I was just remembering back when I was 8 or 10, when blowing bubbles atop my neighbor's fence was the only thing that could make me happy. My friend Jean would sit beside me, our feet dangling some 4 feet above the ground, hands holding plastic cups filled with a concoction of water, ground gumamela blooms and Ajax, and dipping into it tubes cut from papaya leaves to serve as bubble blowers.

We would spend the entire afternoon blowing bubbles at the cars and people passing by. Her house was along the Canelar main road. During our first attempts, she would nudge me gently as if telling me to top her bubbles-per-blow record. Softly, or I might fall. I would try to blow as hard I could to produce more but all I could come up with was a big, wet goop. And not a single bubble.

How she laughed at me. Thinking about it, I can still feel myself turning red from embarrassment. She would keep telling me to blow moderately, not too softly, not too hard. We would practice holding our breaths before we climbed up the fence so I could learn to blow into the tube longer.

But I was asthmatic. The climb up made it more difficult for me to breathe. She always said I could do it because is she can, I definitely could, too. Jean was 4 years older than me. I believed her.

Soon, we were filling the streets with bubbles. Car drivers and passers by would stop a while to wave at us endearingly. (On the other hand, her mother and my grandmother would squeal in fright everytime they caught us dangling. But it was really not a problem.) We would do it again the next day even after we each got a good whipping for our adventures.

I miss her. It's been over 10 years since I last saw her. That time, she was the only one willing to play with me, because other kids wouldn't. She understood me. And she stood up for me and helped me believe that certain inadequacies in life can be surmounted if I desired it. I went back to Canelar last year but I never saw her again. They told me she married some guy and is happily living somewhere in the city with her kids. I wonder if she still thinks of me. Or if she even remembers me.

Because I do remember her, still. Her face is forever etched in my memory. But then she probably looks much different now. And changed; as majorly as I have.

I miss the time when it only took bubbles to bring a smile to my face. I miss that one friend who never introduced me to the concept of impossibility.

I wish I were 10 once more.