Every spring in mid-April, our cherry tree erupts into a pinkish-magenta lattice-work of flowers that covers our front yard with a beautiful, fleeting, serenity and lusciousness.  It is a welcome to spring that brightens our street and blows dust off the cobwebs of winter in my soul.

Each April, I reflect on the first time I viewed that tree.  I biked over to Rick’s house, early in our dating.  As I turned off of 13th onto his street and approached his house I remember seeing this tree and the beautiful, warm terra-cotta look of the house.  Immediately, this guy who I met at a race wearing an old hoodie and smoking a cigarette appeared to be very different from what I’d assumed him to be.  His beautiful old house with the flowering Cherry tree told me something else about Rick – about his care, his conscientiousness, and about who he is deep down – someone who buys a house in his twenties and in his thirties is debt free.  “This guy is no slouch”, I recall thinking.  His home gave me the sense of his eye for design, his diligence and care for the things that are his, and for the things he wanted to have in his life – me, I’d hoped.

Each spring when the cherry tree erupts into bloom I remember falling slowly and steadily in love with Rick, winding the road that took us across continents and oceans and eventually right back to where we started. And I smile now to see our two little boys and sweet dog  playing beneath the tree.