Willow Tree Book

Not everyone gets to have a Willow Tree Book. In fact, I might be the only person in the history of time to every have had a Willow Tree Book.

I started reading at a very young age. When I was 2 my parents noticed that I was holding picture books right up to my face when I would look at them. They also clocked that, if ever I was around a TV that was on, I'd put my face right up to the screen in order to "watch" it.

They took me to their pediatrician, then on to an eye doctor, and by 2 and a half years old, I was wearing glasses.

Once I started wearing glasses, a new world was opened to me. The world I'm referring to is not the tangible world within which I lived. No, I mean the world of stories, reading and literature.

Shortly after those specs found my face I began to learn how to read. And it was learning how to read that was the impetus for my aunt to give me some place to write.

The first journal I've ever had in my life was a hard cover book with no lines on its pages. While "hard" cover, the cover felt like it came directly from nature. It had a soft, inviting texture. On the front was a beautiful drawing of a stout and graceful Salix Babylonica - aka a Weeping Willow.

My Auntie Joy (who we have met before and from whom so many of my early influences come), called it a Willow Tree Book, and so that's what it was.

My very first willow tree book was the place I first started to practice spelling. My names, the names of family members, of simple words. I've mentioned that the pages had no lines, so I was free to craft words outside any bounds or paramaters. It was also an excellent place for drawing. And an excellent place to stick stickers. The pages are now full of combo word/drawing/sticker artistic expressions.

So when I say I've been a journaller for almost 30 years, I'm not lying. Every year on my birthday until I turned 18 my aunt would send me a brand new Willow Tree Book. Each with their own interesting and special qualities. And I still have them all - filled with ideas, thoughts, poems, grievances, sufferings, joys, confusions, celebrations, drawings, lists, contemplations, nonsense, breakthroughs... you name it.

My current Willow Tree Book was also a gift. Given to me by Suzanne Kennelly, a Winnipeg actor who performed in a play of mine this past spring. On closing she gave me a beautiful new journal, also soft to the touch, gold, with a moth embossed on the cover, urging me to write another special play.

A Willow Tree Book is a place to put all the things swirling around in your head. On paper, we can see them, make sense of them, maybe even do something about them. Like the willow tree, a Willow Tree Book is a symbol of strength, beauty, safety and home.