So I finally did my first hanami tonight. Okay, perhaps it wasn’t quite a hanami since there  was no picnicking involved. But there was ample contemplation of the beauty of the cherry blossoms and the views across the Tidal Basin, not to mention sheer wonder at the number of fellow hanami-ers who were taking shots of various members of their families in various cherry blossom-appreciation poses at any given time. Shamefully, though I’ve lived in the DC area for more than a decade I’d never actually made it down to the blossoms for a number of reasons, all of them tourists. Okay, and the two years I spent working on the Cherry Blossom Festival program—which is when you might think I’d have been the most motivated to see the blossoms—well, I was so darned sick of everything blossom-related by the time I finished the project that I made sure to have nothing to do with any of the activities. This year, however, I think I may try and get down to the parade, or go looking for the Japanese lanterns. It actually felt quite lovely to be a tourist in my own town, something that according to my list of things to do in 2012, I have to do at least nine more times this year. It’s all part of my plan to stop living with one foot somewhere else (even if I still don’t quite know what that other place might have been) and enjoy/savor/relish the fact that I really do live in a pretty amazing metropolis.