Zakura Chronicles
Reflections on cherry blossoms, impermanence, the pathos of things, the Dreamer of Subsistence, transcending finitude, Koyasan, the quintessential Japanese experience
Mimi,
You are a young and lovely Pacific Islander Plus — plus light and dark, and Asian. You are all the colors of the world. How did your orphan-name Mimi Z become Mimi Zakura?
Hi Skyler,
It occurred five years ago in Kyoto, Japan.
One lovely Spring day, I was invited to join the innkeeper for hanami, a cherry blossom viewing party. Late in the afternoon, Yamamoto-san, his wife, adult daughter and I set out for the picnic. Earlier, he had sent his teenage son to stake out a viewing area in the park, an exercise that can get quite competitive as people fight for the nicer spots.
We strolled along a winding walkway strewn with fallen petals of red, lilac and gray cherry trees lining both sides of the path in the popular park. In the spirit of the ancient tradition, we, like many others, were dressed up in kimonos. Mine was iridescent with the multi-hues of the sakura.
Arriving at our picnic sheet under a cherry tree, we slipped out of our wooden clogs and spread sushi bento, dumplings, snacks and lots of sake on the tarp. Around us, thousands of people were similarly enjoying the full bloom, celebrating a season which marks a time of renewal, and filling the air with the sounds of good-natured bantering, merry laughter, and toasts of “kanpai, kanpai”.
The place was a burgeoning riot of lavender, red and gray. Like beauty queens eager to parade for an audience, the trees were just as keen to display their magnificence, turning their chromatic petals away from the sky to face down toward us.
At nightfall, dozens of bulbs lit up the weeping cherry tree, the centerpiece of the park. Cherry blossoms atop the boughs exploded into luminous magenta clouds. The descendent lower limbs pitched like a lustrous fairy and her attendants reaching down for her mortal lover, dripping purple tears of forbidden love.
Nearby, a couple turned from the spectacular sight to gaze into each other’s eyes, caught up in a more permissible kind of love that was no less bewitching, where, doubtless, the cacophony was drowned out by the tempo of their romantic hearts.
Against the canopy of red, white and pink, the full moon played peekaboo through gossamer clouds in the indigo sky, as if she was flirting with a clandestine lover. As I sipped sake, gazing pensively up at her, I understood why aristocrats of olden days were inspired by the intoxicating splendor to write poems during such viewing banquets. It was a quintessential Japanese experience.
Once, a petal floated down into my dainty cup. How transitory was its beauty! In a couple of weeks, all these flowers would wither. “The pathos of things” impelled a wistful, bittersweet appreciation for the impermanence of worldly phenomena. But the ethereal sakura is more delightful, not less, precisely because it is fleeting. I scooped out the delicate petal. There and then, I became acutely aware of how equally ephemeral I was.
So I added sakura to the lonely Z. Hence, Mimi Zakura.
Hi Mimi,
That was beautiful. It reminded me of my own Buddhist-temple stay in Japan last year. Mt. Koya is surrounded by dense cedar forests, wrapping the rustic monastery in a cocoon of harmony and tranquility.
There were so many treats for the senses, like the artful arrangement of rocks and plants in the Zen garden, the trancelike morning services before breakfast, the scent of exotic incense — all lent the space a contemplative ambience. The vegetarian meals were as nutritious as they were appetizing.
I visited the Okunoin Temple, which, with more than 200,000 tombstones, is the largest cemetery in Japan. One of the tombstones was erected by a pest control company as a gesture of atonement for all the termites it has exterminated over the years! Its temple hall holds more than 10,000 lanterns, every single one of which is lit at night. The scene may not be quite as poetic as your lover moon gliding through gossamer clouds, but cue snowflakes dusting the grounds with a layer of shimmery white, and it might be nearly as magical.
I slept on a futon on a tatami floor in a room with a sliding door. It opened to a stunning view of distant emerald peaks peeking out of a mantle of clouds. Occasionally, I could glimpse the sea through the mercurial mists.
Budi, an Indonesian occupying a room in an adjacent wing, twice caught me meditating on my veranda in a yukata. He asked me how I could withstand the pricking winter wind clad in only a cotton robe. I told him it helps to be part Nordic 😊
What I did was, I practiced taming the monkey in my mind, merging the thinker and the thought into one, until the ‘self’ is no longer a private ‘I’. I let my frequency settles into its amplitude, like water seeking its own level. Sometimes, it shifts closer to the frequency of The Dreamer and aligns with the primal vibrations of cosmic dawn. One can’t transcend one’s finitude though, because if I dance too close and awaken The Dreamer, I, a subject of its dreams, would vanish in smoke.
I hiked the 7-hour pilgrimage trail from the bottom to the top of the mountain. Afterward, I savored the evening sipping on sake while soaking in an outdoor hot spring under the starry sky. The therapeutic minerals rejuvenated my aching muscles. I wished they had an onsen for the heart too.
I can’t do this anymore. I blocked his emails and his calls. I am falling for Sky all over again, even though I’ve never stopped cherishing him.
