Photograph of dark branches of cherry tree in blossom with white flowers against a white sky.

Flower white canvas

Today, walking through a passage, a tree branch almost hit me in the face. It was beautiful. Full of white flowers that will soon become cherries.

Were you here yesterday? I asked. Observing its delicate petals while trying to smell the flowers.

I stood still as the worries cluttering my anguished brain melted away. While contemplating the flowers, nothing else was needed.

Since I don’t know how to meditate, the moment did not last long. But it was enough to remind me that a void of deep peace is the source of all creation.

What a contrast to the gallery I had visited moments before in a building of brutalist architecture in the centre of a large city. The work of the artist who built enormous installations left me cold. That’s the state of my house, I thought, with lifted floorboards and deconstructed plaster.

“This stuff was hanging around my work place and since Duchamp has given me permission, and my mates own galleries, I am dumping it here.”

It didn’t say that, but it is more or less what my brain understood when it translated the jargon on the gallery walls.

I am probably being unfair, and ignorant. And one day, when my house is done up and I miss the rubble, I might remember the exhibition with poetic nostalgia.

But I doubt it. Most likely, I will continue to seek the quiet and unpretentious company of trees and flowers. Hoping to learn how to make the moments of deep peace last a bit longer.