Fleeting

[By Tina Koyama in Seattle, USA]  Last week Urban Sketchers Seattle met at the University of Washington, where most of us
spent the cold, wet morning sketching indoors. By noon, though, the rain had
stopped long enough to take my sketchbook out to the Quad. Celebrated for its
many 80-year-old Yoshino cherry trees that stand beside the walkways, the Quad
was filled with hundreds of people milling about, delighting in the pale pink blossoms. Stomping
through puddles, posing for portraits with cameras on the ends of selfie
sticks, this was our version of hanami (“flower viewing”), the
Japanese tradition of celebrating the onset of spring.

3/13/16 University of Washington campus

For the Japanese, the centuries-old practice of hanami is a social occasion, focused on
picnics and festivals under the blossoming trees. Since decorative cherries
bloom only for a week or two each spring, hanami
can also be seen as a metaphor for the fleeting quality of life: Celebrate beauty
now; who knows what tomorrow will bring?

3/17/16 Greenwood neighborhood

Here in Seattle where I live, cherry blossom season can be
tenuous as well as brief. This year we’ve had plenty of heavy rainstorms and
windstorms strong enough to take out the power in many communities. Timed
badly, those storms can also take down all the petals prematurely. Afraid that
this might happen, waiting impatiently for the weather to dry up, I was finally
able to get out a few days ago to a couple of my favorite streets in the
Greenwood and Sunset Hill neighborhoods where cherry trees are clustered. The
wide-reaching branches on these old, gnarly trees transform residential streets
into temporary fairylands. (Shown here are sketches from last week as well as
the past couple of years.)

3/24/14 Sunset Hill neighborhood

As a Japanese American, I’m not usually very Japanese, at
least philosophically. But each spring, sketching cherry blossoms makes me feel
the bittersweetness of their brevity – and that does make me feel Japanese.

3/18/16 Sunset Hill neighborhood

3/24/14