Monday night.

A couple weeks ago, someone commented there's two kinds of cherry trees - the ones that bloom the first week of April, and the ones that bloom the first week of May.

"Three kinds," I said. "The ones that bloom the first week of April, the ones that bloom the first week of May, and the ones that produce cherries."

I bike by the first two kinds during my usual route, and it's a treat to watch them day after day, to let myself get used to them and then be surprised by them depending on the clouds or the sky or some music I heard earlier that day. I don't really stop and take them in, partly because I'm always riding a rental bike and partly because taking the same route makes me feel like the biking along is part of it - the glimpses of new color as part of the experience. That I have to remember where I need to look and force my attention to the world in that way, and try to see if I can pick out how it's different from the last time I was there. New buds, old petals, fresh leaves.

The April blooms are at the end of their peak, with a few May trees about to leap off. And it's the last trees - of which there aren't any in New York City - that I'm most patiently waiting for.