Strolling Among the Sakuras

My alarm seemed to rip through the room when it started beeping at 4 AM. I felt like I had laid in bed with my eyes closed, cognizant of time passing, for most of the night. It didn't feel fair to be getting up already. But I rolled over, hit snooze "just once" before slipping out of the covers and out into the cold, dark morning.

We had turned off the heat in the house a few days ago to open the windows and appreciate the changing weather, but last night, it had dropped to 30 degrees and the house hovered at a chilly 58 inside. I quickly got dressed, put my hair in a neater ponytail, and drove to my mom's house. I arrived right at 5 AM, and my mom and grandmother were already waiting for me, the taillights of my grandmother's white Subaru Outback glowing from the top of the lane.

"I would just like to note that I'm right on time," I said, when I opened the driver's side door. I rarely ever made it on time to family functions, but for some reason, the pressure of a super early morning or a big adventure day got me where I needed to be by the time set. My mom held up her cell phone and showed Grandma.

"She's right. Look at that, right at five o'clock."

I had offered to drive since my grandmother didn't drive more than a couple miles at a time, and my mom verged on the line of a panic attack driving in big cities. While I didn't drive to and from Baltimore every day anymore, I could handle a missed turn in downtown D.C. better than anyone else in the car. My driving has significantly calmed since my commute has dropped to about two miles of city driving and ten minutes, at most, in the car. My husband has told me multiple times how proud he is of my "old lady driving" now - I am now the person who will pull to the side of the road if you approach me too fast or ride my tail for more than a couple of miles. And while the drive to D.C. is on major highways, with speeding cars weaving in and out of traffic at most opportunities, we made it down there and parked in an hour and 15 minutes.

We unloaded the wheelchair that had originally belonged to Pappy. It now stays permanently in the trunk for my grandmother, who can walk fine for short distances. But D.C., with its large monuments and buildings, is sprawled in deceivingly long stretches, and something that's "just right up there" could be more than half a mile. For someone in their prime, it's not a big deal. For someone like my grandmother, who is battling age and Parkinson's, it can feel like running a marathon with a broken ankle. So . . . the wheelchair.

The moon hung in an empty lavender sky above the Tidal Basin, the horizon edged by tan and blush. The pale cherry blossoms stood as white clouds reflecting off the calm water, with mallards and grebes floating gently along its current. Couples and families meandered along the concrete path and occasional runners veered through openings as if in a maze. We admired the trees, some gnarled with over 110 years of being rooted here, their branched full to bursting with opened blossoms. We smelled that sweet, earthy Sakura scent that hung in the humid morning and watched the sun slip above their tree lines.

As the sky lightened, the crowd around the Tidal Basin grew. Grandma wanted a bathroom amid the largest gathering of people. Where the sun peaked across the Basin in line with Martin Luther King, Jr.'s warm granite likeness, was a gathering of couples and families getting photos taken, professional photographers with camera stands, and families sitting along the concrete Basin wall sipping on coffee or mimosas. It felt appropriate that every new day dawns on Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington, D.C., where he stands at 1964 Independence Avenue. And I wondered to myself if anyone else noticed the significance of that, or if they were solely focused on the cherry blossoms.

When we arrived at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, still sheltered from the rising sun, the only thing my mom could talk about was how he cheated on his wife and a recent movie she saw about one of his illicit affairs. The bathrooms were closed, and we longed for the warmth of the sun, deciding to bypass lingering within the shaded stone walls of the memorial to continue walking in the warming morning light. By the time we reached the Jefferson Memorial, our time had felt too short, too rushed. She finally found an open bathroom, and afterward, we walked out to the steps of the memorial. I asked Grandma if she wanted to sit for a little and enjoy the scene for a bit longer, if she wanted to find another spot to be shaded by the blossoms for a moment.

"No," she said simply. "I'm hungry."

We tried to get her to walk into the Jefferson Memorial. She wasn't interested. We asked her if she enjoyed herself. She said yes, but she thought the blooms were going to be more pink. Also, the Tidal Basin was a lot bigger than she thought it would be. My mom asked me if there were less trees than normal. "I don't know," I responded. It had felt sparse, but maybe it was because I hadn't been in years. Did I think that all 2,000 cherry trees were still here? "I don't know."

As we walked back toward the parking garage, I felt a little sad. I felt sad I had to rush back to work, wishing I had been one of those people lounging with a warm coffee and a fresh pastry on a blanket along the water. That I had nowhere else to be today and could sit by the Tidal Basin underneath the cherry blossoms until the warmth of the afternoon faded. It had ended too soon, and I yearned to admire the beauty just a touch longer. I contemplated driving back down this afternoon, after work, and telling my husband it would be a spontaneous adventure. He'd look at me and say, "Are you crazy? You were just there earlier today." I'd laugh and tell him to loosen up. "And we're taking Chip!"

But, of course, that's not going to happen. Rain is in the forecast tomorrow and Thursday, along with heavy winds on Thursday. The reality is that the majority of the blooms will probably be gone by the weekend. And that's what makes the whole experience so special, right? That it's fleeting, temporary. That the brilliance of their beauty isn't permanent, and that pictures won't ever do the experience of standing under a canopy of blushing pink blossoms during sunrise justice. You won't always be able to smell fresh morning air and Sakura while wiping condensation from your face mask and your mascara off your eyelashes. You don't get to admire a gently rippling Tidal Basin with the reflection of the cherry trees being broken up by little families of ducks and diving birds every day. This experience won't last, and that's what makes every experience worth savoring after all. As we drove down the George Washington Parkway, past the early morning Georgetown rowing team and Teddy Roosevelt Island, I took one more mental picture. Who knows how long it'll last, but at least the feeling of today's memories is one of warmth and tenderness.