Season for Cherry Blossoms and Life

The seasons are shifting again. Here, daffodils and plum blossoms signal spring’s arrival, while in Japan, the cherry blossoms are beginning to bloom — ephemeral and breathtaking as ever. My friends back home have been sending me updates, telling me the first buds have opened, a sure sign that hanami season is near. Every year around this time, I feel a pull toward home, a longing to walk under those pink canopies, to experience hanami with old friends, to feel time slow down as petals drift through the air.

Spring has always been a season of transition, and this year, that truth feels especially present. As I shared last week, I am at crossroads in my work life. I stand in that uncertain space where the past no longer fits, but the future hasn’t quite taken shape. It’s both exhilarating and unsettling.

Lately, I’ve also been thinking about the fragility of it all. A few friends are battling cancer right now, and their journeys remind me how precious and unpredictable life is. It makes me profoundly grateful — for my own health, for my husband’s, for the simple gift of waking up each morning with a body that allows me to move, learn, and create. But gratitude doesn’t erase the questions: What comes next? Where do we go from here?

Perhaps the cherry blossoms hold the answer. They bloom so briefly, yet they return year after year, reminding us that even in uncertainty, beauty persists. That transitions, no matter how undefined, are part of the cycle. That we are not meant to have all the answers at once.

So for now, I’ll sit with the questions. I’ll trust that clarity will come in its own time, just as the blossoms do.