By late March, the buds start to open, revealing delicate pink and white petals. We hop in the van and drive toward Show Kinen Park, stopping on the way to pick up a conbini lunch of fried chicken, nigiri, and egg salad sandwiches. We walk familiar paths to a grassy field surrounded by trees heavy with blossoms–an ideal spot for hanami.

Hanami means “flower viewing” and is a Japanese custom that specifically refers to viewing sakura (cherry blossoms) in the spring. Our favorite way to engage in hanami is to enjoy a picnic lunch under the branches. The park is full of other flower gazers; some nap in the shade, others stroll by with kids and pups. There are notebooks open for writing poetry, sketchbooks for drawing, and eyes closed in quiet contemplation. Hanami offers an opportunity to delight in the beauty around us, to intentionally pause and soak it all in. It is also an opportunity to appreciate the fleeting nature of life: within two weeks, every single blossom will be gone.

After lunch, the kids run and laugh in the field with pink petals dusting their hair. This reminder offered by the sakura–of the transience of all things–confronts me every day in my children. With each new word spoken, skill learned, and change in clothing size, their babyhood is stripped away and left in the past tense. Sudden moments of grief pop up even as we celebrate the miracles and milestones of their growth.

---

This week as we officially welcome spring, I’m missing the cherry blossoms, those conbini lunches, meandering walks in the park, and springtime in Japan. I miss chubby cheeks, tiny toes, and little hands grasping mine. And even as I look forward to warmer weather, colorful blossoms, bees buzzing, and snow melting, I am holding these things in tension with saying goodbye to the beautiful memories winter gave us. I’m gazing in at the opening buds and wondering at the great vanishing act of this life, the bittersweetness of growing up and going forward.

---

Eventually, gusts of wind whisk cherry blossoms away in a beautiful flurry I like to call “sakura snow.” Yet even as they disappear, their beauty shines brightly against the backdrop of their brevity.

// From the IG archives, originally written in 2023. For more words about Spring and growth, check out A Blessing for the First Warm Days by Kim Knowle-Zeller, How do you pinpoint growth? by Erin Strybis, Losing my hair by Fay Gordon, and Five Stages of Midwest Grief When Exiting Fool’s Spring and Entering Second Winter by Jessica Folkema.

Looking for more words about books, motherhood, life as a geriatric millennial, and finding beauty in sacred/ordinary things? Subscribe to my newsletter, Late to the Party. Every couple of months, you’ll receive a short note from me, book recommendations, and a journal prompt.