The End of the Pink Season

The last of the double-blossomed Japanese Cherry trees are dropping their petals, and blankets of the pink snow are covering the lawns, drifts piling on the edges of trails and roads. We have passed through the gateway to Spring.

This Day

This is a day when, sitting on a driftwood log on the beach, heels dug in the rocks or crouched in the garden clearing away the winter weeds, the sun warms your back and the heat sinks deep into your bones. The body responds… a sensuous relaxation, a gratitude and quiet happiness.

Gold is coming back to the sun… no longer that sheer, winter white. Even its color is warming. And what, only two weeks ago, was a fragile lace of green in the trees is now growing lush and luscious. Still fresh and clean… not the worn, dusty olive of August.

These waxing days, like a cat uncurling on a porch banister, are slowly, languidly stretching longer. Cold, dark memories of December continue to dwindle, retreating from the light.

The Pink Season

There is a fleeting season in Seattle, a brief time when all of the many Japanese cherry trees are in bloom… the pink season. It might be the profound Asian influence on Seattle, due to its Pacific Rim location and long history of Japanese immigration. Or, it could be just that these lovely trees thrive in the Northwest and provide one of the first glimpses of the coming season. For whatever reason, Seattlites though the years have planted and tended thousands of these stunning arbors.

The blooms last only 2-3 weeks, depending on the weather. Some blossom later than others (like the double-blossomed type), stretching the spectacle to about six weeks. Their impact on the early spring season is profound. When the trees are in bloom, one can find stretches of boulevards lined with big pink puff balls. When the petals fall, it is a blizzard of soft, pink snow that drift against the curbs and tree trunks and bunches of blooming daffodils. The leaves are bronze-green, lending a warm, rich tone into summer and fall.

Some folks are not impressed with the city’s fondness for these trees. Maybe these ornamentals are not modern enough, or pink is not chic. Admittedly, these are pretty trees, not dramatic in branching habit, or exotic in leaf shape or color. They have been in the landscape for ages, so are not on the cutting edge of landscape design fashion.
They are old-fashioned like the snowball bush, lilac and forsythia. In that way they are comforting like chicken pot pies and laundry lines filled with blowing linens held in place by wooden pins. And, they mark the coming of a welcomed season when the returning sun warms faces, loosens the soil, rouses flowers and birds, and lingers later every day.

The Mountain has Left the Building

What a difference a day (or two) makes.
What a difference the weather makes.

It is astounding how a change in weather here transforms our world. Sunday was a palatte of oversaturated colors in sharp focus and infinite. Today everything is soft and grey and insulated.

When it snows in Seattle

Snow in Seattle, and most of the lowlands of Cascadia, is rare. We get approximately 3 non-consecutive days of snow a year. Usually it snows at night with the first bit melting, and a layer of snow covering a film of ice. By evening time the next day, the weather has warmed and the snow has melted. The marine air and proximity to such large bodies of water keep the temperatures temperate here.

As a result, when it does snow it is an event. It is a meteorological event, a community event, a news event, a personal event. Seattle pretty much shuts down in the snow. Part of it is because snow is so rare. We are unprepared, as a city and as individuals. Why invest heavily in snow equipment when it's such a small part of our lives? We never really learn how to drive in it in the city, as we get no practice. There is also the progression of a snow event itself, with the melting and refreezing comes ice. Then there is the geographical reason. We live on a city of hills. Trying to get to work becomes a carnival bumper car ride with less control.

(Above: Looking Southeast from Madrona Park across Lake Washington to Mt. Rainier)

So, we have a tendency to just give in to the weather at these times. It is self-serving as well because we become kids in the snow. Go for a walk and everyone is smiling. Seattle is so pretty in the snow, and it's a holiday. Everyone is walking or riding the bus, happily jostling to let just one more person on as, "we are all in it together." We use it as an excuse for cooking big, comfort-food meals and making hot, spiced cider and wine or walking to a neighborhood pub to share stories with neighbors.

Visitors be forewarned, the city shuts down in random fashion. Stores and museums may be closed. Buses may take alternate routes. Driving can be treacherous. And with the microclimates and convergence zones here, one neighborhood may have only a trace of snow, while the next on over may have 6". My recommendation is go with the flow and live in the moment. Soak in the childlikeness of the city on days like this.

(Above: Looking North along the shore of Madrona Park)

The city parks are the place to be. Seattlites gather in city parks and make communities of snowmen, let their kids and dogs race around, and take pictures.

Evergreen

The recent storms in Seattle have stripped fall from the trees. What bright yellow and red leaves there were left now lay in soggy piles over storm drains, blocking the rain water which "piles up" in turn, creating small lakes along the side of and into the roads. The loss of the color makes the days feel even more dreary.

What I tend to forget is how much color -- green -- is left. The majority of trees in Cascadia are evergreen. No matter the time of year, the landscape never looks stripped. It is dark color, but color all the same. When I appreciate this most is when I am seperated from it... when I am in an alternate winter landscape of bare deciduous trees, lacy forests of brown-grey branches holding up the monochrome sky.

Even the undergrowth stays green in the Northwest, with the sword ferns and rhodedenderons and moss. It is more spare, but it is not bleak. And rarely is there snow in the lowlands. This time of year we bring it inside as well... cedar and fir bows, swags of holly, laurel, and pine. We are surrounded by green, that lovely, dark, winter green.