Pale Pink Madness

I returned to Japan amidst a riot of sakura (cherry blossoms). They don’t last long, and I was afraid I had missed them. It seems that as fast as they bloom, they are falling off. Swirling eddies of pale pink petals wind their way down the street leaving drifts of delicately scented snow in the gutters and a pastel carpet on the warm spring earth as the wind dies down.

I have always preferred the symmetry of the Bradford Pear trees in the spring, with their sparkling white blossoms and even shape. Practically speaking, no maintenance – engineered to grow the perfect shape (no pruning), beautiful, white blossoms in the spring, but no fruit to pick up in the fall. I often thought I wanted Bradford Pear trees in my yard when I finally settle down. We had cherry trees in DC; many were gifted to the US by the Japanese. (I even saw them blooming when I stopped at the home office for a day on my way home.) I just never really looked at them, never truly appreciated them. Cherry trees are beautiful trees, oddly shaped, gnarled, with a totally random profusion of blooms. That huge tree that I climb in my backyard turned out to be a cherry tree. It is like sitting in a sweet, pink cloud. Every day that I live here, my perceptions are changing.

My other welcome home was a good old “wake me out of a sound sleep” earthquake. It reminds me of MO.

It’s good to be back. 🙂