My wife, to whom I’ve been married for six years, recently told me she chose May for our wedding because of the cherry blossoms: their life-giving shock of pink after a long New York winter, their fullness in bloom, their promise of lushness. If botanical transference were a thing, then some of those qualities would ultimately bless our union. I’ve been thinking about the cherry blossoms that flanked our wedding canopy, especially now, as they signify a seasonal improvement during a period in history where improvement is critical. With the cherry blossoms come warmth and longer days and anti-depressant blue in the skies.

And they come with their fruit, which, to me, is transporting.

Here’s an adulterous admission: living in New York City through COVID-19 has largely meant thinking about someplace else. New Yorkerness is supposed to be monogamous and here I am, cheating. How could I? As the grocery store workers in Yankees caps and Ewing jerseys stand like sentinels, bagging allotments of toilet paper and hand sanitizer. As restaurants have hustled to morph into food banks, and frontline workers have done their damnedest to protect the rest of us and have been rewarded, and sustained, with the New York City miracle of a steady, donated stream of world class pizza. How could I with the nightly 7pm cacophony of solidarity and gratitude?

But my longing for is Michigan, where I was born and raised. My wife, a New Yorker, seems to understand. Michigan is the place with which I still identify most. In New York the energy gets into your pores and helps define you. In Michigan, your skin is more simply your skin. I struggled with that quiet growing up and fought to get away from it. Youth is maximal. Mine demanded: More!

Now, it’s the quiet I dearly miss. I can hear New York telling me, with its steadiness, its staunch togetherness, man,just go.

Then I remember the cherries and feel but nothing but peace.

To think about Michigan this time of year is tied inextricably to this:

The first bag of the season being brought home by my mother.