infant staring intently at the action? Was it the person in the background with a thought bubble overhead?
What attracted my attention was the novelty of simple child play being a whole family affair. When we were children, we played alone without any adult supervision or even observation. Our parents had their lives, we had our own and they rarely overlapped. I sometimes feel sad about this.
Once we were old enough to date, this meant that there were no awkward questions to answer, such as “Whose earring was on the floor of the car?”
On second thoughts, perhaps we were fortunate not to have that type of attention.