So many buildings around Paisley are grey, brown or some other tone that blends into a chronic urban sameness. But for two or three weeks in April, azaleas, rhododendrons and cherry trees defy the drabness, and wreck all this tonal monotony with outbreaks of vivid variety. In our own street a bright purple-blue azalea, half a dozen pink and several white cherry trees, and intermittent rhododendrons draw attention to themselves like fluorescent adolescents. The azalea was already in full bloom by Easter, but by now, all over Paisley and along the Glasgow Road, cherry trees are dripping with colour.
I suppose it’s the fragile transience, and the finely veined delicacy, and the sheer superabundance of petals, that give that sense of urgent beauty – show-off now, cos it’s a long time till next year, and you never know the weather in the West of Scotland – four seasons in 10 minutes. Either way, Cherry blossom (NOT shoe polish) is one of my personal religious symbols – and if you ask me what it means I’ll go all postmodern on you and say – it means whatever I feel, and what I feel has nothing to do with meaning and everything to do with joy and hope! Hopeful joy and joyful hope. I’m off for a run, in the sun, along a road where there is a whole extended family of cherry trees having a riot. That’s where I’ll have my first breather.
Isaiah knew a thing or two about hope – "the desert shall blossom", he said, and in a number of urban desert corners around the town, the cherry trees are doing their bit for hope!
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