Same View. Different Seasons.

This is my beloved cherry tree—the bottom picture taken this afternoon. Since Matt and I bought our first house, we have had a cherry or weeping cherry tree in our yard. Technically, we had a weeping willow at one of the many houses we’ve bought and sold, but I’m going to count it because it was beautiful with its languishing branches.

I prefer the cherry in full bloom, bright pink flowers decorating the outside view from our meditation room. Last year I developed a color blend of fountain pen ink that looks like a cherry blossom. I’m smitten. And I want those blooms back. Creating a color blend for “snow gray” doesn’t spark my creative muse.

My journal holds a record of when I first spot color on the tree each winter (thankfully it doesn’t wait until spring to rise from the underworld). February 7 is the earliest date I’ve noticed, exactly three weeks from today. The latest is towards the end of February, but I don’t want to wait that long this year.

Some part of me wants to make a philosophical analogy about our inner selves looking like this tree at different times and seasons in our lives. But the part of me that has been working non-stop since Christmas doing CPA stuff says, “Stop writing. Take a nap. Watch TV. Your brain is tired.”
​
Like the cherry tree, I’ll be back in February…when my workload is more normal.