March 19, 2022.  Today I placed side-by-side yellow blossoms from two different plants in my garden.  I thought to myself, is it unusual to have the temperature just right for both the forsythia and the winter jasmine to bloom at the same time?  Or is it that I’m paying attention to such details for the first time?   Although both are unscented, the effusive yellow of these blossoms is enough to make me smile and pause to appreciate their simple beauty:  the jasmine star with its six, sometimes five, delicate petals; the forsythia with its four distinct, larger petals. 

My kitchen is still full of potted plants since the end of the fall:  the varieties of jasmine that need warmer temperatures in the winter in order for their heavenly scents to bloom in the summer; the peace lily that stands tall and proud whether watered indoors or drenched from the rain during warmer climate; along with the lime tree and herbs, potted in organic soil, that I keep indoors throughout the year, shielding them from the pesky squirrels.  It’s a sea of all shades of green that I maneuver around, trying to situate each pot as close to the window as possible, while still leaving space for me to sit at the counter.  I love the quality of light in the kitchen when the winter sun, unobstructed by the bare trees, radiates deep into the house.

The only colorful blossoms I have to enjoy in the winter months are from the jasmine that is in the garden, potted in a large wooden barrel.  It’s a hardy variety that can survive outdoors in this planting zone.  I must’ve bought it online from a nursery years ago, though I can’t remember when.  In the spring and summer months it sits bushy in the barrel with long, floppy branches covered with small green leaves. 

I noticed a few years ago, as I steadily began to take care of the garden, that this jasmine produced a few bright yellow flowers in the middle of the winter.  However, only this past January did I notice that once the leaves fell off, there was an abundance of tiny buds, but only a few blossoms.  So I thought to clip a few stems and bring them indoors to put in a vase on my kitchen counter.  Within a few days, I was pleasantly surprised to see all the buds burst open into an array of delightful bright yellow.

Once I realized that my garden jasmine buds would bloom when immersed in water and protected in the warmth of my house, I couldn’t get enough of the yellow flowers.  Coincidentally, earlier this winter while I was strolling through a nearby public garden, I noticed a large retaining wall, almost 30 feet long, lush with the familiar, floppy branches.  I pulled out my phone to identify the plant with my “picture this” app, and discovered that it’s the same jasminum nudiflorum planted in my garden barrel.  It was a small “a-ha” moment with an immediate curiosity as to what this green wall would look like as the winter progressed. 

I went back to the public garden every other week to check on “my” green wall, and observed the same thing I had noticed in my garden, multiplied across a much larger area:  a sea of tiny buds, amidst a wall of long green stems, waiting to burst open.  I couldn’t resist… Aware of the camera perched on the light post within eye sight, I pulled my jacket’s hoodie over my head, wrapped a scarf around my neck, put on my mask, and waited till the area in front of the wall was clear of people.  With clippers in hand, I cut a few stems.  I felt a sense of trepidation that I was stealing from public property, though as I looked at the long stretch of the wall covered in green, I told myself, how could a few cuttings make a difference in a healthy plant over such a large swath?  

The joy that I felt bringing a few stems home after each visit (and sharing a few with my friends), seeing the buds burst open a few days later, outweighed the fear of the moment.  I made a variety of arrangements with the bud-filled stems in the kitchen, the bathroom, the living room, anywhere I could place a vase.  Untouched, the blossoms remained on the stems for almost two weeks.  I am convinced it is these splashes of yellow that helped me get through the dreary, cold winter months with so much time spent at home.  

Yellow has always been a favorite color that evokes a sense of warmth and rejuvenation for me.  It’s what prompted me two years ago to plant my own forsythia bush in the garden.  And now, to see the last two blossoms of the jasmine in the garden overlap with the burst of forsythia blossoms, is a moment of delight.  As the spring equinox is upon us tomorrow, marking the first day of spring, I take comfort in the pleasures of nature around me.

I’m reminded of what Ross Gay wrote in The Book of Delights after a year of life closely observed: “I felt my life to be more full of delight. Not without sorrow or fear or pain or loss.  But more full of delight.”   And as I write this, I hope Gay’s experience “…that my delight grows – much like love and joy – when I share it” may apply to mine.