Forsythia

Forsythia.

I love the name. I love saying it. 

Forsythia.

It almost sings when you say it out loud–like “Maria” in the West Side Story song.

🎶Forsy–thia…and suddenly the name will never be the same to me.🎶

Right now, in Down East Maine, the forsythia are in their full expression. What followed was greener grass that just yesterday seemed patchy brown. Today, the buds on the trees outside my window have popped rusty reds. Lime greens will peak soon-those trees still hold tight to their buds. 

Today, azaleas took their cue from forsythia. It’s time to come out and show off your beauty like a male wild turkey fanning his colorful feathers. It was just a week ago, when the forsythia buds came out, while mud season still lingered, and no one would be too surprised to wake to a dusting of snow. 

But drive into town now, and you can’t help but notice the bursts of yellow, on likely manicured lawns, and unlikely places like alongside a dilapidated trailer. There’s a remarkable explosion every year near Archibald’s, our only gas station/convenience store. It’s one of my favorites, how it shows up smack in sight after rounding a curve on a hill.

Even though we all know this is not new news. How forsythia arrives, then the tree buds, then the azaleas, it seems brand new and fresh every spring.

I always assumed forsythia was Latin for something hopeful — sunshine, perhaps, or happiness. But I looked it up and discovered it was named after William Forsyth, a 1800s botanist.

Still, despite its ordinary origin, the bush itself has been soothing spring-starved souls for more than two hundred years.

What’s interesting is that forsythia isn’t native to the United States at all. The bright yellow bushes actually came from East Asia — mostly China and Korea. Plant hunters carried them to Europe in the 1800s because people were captivated by how early they bloomed, flowers appearing before leaves like little bursts of sunlight after winter. Eventually, they made their way across the ocean to America, where they settled especially well in the Northeast.

And honestly, that feels fitting.

A shrub carried across oceans because people longed for color at the end of winter.

The springs when I drove south on Interstate 95, one of the exciting parts was the forsythia sightings becoming more frequent the farther south I traveled. At first, just a bush here and there in southern Maine. Then pockets of yellow in New Hampshire. Then whole roadsides glowing farther down the interstate. It felt like driving toward spring itself.

Maybe that’s part of why people love them so much here. They don’t arrive at the fullness of spring. They arrive during the argument between winter and spring.

Right when people need proof that the season really has changed.

It’s like we can finally lay down all the faith we carried through winter — the faith that the dark and cold would not last forever.

No more 3:00, 4:00, 5:00 sundowns. No more stepping outside into air so cold it feels metallic in your lungs.

Forsythia returns as the first proof.

And we breathe in the cheeriness and aliveness of forsythia because it can’t be helped.

And before you exhale, you already feel spring opening up inside yourself.