Share a cherry blossom memory and win a $75 gift cert to Miku
Written by: Julie Ovenell-CarterToday, Vancouver launches its fourth annual Cherry Blossom Festival, a month-long excuse to call long-lost relatives in frigid eastern climes and boast about nature’s blessings here on the temperate West Coast.
I started paying close attention to the return of the cherry blossoms a full 10 years before there was a festival in their honour. In fact, I know the date exactly: March 10, 1995–the day my granny died.
Outside of Richmond General Hospital, there was a cherry tree, and on that particular morning the buds hung so fat and heavy it seemed they might drop off the branches before they ever managed to flower.
The life-force in that tree was palpable and I stopped under it for just a moment before I went in to see my once-formidable grandmother. The sky above was cloudless and blue, and I squinted hard against the unfamiliar sunshine.
I left the hospital a few hours later. Granny was gone. I walked to my car alone, in that muddy-headed state that precedes outright grief.
In the moment before I slid into the driver’s seat, I felt someone tap me on the shoulder, but when I turned to look there was no one there. And then I saw the cherry tree–suddenly, brazenly, unbelievably abloom against a sapphire sky.
Today, every time I see a cherry tree in bloom (and there are thousands to see around these parts) it’s as if Mother Nature is tipping her hat to another fiesty female–my grandmother, Christina Grescoe.
How about you? What are your special memories of or encounters with flowering cherry trees–in Vancouver, Japan, or anywhere at all for that matter?
Win a $75 gift certificate to Miku!
Share you story here and win a $75 gift certificate to downtown Vancouver’s elegant Miku Restaurant to sample their special Sakura-Zen tasting menu, specially created to celebrate the city’s blooming cherry trees.
The Sakura-Zen menu ($25/lunch; $30/dinner) features four Japanese tapas items and five Aburi sushi and will be served daily from March 28th to April 24th, in limited quantities.
I’ll do a random draw for the winner on Sunday, April 5 at 8 pm.
Murray Atherton
on March 28th, 2009I am assuming you mean you are making the draw on APRIL 5th, Julie.
I don’t have a moving story about a departed gramma like yours. WHO could match that one….however, every year I try to get to 22nd Avenue and Arbutus and drive west to McDonald….. Ten Blocks of those brilliant pink blossoms on both side of the street. TEN BLOCKS of SPRING! It is an awesome sight!
Julie Ovenell-Carter
on March 28th, 2009Thanks Murray–you’re right, I DID mean April 5! I know the stretch of 22nd you’re describing–my aunt and uncle used to live near there–and it is indeed a beautiful sight, like Nature’s bridal party or something…
Ambrose M
on March 28th, 2009That is a beautiful story about your grandma.
I met my best friend, Ed, sitting in a cherry tree in full blossom when I was 8 and he was 6 and his family moved in next door. His mother spotted me spying and walked over with Ed in her arms and acquainted us.
Ed proceeded to nearly kill me that very afternoon by convincing me that these poison black berries were, in fact, edible but that is another story.
Cherry blossom is so optimistic to me. A promise that things will get better because they have already done so by its very arrival.
So I felt inspired to attempt a poem:
Black the icy burn
Bony fingers of loneliness
Upon my heart
Yet brittle their grip
When effortless
Pink blossom framed on pure blue
The promise of season’s change
To love once more?
C
on March 29th, 2009sniff.
Warn me when you do this stuff, how many times do I have to ask??
You’re amazing, J.
Don Foran
on March 29th, 2009Arbutus house sold-
Heritage legacy home
No cherry blossoms….
chris
on March 30th, 2009I grew up in Edmonton, Alberta where we didn’t have cherry trees. Every year we would go visit my grandma and grandpa in new westminster, my memories of seeing there house was the big beautiful cherry blossoms I would see in thier yard in the front then going to the back there were more, they were absoloutely beautiful and filled up the yard. Everytime I see a cherry tree now it brings me back to my wonderful visits sitting in thier back yard drinking tea and listing to my grandpas war stories.
Julie Ovenell-Carter
on March 30th, 2009Ooooh….that’s a nice little haiku my friend…
Lorraine Grescoe
on March 30th, 2009I used to drive Mom (your Granny)around the areas in Vancouver when the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. Moving here in 1988 from Winnipeg, , Granny hadn’t experienced a springtime in Vancouver. She would say that she wasn’t afraid to die now and when I asked her why, she said “Heaven is supposed to be beautiful and I can’t believe anything could be more beautiful than this.”
Sandi T.
on April 1st, 2009I grew up in Steveston, and the one thing that always was the harbinger of spring was the multitudes of blossoming trees…all down Moncton Street from #1 Rd to the Judo/Kendo/Karate Hall. The corner of Chatham and 2nd Avenue at the bus loop; transit passengers with hair full of petals. All throughout Steveston village in people’s gardens they stood, providing much enjoyment to people and the many birds alike who were always the first to get the cherries! I remember thinking they were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and wondered if the sakura in Japan were as beautiful as these.
Just over a year ago, my husband, one of our good friends, and I took a trip to Japan, and arrived just in time to see Tokyo enshrouded in delicate pink blossoms..and the crazy sakura parties that envelop the country. Ueno Park was simply PACKED with people sitting under the trees, drinking, eating, and enjoying the beautiful display that nature had created. A week later, we journed to Kyoto to see them just burst into bloom, drifiting lazily upon the breeze when they began to wane.
My old friend Hideki joined us one day while admiring the blooming trees down the riverbank, and told us an old story that a sakura blooms where someone has fallen (passed away), and that samurai used to say their life was much the same as the sakura (fragile, fleeting, and over much too soon).
While looking through photographs from that trip, memory lingers, as does the fragrance of pressed sakura petals I saved in my passport.
I still don’t know which was more beautiful-here or Japan, but the blossoms themselves never fail to delight me.
Andrew Celdric
on April 2nd, 2009In 1972, as a young boy just arriving from England, I was struck by the sheer impudence of the cherry blossoms on the street in front of our our rented suite in Kerrisdale. I remember thinking that the trees in England would never have had the guts to just explode in such an unkempt, riotous fashion.
I grew up in that neighbourhood, so I saw this happen every year, but have never quite gotten over my wonder at this annual brazen display of floral fecundity.
Michele Peterson
on April 3rd, 2009A haiku by my sister who has always wanted to see the cherry blossoms:
From a flurry of petals
blowing like snow to the ground
springs wonder
Mary Moltman
on April 4th, 2009Cherry blossoms in Vancouver – such a wonderful sight and lovely time of year. I’m always happy to trade in my skis for my bicycle and the arrival of the “snow” in the form of cherry blossoms is the signal for me. Out comes the bicycle, away go the skis, and it’s time again to enjoy spring in Vancouver.
As a person who grew up here, you’d think I’d get used to the beauty of the delicate petals that appear with such abundance. I’m happy to say that I don’t, and the Burrard Street Skytrain station is one of my favorite places in the heart of the city to watch a spring snowstorm!
Monica C.
on April 5th, 2009Cherry blossoms, to me, are a joyful sign of the freshness and beauty of new beginnings. For this reason, my husband and I chose this time of year to be married. Our wedding day, April 1, 2006, was classic Vancouver springtime; grey, drizzly and yet delightful with the softness of the blooming blossoms. The fragility and fleeting nature of the blossoms remind me each year not to take anything for granted, especially those who matter most to us.