A Walk Among the Sakura in Tokyo

--Susan, every other Sunday

For a little over a week, the sakura (cherry blossoms) have been blooming here in Tokyo. Although large hanami (flower viewing) parties are still frowned on--mainly from a desire to avoid congestion in public spaces--fortunately, it isn't necessary to sacrifice elbow room to enjoy the flowers.

In fact, many of Japan's residential streets are lined with ornamental cherry trees, all of which have been putting on quite a show.

Sakura in bloom on the street in Meguro's Himonya ward

While the parks are lovely this time of year, I've never been much for crowds, and I'd already started wandering among the blossoms in my neighborhood even before the pandemic hit. 

One block from home...

After all...why rub elbows with a hundred strangers when you can have an entire street full of cherry trees all to yourself?

Beneath the blossoms

Regardless of the setting, I love to stand beneath the blooming trees and look up through the branches. Sakura don't have much smell (most of the time, it's far too faint to notice when you're looking at the trees) but they're beautiful to look at and they flutter in even the slightest breeze. 

This year, we're allowed to dawdle beneath the trees again--the caution tape many neighborhoods put up last year to prevent hanami parties has been removed, a welcome sign that we're easing back toward normal here in Tokyo.

The usual; "sakura flavored everything" is back in stores as well, including a new sakura Frappuccino at Starbucks--which I barely managed to taste before it was sold out absolutely everywhere. (I'm not surprised--a lot of sakura flavored treats taste more like soap than flowers, but Starbucks has it dialed in, and the Frappuccino was delicious.)

The flowers only last for a couple of days before the petals begin to fall. Even the slightest breeze sends them swirling to the ground by the thousands, in falls that look like delicate pink snow.

Pink petal "snow" on the sidewalks yesterday

Japanese people value sakura in part because they bloom and die so quickly. They represent the impermanence of beauty--and of life itself. Appreciating the blossoms is also learning to appreciate a fleeting, beautiful moment in time that never will come again. The blossoms will bloom again next year, of course, but while that moment may look the same, everything about it--including you, as you look up through the branches, will be different in that moment than it is this year.

Life has offered us many opportunities to stop and reflect in the past two years. It's offered many moments some of us probably absolutely wish will never come again. But every time the sakura bloom, they remind me to stop and look around and appreciate these fleeing moments--to enjoy the good, and learn from (or at least survive) the bad, because good or bad, they will not come again.

Each season, each day, as unique and precious as the delicate blossoms on the trees outside my door.

Wishing you a blessed, happy, and healthy spring.