On the Subject of the Cherry Blossom Tree

Have I mentioned the cherry blossoms are blooming?

That first year we lived in Seattle, that first Spring, was the first time I think I truly looked at the cherry blossoms.  Outside the windows of our petit apartment arched the wizened trunk of an aged tree.  She bloomed cotton candy in May, raining down petals like a localized snow storm.  In July her leaves turned glossy and hid fat chickadees who sang to me while I brewed coffee in the morning.  In September she turned every shade of Autumn and I collected her fallen treasures, pressing them in back pages of my sketchbook.  In the thick of December she stood stately and silent as two inches of fresh powder balanced on every limb and twig and I wrapped myself in wool sweaters.

She was my very own giving tree.

When we moved South, back to California last year on the fourth of April, with hearts torn apart by a fresh diagnosis, the cherry blossom tree in our new back yard bloomed early and thick, my own promise from heaven.  And just this last weekend, as BC and I visited the slice of land bound for our future, I saw her.  Nearly covered with dense bamboo, shaded by the ancient redwood, and just West of the birch thicket stands the cherry blossom tree I will watch in the years to come.

I think they call that destiny.