David’s Cherry Tree

 

4/16/23 Maple Leaf neighborhood

This cherry tree belongs to David across the street. The first pandemic spring, I didn’t get out to see the cherries at the UW Quad, so I had sketched it with wistful longing for all the blossoms I would miss that year. Other years I have taken it for granted because I was too busy peeping petals all over town. A year ago, it was a convenient tree to sketch on a rainy day.

And so it was again this year. It was late to bloom -- more than three weeks later than its peak in previous years, according to my sketch dates -- just like all the other cherries in town. I went upstairs to sketch it through a bedroom window on a wet, gray morning.