Miharu, I Miss You!

    One of my absolute favorite places to see the cherry blossoms isn't even in my prefecture. It isn't in a prefecture where I have every lived, either! It's the 1000 year old cherry blossom tree named Miharu which lives in Fukushima prefecture.

    I had been living in Tohoku for quite a few years when I heard about this tree in a round-up of the oldest sakura trees in Japan on a Japanese TV show some time before 2020. I told my husband we simply had to go and he agreed.

    I've never met celebrities at anime conventions or anything like that before, so I can't say I know what that is like, but that is what it felt like when we waded through the crowd that had lined up to see the beauty in its glory. The process of getting close enough to take pictures with it, to see the tiny shrine box at its base, to witness it up close and personal, left my mind in a whirl of star struck nonsense as I walked away, making room for the next visitors to have their moment with a tree that was a sapling when the capital was still in Kyoto.

    
The gorgeous tree back in 2017ish

    My fascination with this tree isn't just in its age, which on its own is incredible, but also the impressive size and wild shape. In a country where so much is made to fit in and hammered down until it looks identical to the rest, this tree was allowed to grow as it would, and take a massive shape that defies the normal construction. This tree would never be flat planks of something simpler, but instead sprawls as it pleases into any open space. It goes high and low, filling the area with its presence and the knowledge that spring is here.

So many poles supporting so many limbs. This tree is free and loved and supported.

    Another takeaway I had from our first visit with this marvelous historical tree was how the people who take care of the tree kept it safe and growing as it wanted to. The heavy limbs weren't cut away or bound up. On the contrary, they were gifted mighty supports, almost like crutches, angling the appendages further upward so the tree could continue to reach into the sky in every direction it wishes, defying gravity and understood Japanese social norms in the process. This tree is allowed to be whatever mighty shape it has chosen to take, and the love and support shown to keep its thousand years running forward is astounding to me.

    People in Japan are rarely afforded the same kind of love or support. We aren't a thousand years old or as likely to be deified at any point, but we all need to take the time to surround ourselves with the right kind of support so that we can continue to flourish in our own ways. If you don't have a team that would help prop up an appendage to keep you growing emotionally, you should probably build one. It might not let you live to the age of 1000, but you're a lot more likely to enjoy the years you do get.