Forsythias are blooming here in this exceptionally early Arkansas spring.

Some years we’ve had snow in April, but this year we had buds and blooms in February.

I didn’t know the names of any plants until I was 35, so I’ve shared a picture of a forsythia so you’ll know what I’m talking about.

They’re beautiful. Their long, woody stems are drowning in yellow blooms. Their arms stretch high and wide and fill the spaces in yards and on ditch banks that have been barren for the last several months.

They’re wild and unruly and stunning. They bloom early, and they’re not quiet about it. It doesn’t matter if the hardwoods don’t have leaves yet, or if they’ve jumped the gun on the jonquils and daffodils. The forsythias are in it to win it.

So much of the beauty nature brings us is wild and unruly. It’s asymmetrical, untamed, unmanicured, and unconcerned with what else is happening, just like those gorgeous forsythias.

Thunderstorms, lightning strikes, frost, snow, the Southern symphony of frogs, crickets, and cicadas… they don’t operate on anyone else’s terms. They’re beautiful in their imperfect, uncontrolled, natural existence.

I think that’s the beauty created in all of us. I like makeup, clothes, and shoes as much as the next girl, but that’s dress up, not real beauty. It’s fun (sometimes), but it’s not what makes me beautiful.

The real beauty in us lies in the asymmetrical, untamed parts of who we are.
It’s the laugh that echoes loudly over all the other noise and carries on just a few seconds longer than everyone else’s.

It’s the tears that fall over the simplest experience.

It’s the passion that ignites within us when we witness injustice or malice.

It’s the intensity of the love we feel for the people closest to us, and it’s also the connection we feel to others we hardly know just because we’re both here and human.

Real beauty has so little to do with the symmetry of a face.

Go be a forsythia.

(Photo Credit: Mostardi Nursery on FaceBook)