this world is like the
  cherry blossom that vanishes
  after only three days

It's the end of cherry blossom time. There is no better time of year here. We went down to see the blossoms on Sunday. Oscar enjoyed playing under the trees and watching the petals fall.

This secret worship of cherry blossoms is one of my favorite things about living in DC. This city stands for a type of power that is hard and agressive and seeks to control, prolong, and expand itself. The cherry blossoms are unpredictable, soft and fleeting. They bloom when they bloom and they are incredibly delicate and fragile. If you touch one, it disintegrates and floats to the ground in five pieces. After three days, as soon as the new green leaves appear, they all fall off at once in an almost snow-like cascade. If you take a few moments under the trees when this is happening, you can't help but be affected by the power of it.

I read somewhere that the Japanese experience a mood called "mujo" when the cherry blossoms bloom, and especially when the petals start falling from the trees. It's described as a sense of transience, beauty, melancholy/elation, lightness/heaviness, life/death--in short a connection to the rhythms of nature.