On Cherry Petal Snow and the Final Cat
Published by Andrew Leigh April 24th, 2007 in Musings & Rants.We’re lucky enough to have a large flowering cherry close by which is currently in full bloom. What I love even more than the cherry blossom is the cherry petal snow.
I love the way it floats down silent and gentle when it’s still, or the way it blizzards when there’s a wind. When the weather is dry it collects in soft pink drifts, and when it’s damp as it is now, it sticks to the floor, redefining grey footpaths and peppering the grass.
It’s beautiful and maybe a little sad too - because after all, this snow is made up of petals falling from their flowers. It’s a glorious finale that somehow emphasises the temporary nature of the event - and of the passing of time and getting older.
I was talking with Lynda a few days back. She was saying how, when the time comes she’d love our next cat to be a proper ginger marmalade one. And it struck me that our next cat would probably also be our last cat. That’s because we’re now in our fifties and the cats we have, Lea and Max (aka Fang and Space Cadet) have a few good years left in them. It’s quite a shock, realising that you probably have only one cat left. Makes you enjoy the cherry petal snow all the more.
We used to have a neighbour, Greta, who hated cats and petals. Greta couldn’t enjoy the vibrant green of new-born spring leaves because to her, they always held the promise of autumn untidiness on her lawn six months later. It wasn’t even a good lawn - but she genuinely hated it being spoiled with leaves or petals.
Greta’s next door neighbour, Karen, had a stunning white rose bush planted next to the fence between their gardens. I’ve never seen a rose bush more laden with flower, more joyful in its abundance. Over the years it gradually grew over the fence and gave more of its blossoms to Greta than it did to Karen. That bush was a gift to everyone who saw it - or almost.
Poor Greta could never appreciate those rose blooms because its big white petals, decorating her lawn like giant summer snowflakes, were never more than a constant antagonism - so much litter to be swept up and thrown away. And then, one summer when the rose was in its fullest flower and Greta, I guess, was driven to distraction by the beautiful mess it had made, she persuaded her husband to lean over the fence and chop the bush back as far as he could reach.
One moment drifts of rose scented white, the next a few broken sticks and leaves. I thought it would come back strong as ever but it never did regain its former power.
Poor rose bush - and poor, poor Greta.
Is there a moral to this tale? Well, certainly seek out any of your own Greta-like tendencies and ask yourself, ‘how is this serving me?’
Find the beauty that you are missing because it’s under your nose. And make sure you grab, enjoy and are fully aware of your own personal versions of the cherry petal snow.
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It seems that all things of real beauty have the power to make us smile with joy or weep with sadness, sometimes at one and the same time. I had a cherry blossom moment myself out on my run yesterday. Running past the entrance to Rowntree Park in York the snow petals were a magic carpet of pink and enticed me inside. Pure joy, as I was through the first 30 minutes of my run and utterly in the moment. The petals were the gateway to the wonders of still waters, cackling playful geese, a rose trellis waiting for its blooms and a tree carving that almost certainly had not been authorised by the city council and nearly had me stopping in my running tracks for its sheer bold audacity. Even in this most joyful of magic carpet rides, I agree, Andy, that there was an underlying sadness. Why don’t I see the blossom in this way all the time? How many opportunities have I missed to take a detour on a promise of nothing more than wonderment of what’s inside? Where are the petals that I have missed forever now?
It’s life, Andy, as we should always know it.