the first cherry blossom of spring is affixating in a vase the front window. it's more than a month early - and it's in full bloom. there was no slow thaw of winter, no soft, slow wave of flowers blowing in with warm air from the south - no warning whatsoever. and here it is, choking me to death in the front window.

megumi doesn't hesitate to point it out to me. "did you see my cherry blossoms?"

this can't be right? they're early! how can i be at work? i'm missing it! "no, it's too early - it must be a plum, right?"

"no, it isn't - i cut it from the tree in my back yard. but don't worry, the rest of the tree isn't blooming yet so it's probably just because it's so warm in here."

"yeah."

"well, i guess you'll be going soon, huh?"

"yeah.."

it rained for a week straight and i can't be sure when the earth soaked up spring. i didn't notice until i saw plum blossoms breaking out in the rain on a twisted little tree on the steps of our south-east-asian hangover recovery place. and it hit me hard - a wave of white, fragrant plum blossoms would flash out a warning, and then the cherries would come sweeping across the country - taking me with them and away from everything i've come to love here. i knew i wanted to go. what i realized that morning in the rain was that i didn't want to leave.

then last night i was turning the world over wine with two girls i hardly know and i spilled my whole story - about the hitchhikers and the coincidences and the bright shining truth of it all. and would you believe those girls dug every word? i was jumping up and down in my sock feet just going on about it, like a real live Dean Moriarty and those beat chicks just loved it, man! imagine the three of us on bicycles cutting along in the night, mittened, with cans of beer in our baskets, past taxis and gone japanese and all the red lanterns of a city at night. us stashing our bicycles in the shadows of the castle and crossing the bridge in the moonlight. us jumping the fence and ducking into the bamboo forests of the garden - scared as all get-out that we end up arrested, alert in our state, for what it was worth.. we found that tree - the one i knew would be there, the one that breaks into bloom before any of the others. we found that tree and left deep footprints in the earth at her feet and pulled at her finger tips and took twigs and tiny plum flowers home with us. it was validation that we can be guided by these things - that there's more going on in the moonlight than people realize. and we believed it, then, before morning sent us each off to work to forget everything we had uncovered in the night. but we'll find it yet.