Cherry Blossom (Sakura) Festival

 ("Sidare Sakura" by artist Shu Kubo who lead several workshops around Nashville in March)

If a there is a child who feels passionately drawn to something, it is a wise and lucky parent who will grab onto that child's coat tails and go along for the ride. My older girls have an insatiable appetite for delving into other cultures. One that they are especially interested in is Japanese culture. For the past 7 or 8 years, I have shadowed them as they explored origami and martial arts, anime and manga, Basho and Kawabata, calligraphy and kanji, sushi and soba noodles, tabi socks and tatami slippers, j-pop and street fashion, samishen and sanshin, haiku and harajuku, tea and bento...you get the picture. Every bit of it has been wonderful and has made our lives more rich, as often happens when one just lets go and follows a child's lead.

(a few of the 1,000 paper cranes made by Naya and Sodie that hang from my living room ceiling)


 So when members of our fair city and the Japan-America Society of Tennessee created the Nashville Cherry Blossom Festival Committee with a mission to plant 1,000 cherry trees in Nashville over the next 10 years as well as host an annual Cherry Blossom Festival....well, we had to get in on it.

What a lovely day...what a lovely ride...I hope to keep hold of their coat tails and learn from their discoveries and explorations for all my days.