Events: Cherry Blossom Festival

Now I'm fortunate with my commute to school and work in that most often the quickest way from Southwest to the Cathedral area of DC involves driving around the Tidal Basin.

By foot, I'm only a 15 minute walk away...and that's what I decided to do today. I grabbed my phone (just in case, and it's not a smart phone...although I have issues with the implication of that term, but we'll talk about that next time), my camera, and my keys and headed out the door to check out the Cherry Blossom Festival.

I tweeted for

the first time from my phone, but I don't think it's going to become a habit, not yet anyway.

The cherry blossoms are supposed to hit peak bloom Friday and Saturday, but if today is any indication, I'm kinda glad I made time to go today because I'm sure it'll be much more crowded.

I kind of felt sorry for NPS, though, because despite clear signs and concrete barriers, not to mention a perfectly good gravel path that might've added no more

than a couple of minutes to one's walk, scores of people chose to walk across the green in places, probably not realizing that their very efforts to appreciate the trees was contributing to more compact soil which, over time, would actually harm the trees.

But I digress...personal path choices aside, it was really inspiring and comforting to see the array of people brought together by this gift from a Mayor in Tokyo, a gift that will see its first centennial in a couple of years. After taking this course at AU called Art, Community, and Diversity, I can't help but think of events like those and how they cultivate and redefine visitors sense of community, awareness of diversity, and all that jazz (thanks, Ali ;-) ). Kudos to our professor for that class, Suzan Jenkins, the Chief Executive Officer of the Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery County, for really providing a space to explore what those meant and how they intersected for us. It's not exactly a class where you can give right answers, but rather a way to ask the right questions.

Politics, religion, class, culture, all the things

that I believe actually makes us stronger as a nation and as people in general, but unfortunately are often used to divide us, were momentarily put on hold as people went on a simple walk around, enjoying the cherry blossom trees.

Gotta love it :-)