Caroline Ishii

A reflection on mothers, mothering, and the food that holds us. Mother’s Day can be beautiful. It can also be complicated. This morning, I was in my local supermarket, and almost every grocery cart seemed to have a bouquet of flowers in it. All around me were buckets of blooms sitting in water, ready to be chosen. It’s Mother’s Day, I thought, with a mix of emotions. It’s sweet how people buy flowers, take their mothers for brunch, and call their mothers. However, for many people, this day is...

This morning, I walked by the lake while the last colours of sunrise were still stretched across the sky. The pictures I took didn’t do it justice. They never do. Some beauty is kirei sugi (too beautiful), as the Japanese often say when they see the sakura in full bloom. The water was sparkling. The blue sky was vivid. The colours were like a painting, soft pastels of orange, red, purple, and white. Everything shimmered in the greatest show on earth that is free. I felt, for a moment, rich....

I was walking past the University of Toronto campus when I saw clusters of people gathered under blooming sakura trees. There was a buzz in the air. People were taking photos, filming videos, looking up, lingering longer than usual, instead of rushing past. And I felt it too. That gentle pull to stop, notice, and be in its beauty. In a world of constant distraction, whether our phones, our screens, or our endless to-do lists, it’s rare that something slows us down in such a soft but...