Season's Greetings

This week I wrote about the cyclicality of the seasons. I’d like you to read my piece while keeping in mind the precarity of joy.

I was reading a piece by Roxanne Gay this week, titled “Reality is Horror Enough.” She ends the piece reminding us that, “one pandemic is ending while a long-standing pandemic rages on.” Police brutality hasn’t stopped and won’t stop unless we call it out. Duante Wright, Ma’Khia Bryant, George Floyd matter. Black lives matter. 

This week I wrote about the cyclicality of the seasons. I’d like you to read my piece while keeping in mind the precarity of joy. I’d also like to share a poem by Tracy K. Smith called “Declaration,” which I first discovered this past fall and still find painfully relevant.

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It was cherry blossom season, so naturally we went looking for cherry blossoms. 

We went down the street then left then right then past the highway through the tunnel past the school and the limousine to see cherry blossoms on Wooster Square. If flowers could be snow, cherry blossoms would be my pick. We pointed our heads to the sky and found a constellation of flowers, pink and white. On the ground, fallen petals looked like translucent stickers. If we were a week late, the trees would’ve been bare again.

But we can rest assured that no one is missing the cherry blossom season. Cars are parked all along the Square in a never ending stream. From those cars emerge children, parents and grandparents. The first thing they do is look up at the flowers, and their eyes sparkle something gleeful. Cherry blossom season will do that to a person. 

Inside the square, a girl holds a golden balloon that says 15. She wears a flowing pink, golden dress while her family snaps pictures. We take our own panoramas when no one is looking. A mother tells her kids to stand still. She sounds tired of capturing memories. A father lugs a stroller from his car. A boy and a girl crouch close to the ground, trying to get a picture of their dog amongst the blossoms. The dog, their own portable blossom. 

Conveniently, Pepe’s and Sally’s are nearby. Inconveniently, everyone knows it. The line is long, and we don’t want to wait. Cherry blossom season is for looking at cherry blossoms. Turns out, Zinelli’s pizza is just as good.

Sitting on the park bench, I stare at the concrete and eat my pizza, which tastes like cherry blossoms. My own eyes sparkle something gleeful. Cherry blossom season is magical in every which way. And everything magical disappears quickly. I save my pizza thinking it’ll taste just as good later. 

We pull two flowers from a tree and save it in your pocket. I want to press the flower inside a book so that it dries into a memory. But by the time we return home, the blossoms are buried under questions of dinnertime and an evening of work. The flowers lie unpreserved in the dearth of your pocket. A week passes and I write about cherry blossom season, feeling assured that the blossoms will reappear next spring. 

I tell others that I want to stay here till summer. By summertime, the trees will turn to green and I will no longer mourn the flowers that fell in springtime. The air will be heavy with mosquitos and moisture and new discomforts. I imagine then that the cars will line up along the ocean with children, parents and grandparents. The cameras will be waiting, buzzing in pockets and eager hands. The waves will sparkle of sunlight so idyllic, we’ll forget that we were here last year.