Let’s Talk About Bubbles
I truly hope our Tourism Cares community of friends and members continues to be safe, strong and well. And dare I ask if you are enjoying this blog as much as I relish making monthly observations, giving them life, and sharing them with you.
Although this is only my third blog, I admit that I am developing a bit of a pattern. I love to think about the meaning of things - how and why they have come to be, the many shades of their meaning before and after, as well as the opposite forces of yin and yang. 2020 has been a unique challenge, the range of our lives dramatically reduced. It is easy for it to all blur together. In confronting this challenge, this is why reflections matter to me. So, as much as I want to break away from this pattern and be innovative in my blogging, I think I am going to stay on this path, at least until some clarity emerges.
My current fascination has to do with bubbles and how we do everything in bubbles: hang out with select friends, travel, and watch as even countries are creating exclusive travel bubbles. How did we get to this place? Will limiting ourselves affect who we become? Is there a turning back point or are we stuck with bubbles as we now know them to be? As with most things these days, there are a lot of questions and not many certain answers.
Our lives have always been full of bubbles - bubbles that opened us up, not closed us in. Let’s ensure that we never forget images of children blowing soap bubbles and the carefree feeling that comes with that vision, nor should we disassociate celebrations with sparkling bubbles of champagne. It was hard enough watching the World Series in a bubble with a practically empty stadium, but after the clinching win, there were no corks popping in the locker room.
Lest we forget the unmistakable flavor of a piece of pink bubble gum! That was a definitive part of my growing up as each pack of baseball cards came with a slice of that gum.
Today, bubbles are limiting. For how long? We are still figuring that out. I remember, right about the time I was collecting those very baseball cards in junior high, watching a movie called The Boy in the Plastic Bubble. It was about a boy named Tod (played by John Travolta) who was born with a compromised immune system that caused him to be restricted to his room where he spent his life growing up, the outside world only accessible if he wore space suit-like protective clothing (hmm, this is sounding somewhat familiar!). As Tod grows older, he yearns for a social life and ultimately falls in love with his next-door neighbor, a girl named Gina, and then has to decide between remaining isolated or finding a way to survive in the outside world.
In the end, Tod’s doctor informs him that he has built up sufficient immunity to make it possible for him to survive in the real world. So, there was a happy ending!
The lessons here are self-evident and hopefully, can provide us some hope. We need bubbles today as safe havens, to control this invisible virus that has us all following protocols to keep ourselves and others safe. But a time will come when we will get to burst the bubbles and re-enter a renewed world - a place where we once again associate them as effervescent, celebratory and tasty and savor them in joy and hopefulness.
~ Greg Takehara, CEO, Tourism Cares
