A petal gently nudges my face as I sit in a hammock threaded of blue, yellow, red, and green. As I stretch out in the shade of a juniper tree, I can smell the faintest hint of pink cherry blossoms from a tree in our neighbor’s yard. A breeze whips past me, shaking the tree with a dull whoosh as the petals fall over the fence and sprinkle across a planter carpeted with weeds. Against the green, they seem insignificant, a mere dusting of flour. I pick one up, feeling the velvety texture of the petals, the faint dusting of yellow pollen, the translucent web of veins running across the surface.
Last April, I was in Japan, running my hands through waters covered with fallen cherry blossoms next to the red temples and stone walls of Tokyo’s Imperial Palace, after bumping into thousands of people strolling through pathways of cherry blossom trees illuminated with scarlet and goldenrod. They shared trays of takoyaki and matcha ice cream, laughing and hugging their way across the park. This year, the only remnants of cherry blossoms in my life are this tree, a computer full of static photographs, and a few memories from my trip last year. When I walk outside, I see a neighbor lead his dog into the empty street in an effort to avoid my path on the sidewalk.
I begin to wonder where we will be—in a few weeks, in a few months, in a year. The world has shifted profoundly since COVID-19 appeared. Parties have converted to tea parties held in Animal Crossing or wine parties held via Zoom. Medical visits have shifted to telemedicine via FaceTime and Skype. Movie theaters are closed; grocery stores have lines rivaling those for a Disneyland Park ride; restaurants are no longer places to socialize, but purely to get food. Vacation and travel plans are on hold for the indefinite future. I wonder: will I comfortably sit on a plane at any point in the next few years? When will be the next time I walk through a crowd without fear?
Furthermore, borders between people, and groups of people, are even more apparent. Borders between countries and even states are shut down. Trust (or tensions) built up over years are eroding and corroding, with an increasingly accusatory tone taken to shift blame. A family was stabbed in Texas for being Asian. In New York, there have been multiple incidents of harassment on subways, buses, and in Chinatown. What will the world look like, once the government-imposed borders are taken down, and the only ones left are the once people have internalized in response to what the media has hammered into our heads over, and over again?
But despite how our world seems to have come to a tense standstill, nature continues at its natural rhythm—the orange blossoms continue to turn into oranges; the dandelions continue to scatter across the wind; the cherry blossom petals continue to fall. I sit back in the hammock, and continue to feel the wind blow across my face, the same as it always has.
Sonia Wang is an MS1 at the Perelman School of Medicine. Sonia can be reached by email at [email protected].
