Ahhh . . . . Cherry blossoms!

I did actually take this photo myself just this morning.

     What is it about cherry blossoms that makes them so special?  Individually they're not the showiest of flowers.  They have no scent or fragrance that I can discern.  They're hard to arrange because they drop their petals so quickly, and they don't work on their own very well; they require some other flowers as a focal point. Some grow directly out of the tree trunk  -- now those are really hard to arrange!

Right out of the trunk

"In the cherry blossom’s shade 

there's no such thing
as a stranger.”
                            ― Kobayashi Issa

        I have a theory that I honestly cooked up myself just this morning as I was out taking countless photos of cherry blossoms right here in Ogawa Town (before they blew away in the strong wind that's rattling the windows this evening).  I theorize that cherry blossoms are like Japanese people.  Individually, they're very attractive -- crisp, clean, straightforward and uniform.  Each one is a little gem and most of them look alike.  (Let me hasten to say that I don't think all Asians look alike, far from it!  However, many Western folks can't tell one type of Asian person from another -- Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Korean, Vietnamese -- they find it hard to distinguish one from another.  But then, lots of Japanese folks think we foreigners all look kind of alike, which I find utterly amazing.)  

      Anyway, I digress.  What I wanted to say was that, in my opinion, cherry blossoms, like the Japanese themselves, are quite lovely when observed individually, but they're really magnificent when viewed collectively.  Look at the economic miracles the Japanese pulled off by uniting as one after the war left them devastated.  Look at the marvelously smooth operations of a Japanese factory or assembly plant.  Nobody cooperates or synchronizes quite like the Japanese.  All for one, one for all, etc. 

Each of those little dots is a person!

      However, collective action may have been taken to an extreme when the Imperial Household Agency decided this year for the first time to allow the public to do cherry blossom viewing along a small street that runs from one side of the Imperial Palace Grounds to the other.  Only 750 meters in all, and not even completely lined with cherry trees.  So guess how many people decided to go and walk that little street yesterday?  Over 91,000!  How's that for acting collectively?  I'm guessing it wasn't just the cherry blossoms that drew a crowd like that. . . .

     So back to cherry blossoms.  Why are they so glorious?  Part of it is that the pink flowers stand in sharp contrast to the blackish trunks of the trees.  Part of it is that they look like pink fluffy clouds because the leaves don't appear until the blossoms are almost gone.  So there's nothing to dilute that cotton-candy effect.  Then there's the wide variety of species -- over 600, I've read -- from the famous ones that Americans and Canadians have been given by the Japanese government to the weeping cherry trees that look like umbrellas.  (If I ever dwell in a home with a yard, that's the first thing I'm going to plant.)  

I wish I had seen this tree, but, sadly, it isn't in Ogawa-machi!

       

         Besides their intrinsic beauty, there's a lot of symbolic meaning bound up in cherry blossoms for the Japanese .  The school year and new-hire working year both start on April 1st, hopefully timed so the blossoms acknowledge those momentous new beginnings. 

      Historically, the fleeting presence of these fragile flowers has been equated to the short, precarious nature of life itself.  If you were a samurai back in the day, life could well be very fleeting and short. Cherry blossom petals fall like samurai in battle, or so the sentiment went.  Easy come, easy go.  

If I were ever going to have a tattoo . . . .

      And before I go, I just had to share these two cherry-bossom-themed photos with you -- both blatantly "borrowed" from Google Images.  Sorry!  Life is so fleeting, you know, it's hard to find time to attribute photos properly -- but I am going to try hereafter!

. . . or have a proper wedding. . . .