[By Tina Koyama in Seattle] I always know spring is in the air when I can’t take a walk
without stopping several times to sneeze. It’s a small price to pay, though, to
see fresh buds giving trees a haze of pale yellow-green and to smell flowers
just beginning to open. And now, in Seattle, pink trees are everywhere, and I’m
chasing them as fast as I can.
This time last year, the pandemic was fresh, the enormity
difficult to grasp, nearly unfathomable. At the height of my anxiety, I found
solace in trees continuing to blossom, the birds going about their mating
business as if nothing were amiss – as if the whole world hadn’t changed
overnight.
A year later, the vaccine has changed everything again, but
this time toward hope instead of horror. And the trees and birds still carry on
as they always do. I still find solace in that.
