Forsythia

We had a hard freeze a few weeks ago, the kind of freeze that happens in Alabama every few decades. Pipes burst, our lizard died, the ground was rock, and my hoses froze into solid rods in the yard. We were stuck in California due to the largest flight scheduling disaster in the history of the airline. Our neighbors pried off our frozen hoses and saved our pipes with rags and plastic bags. So there was a hard freeze, and spring came back in January. As it does in the South. Or more appropriately - mild winter replaced the harsh winter episode. With rain and mist and warmth. But the purple bushes in front of my house are crisp and brown and dead as far as I can tell, unless there is hidden life deep in the stems nearer to the ground than I have broken off.

As I walked through the mist this morning, a spray of yellow caught my eye in the surrounding grey. Forsythia is blooming. And a few streets down another spray of green - as forsythia buds push up through their woody branches here as well. Don’t you know, little ones, that winter is not over? That freezes will come again and knock your buds to the ground? That you may have worked for nothing? You always bloom first - the sign that spring is on it’s way.

There was a huge forsythia in my grandmother’s side yard. So large it had to be cut back many times to allow cars to drive by and park. How many winters and false springs did it endure, always heralding spring first? it’s offspring is now taking over my parent’s lower-side yard - towering over and around the water meter.