This is one of the keystone seasons in the Northwest. Late February/Early March.  There's no true spring here in the sense of the sun arising from its winter slumber.  The snooze button is hit in the Pac NW until about the 2nd week of July, which is the workday equivalent of 10:30 - after which, the sun looks at the clock, curses, then throws back the covers and runs in circles around the sky looking for his pants and keys.  No, February/March is the period of dreams - dreams of a true spring, realities of planting to be done in the cold rain.  The plum is a metaphorical signpost and candle in the darkness of this season; like Clarence the angel on the bridge in What a Wonderful Life. The hump tree so to speak.  We're going to see sun again, feel its warmth on our skin.  Not today, but look at these magenta blooms!  A friend mentioned recently that in Japan, plums bloom when there's still snow on the ground. Positively Kurosawan.

The plums are so delicate and pretty, they're often mistaken for cherry trees.  That is, until the cherries bloom. This usually happens just as the plum blooms are starting to fade from the asphalt. I remember mistaking the two for the first 4 or 5 years here - but once the blooms come out, it's obvious.  The plum flower is delicate and distinct, like the brush of a sumi-e artist.  You can stare at one flower and marvel at the tree full of their individual blooms. The trees at a distance look like neon cornmeal. In Ballard last Sunday, I witness plum blossoms blown by the wind, acting as a gritty pink makeshift ground border for a muddy construction site.  Last week, I walked down from my bus stop in Shoreline just down from the Crest theatre, pulling my jacket collar up around my neck to block the wind and let my eyes drift across the shock of pink just above my head, the red-tinged branches acting as a shadowy contrast.

Cherries on the other hand, are an extra tab of acid.  If plums are the master painters, cherries are crayon prodigies. The blooms expand behind, around each other to become completely incomprehensible as clouds are to the pollen gatherer. The individual branches become balloon sticks, cotton candy swabs. The blooms force me into stillness, into a cognitive dissonance of depth perception - between the clouds below and the clouds above.  I remember standing under a cherry tree on a midnight walk through Ballard years ago.  L shook the branches, thinking the petals would float down onto my head.  Instead, it poured leftover rain from the clingy petals.  That's spring in Seattle.