Cherry blossoms in the snow, a January restart, and bed parties

The weather's just as confused as I am at the start of the year.

There’s a particular variety of cherry blossoms, the Autumnalis, that will flower during warm spells in the winter. I’ve spotted these trees in bloom on my walks around Prospect Park the last two winters and even wrote about the strangeness of seeing them a year ago on my second newsletter ever. The pink haze emanating from these tiny blossoms are like a mirage from afar, especially when everything around is colorless and gray; it very much feels like a trick on the eyes.

But I guess this is the norm now. I don’t recall ever seeing flowers at all in winters here in NYC, but roses are hanging on far longer than they should and cold-hardy red camellias in full bloom are a regular sight.

We’ve experienced three seasons and a 30 degree temperature drop in a span of two weeks so far in January

The beginning of a new year is usually a fresh start, but the first day of January really is just another day. In the past, New Year’s Day was always a favorite of mine. I enjoy the ritual of eating traditional Korean rice cake soup and the symbolism of a clean slate. Two weeks into 2024, however, I find myself out of sorts. Stress and holiday eating has triggered flareups to what might very well be a chronic ailment and I spend the first two weeks trying to reverse it.

I also hit a wall. The kid and I both did. After spending a year consumed with every aspect of the college application process, when everything was completed and submitted, we felt unmoored. For the first time in months, my high school senior had no obligations, no deadlines, and nothing to do this past weekend. She organized her room. I spent a week clearing my head while bouncing between extremes. The letdown from something so fraught with stress and steeped in endless deliberation was significant and abrupt.

But relinquishing control when it’s out of your hands can be a wonderful thing. It’s interesting how something which has consumed your everything can also dissipate from your thoughts the moment you hit the final submit button. The fact that it leaves our minds so easily is a signal that we needed the release.

At the end of the day, I remind her that it’s just college and that whatever may be will be. I hope that she can be a kid again while she still can, without having to think about her future at least for a few months. I try to do the same by avoiding resolutions and goals. I also avoid social media for the first week of January when much of the world is getting back to work and school, announcing the changes they wish to attract or renouncing habits they want to leave behind. I decide this year to reject any notion of a fresh start.

The apartment is quiet today. For the first time in a month it’s just me and the cat this morning. 24 hours prior, there was a flurry of packing from a month’s stay between semesters. The college kid is gone and the energy in the home shifts again. The room that was once a home office before it became hers in middle school is an office once again until she comes back for the summer in four short months.

I’ve surrendered to the fact that the college years of parenting are years in constant flux. College goes by alarmingly fast. They are here one minute and gone the next, and routines get adjusted on a regular cadence. I observe how the shift in what feels normal now happens when the kid goes back to college and not the other way around. It’s a strange admittance that maybe I don’t mind this empty nest. When I text with her the next day, I miss her immensely—but only then do I realize it.

And finally, snow

There’s been much talk about how the winters have been mild in NYC and how the city hasn’t seen snow in 700 days. It was almost exactly two years ago that we saw any kind of accumulated snowfall, but it happened Monday night.

I watched it come down at 1 a.m. Streetlights illuminating a patch of sidewalk confirmed that it was indeed sticking. When I woke up hours later there was enough snow on the ground that I saw neighbors out with shovels for the first time in two years. As far as winter storms go, this one was mild—it only snowed a few inches—but I knew I had to take a walk despite the frigid temperatures which we’re no longer really used to. I pulled on my snow boots and a parka that I’ve pushed to the back of my closet in favor of long wool coats in recent years. To wear these clothes again after years of neglect felt unfamiliar.

I walk outside into the snow. I time it after the rush of morning school drop-offs so that I can have more of the sidewalk to myself. I’m reminded of how quiet the city is when snow absorbs and muffles all sounds. The first thing that hits your ears is the crunch of your own footsteps in fresh powder and for the four blocks up to the park, this is all I hear.

I don’t love the cold or the snow in particular, especially as I get older, but as I stand in the middle of the meadow in Prospect Park, I take it all in, feeling at peace for the first time in a while. I’m surprised to see that the cherry blossoms I spotted a few weeks ago are still in bloom, but now they’re encased in icy drops. I’m glad for this change; it’s something different. The cold and the snow feels right somehow, and maybe this is what I was waiting for to finally start my year: to have the apartment back and uncluttered from Christmas, to breathe in air so cold it clears my head; to see a blanket of white across the meadow like pages of a empty sketchbook waiting for the first line.

I spent half an hour here among this cluster of cherry blossom trees, marveling at something I had never seen before—trees in bloom in the snow. It was beautiful.

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In other news…bed parties. Is this the new gender reveal?

I was recently introduced to the concept of college commitment “bed parties” on a message board and soon went into a Pinterest and TikTok rabbit hole of puffy mylar balloons, streamers, school swag, snacks and cakes in school colors. Apparently, this trend of celebrating a college decision by decorating the kid’s bed started during Covid in 2020. I actually totally get that, but it seems to have evolved into this over-the-top, extravagant spread of excessiveness that just flexes how much money you have to spend on school swag to post on social media.

Nobody needs 10 sweatshirts with a school logo. Also, ahhhhh my eyes! Is it me or does this seem….obnoxious? Or am I just cheap and un-fun? And is this mostly a girl thing? All we did for our college kid was buy her a hoodie at her state university bookstore when she visited on accepted students day. Was planning on doing the same for our next college-bound kid.

Speaking of college, I have a lot to say about the business of college applications. A LOT. And if you read my last newsletter, you’ll know that I’m an obsessive researcher. All this to say, I have all this information in my head that is now useless to me since I’m thankfully done with process forever. I might dump some of this knowledge in future newsletters (not that anyone asked for my advice 😂).

And a few things that I enjoyed this week

Sharing an Airbnb With My Parents for Seven Weeks – I very much related to this author’s essay of traveling to Korea with her parents. Why are so many of our immigrant experiences so universal?

The Tail end –“It turns out that when I graduated from high school, I had already used up 93% of my in-person parent time. I’m now enjoying the last 5% of that time. We’re in the tail end.”

Well, this just blew my mind. And also made me quite sad. And this animation (link is timestamped at 5:58) based on the above quote sent me into a near existential panic.

Hug your loved ones and stay warm, friends.