It's that time again when we're about to be showered with nature's pinkish splendor. She's bursting at the seams in colors out here in the Pacific Northwest, where the winter left a trail of mayhem and memories. Now comes the bubble-gum sugary waves of blossom bliss.
Insects and primates alike are immediately seduced by the angiosperm’s come-hither invitation. Loud musical signals wafted from the park, where citizens and visitors had gathered in groups to experience the aesthetic-erotic ambiance created by the blossom canopies. Traditionally, the idea is to bring a blanket, a few friends and family then have a picnic, as well as enjoy all the services scattered throughout the park grounds where the blossoms are concentrated.
The festival was well underway with music, food trucks, shopping stalls, information booths, and even an old vintage bus one could climb aboard and experience the far out vehicle designs of another era. People rushed around the trees taking selfies, contorting themselves in all manner of positions. On the park ground, festival goers had set up their picnic blankets then sat around eating, talking, and letting the quaalude waves of pheromonal flower biosynthesis pollinate their neural pathways (aka chilling out).
The festival is particularly popular with the Asian communities because of their cultural roots in countries such as Japan, where cherry blossoms are particularly abundant and celebrated.
So radiant and beautiful is nature in her spring, yet bound to lose her petals one by one. The beauty of tragedy. The briefest moment given to us to experience this magnificent and amazing universe, only to be plucked by the winds of change. Still we celebrate. In the impermanence of things, there is beauty, joy, passion- and perhaps they are beautiful precisely because they’re impermanent.
Are you sick of cherry blossoms yet? Here's one more for the road.
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