A disconnected walk. April’s a trickster. Life, in fragments.

Walk with me because the flowering trees are listening.

If March was social, then the first half of April was spent cocooning inside watching the rain fall. I lit candles. I brewed countless mugs of tea to warm my fingers and breathe in the curling plumes of hot steam. I ventured out alone on some of those rainy days and took endless photos, carefully shielding my camera from getting rained on. I regret taking myself off the wait list for the newest model released last year when money got tight. I baby this one instead and feel a little guilty for wanting to replace it. It’s been my trusted companion for over a decade, always tucked inside a pocket, always with me wherever I go.

I made the mistake of telling the world last week that I put away all my heavy winter coats and got slammed on social for jinxing whatever thread of hope we’re all clinging to that Spring will actually commit. Too soon!, the majority insisted. Way to throw a wet blanket on my optimism—or maybe it’s just New Yorkers being New Yorkers, so I get it. It’s been a really long winter and the first half of April was punishing. It’s also been fiercely windy, the kind of wind that takes your breath away. I don’t remember it ever being so windy this often and it makes me wonder if this is a new climate pattern we’ll need to adjust to.

My college kid upstate sends us a selfie of herself standing in the street while snowflakes collect on her down winter coat. The photo is accompanied by lots of angry emojis and frowny faces. Her younger sister sends a photo of magnolias in peak bloom because it’s always at least a dozen degrees warmer in Pennsylvania.

But finally, the version of April we’ve all been waiting for arrived last weekend. I didn’t know how badly I needed it. All of the softness and warmth and color—I needed it all. It’s a slow unveiling, but one that was a little too drawn out for our collective impatience.

But you know how it often goes. Spring explodes in waves. One day, the view outside my bedroom window is all naked branches, sharp angles jutting upward toward the sky; the next morning, a sudden warmth in temperatures coaxes all the buds open. I love this time in the flowering season the most because the city looks like it’s swaddled in baby’s breath. When the kids were little, we called these trees “popcorn trees” for the pointillistic impression they’d give off when we’d look down a street lined with rows of white pear tree blossoms.

Speaking of positivity and optimism, I’m trying to spin a web of it, like a shield. Call it self-care or whatever, but I’m struggling with everything going on right now. Maybe you can relate. I know the news is seeping into my subconscious because I had a panicky dream that certain agents of authority requested to see my passport and I didn’t have it on me.

Prove that you belong here, they kept prodding me.

This may sound ridiculous and I don’t mean to center the very real and horrendous events that are happening to people on myself, but being a naturalized citizen makes me nervous when I read about deportations and detainments. I almost always get stopped at the border for that extra “random” security check, so I wonder about leaving the country. My social media feeds aren’t exactly quiet on my criticism of this administration. My mom cautions me against marching in any more protests. She and I agree that it’s probably best not to travel internationally right now, even though that’s irrational since we’re citizens. But, you know...

I can’t remember anything more about the dream and wish that I did, but like most dreams, the vivid details evaporate away in that space between slumber and wakefulness.

**

After obsessively watching the weather for weeks, we took all of our starter plants that we’ve been germinating from seeds in trays under lights and planted them outside on our balconies. We’re growing our staple crops of herbs, tomatoes, and peppers, but also experimenting with a few new greens like mizuna. It feels ambitiously absurd to grow vegetables on a small Brooklyn balcony, but we’re trying. I’d like to believe that our gardening efforts will save us money at the grocery store, but we do it more for the routine and distraction. We all need healthier ways to occupy our time other than doomscrolling the news.

In the mornings, I pour myself a cup of coffee and make the rounds on my house plants to check on new growth: the fiddle leaf fig that I lopped off when it became too tall and sad after it dropped most of its leaves; the monstera that I’m nursing back from a mild case of thrips; an unidentified plant that sits on my bedside table that my dad gave me years ago. I never figured out what it is, though I suspect from hours spent looking at dozens of plants online that it might be an avocado plant. I vaguely recall seeing pits spiked with toothpicks half submerged in glasses of water sitting on a windowsill in my parents’ old living room.

I have three plants from cuttings that my dad’s given me over the years. I conscientiously try to keep them alive because they’re one of the few things I have to remember him by. The symbolism wrapped in the plant’s demise is too sad to think about, so I watch for new growth and try not to get dramatic when the plant goes dormant in winter.

I apologize if this newsletter is a fragmented journal of sorts. I think I’m just empty. I’ve hit a wall and don’t even spend as much time online anymore. Humans aren’t wired to process the sheer amount of content that we consume when we scroll. We aren’t wired to have access to a thousand different voices filling our heads when what we only ever had were our own inner monologues. Sure, we’ve adapted, but we underestimate the cognitive load of bouncing between rage posts, random musings about our day, influencers trying to influence, and rhapsodies about our pets—all in a span of twenty seconds.

I don’t know whether it’s my subconscious at work here since it’s certainly not intentional, but I’ve been leaving the apartment without my phone when I go out for walks. I take pictures with my trusty old camera, snapping a dozen photos of the same magnolia trees. Like old friends, I have my favorites in my Brooklyn neighborhood that I like to visit during flowering season.

And like old friends, they help keep my anxiety in check, their petals absorbing all of my thoughts with an unconditional selflessness as I release them in their presence. With a wisdom of renewal that only trees know how to do, the decaying petals carry my anxiety with them when it’s time to drop and move on to the next cycle of life.

If you enjoy this newsletter every week, please consider supporting it. The subscription sale is still on till the end of the month and it helps support my family and my writing. As always, thank you for being here.

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A random read

Unintentional virality and the paradox of connection

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A roundup of links

To read:

• How Trader Joe's tote bags became an unexpected style symbol in Japan (BBC)
  I know, I don’t really get it either, particularly as I watched videos of crowds frantically going through boxes of mini totes at Trader Joe’s stores and noticed that many of them were Asian. I mean, sure, Asians like cute and mini versions of things, but the mayhem for these bags is just beyond. This BBC article shed some light.

• The Best Gear for Aging Pets (Wirecutter)
  Our rescue cat is now ten, officially a senior, and damn if this didn’t make me all emotional. The cat and I went through pandemic grief together and now it looks like we’re aging together too.

• What the best ads of the 2000s reveal about American culture (CNN)
  Digital advertising and now AI campaigns may very well be the death to creative advertising. “…before digital marketing became the norm, overtaking print in terms of revenue and budget allocation, there was arguably more room for complex, creative and daring image-making.”

• In defense of Amanda Nguyen, who actually did something on the Blue Origin flight (Joysauce)
  I really didn’t care about Katy Perry or Gayle King going off into space and I think most of the backlash is deserved, but it was unfortunate that it took attention away from the actual STEM women on the flight, including Amanda Nguyen.

• Why romanticising your own life is philosophically dubious, setting up toxic narratives and an inability to truly love (Aeon)
  Philosopher Anna Gotlib examines how hyper-individualism and Main Character Syndrome is undermining our capacity for empathy and genuine connections.

• When enough is “enuf”: The strange and futile history of English spelling reform (Big Think)
  The English language is complicated. Ben Franklin once tried to simplify it.

To make and eat:

• Raw Asparagus Salad with Walnuts & Parmesan (Joshua McFadden’s Six Season via Alexandracooks)
  It never occurs to me that you can eat asparagus raw, like a salad. The mix of breadcrumbs, lemon, walnuts, and parmesan gives it a light but zesty flavor, perfect for spring.