Inspiring Images: Willow Trees
In my quest to find new ideas to write about here on the ol' bloggity blog, I'm going to periodically share an image and write a little bit about why that image is important to me, or how it inspires me, or just a: "hey! I like this!" sort of moment. I may share excerpts of things I've written that go with these images, I may not. I don't have any hard and fast "rules" per se, but I thought it might be a fun thing to do here every now and again. Sometimes it will truly be the picture that inspires me, and sometimes it will just be a picture of something that inspires me.The first image that springs to mind is of the latter category.
Weeping willow trees. These seem to be the sort of thing that you either love or hate. I love them. When I was a kid, we had somewhere in the ballpark of 9 of these enormous weeping willow trees in our front yard, and never did a child have a better playground. They were swings, caves, fortresses, climbing walls and mountains. Whenever a big storm rolled through, at least one or two big branches would fall and then for a couple of days we kids would have a new avenue of imaginary scenarios to run through. The branches would be horses, pirate ships, spaceships, more caves, and so on and so forth. I loved those trees. I thought they were beautiful, mysterious, and there was always the air of something whimsical about sitting beneath one or walking amongst them.Even today, willow trees still capture my imagination and transport me somewhere... other. And for that reason, they sometimes feature in my writing. For example - in this fragment of a poem I wrote:
I remember climbing in the branchesSwinging on their vinesOnly trees, yet friends of mine.
The wind would whisper Through the willows late at night As they stood guard, in medieval might.
I also used them heavily in my Cinderella re-telling:
Ella stared at him, the moment suddenly solemn. In her childish way, she understood that she had just been given something very precious. She was not quite sure how to respond. Impetuously, she reached out and hugged Evan tightly, then pulled back.
“I don’t have a lot of friends, either,” she confided. “We live so far outside of town. That’s why we only come once a week or so.”
Evan stared at her, a bit taken aback at the sudden embrace. Then he grinned, and the solemnity of the moment was broken. “Want to swing on the branches?”
Ella leapt to her feet and together they spent the better part of an hour swinging out over the water on the long, trailing branches of the willow. By the time Evan’s Nurse came to fetch him, both children had fallen into the pond, “accidentally on purpose” and were sopping wet. The prince’s eyes were dancing with laughter, his cheeks were flushed with the exercise, and his face was so full of joy that Nurse could not bring herself to scold him.
***
Spring sped by and gave way to summer. The long golden days stretched out between visits to the marketplace. Both children anxiously awaited their meetings each week. The summer was filled with laughter and the type of friendship that can only be created through shared imagination.
They also feature in Second Son:
Arnaud followed the strange melody through the forest, riding deeper and deeper into the woods. He finally came to what appeared to be the source of the singing. There was a copse of weeping willows that Arnaud suddenly remembered coming across quite by accident some time ago. The willows ringed a clear pool that was fed by a stream that branched off of the Farrendell River.
Arnaud dismounted and crept to the willow trees. He peered around a great trunk. There was the pool he remembered. Next to the pond was an old, weathered stone bench. It was comfortable, he could attest to that, having sat upon it when he first found this spot. However, it was not the pool or the bench that drew Arnaud’s attention this day, it was the singer.
In The Orb and the Airship, I mention a place located on "Willow Street."
Interestingly enough, I did not even realize how often weeping willows make an appearance in my writing until I wrote this post!
So what say you? Do you love willow trees, hate them, or are they something you even notice?If you had to pick a tree that means something to you or inspires you, what kind would it be and why? For my fellow writers, is there an object that crops up in your writing over and over again? Maybe there is, but like me you never noticed before!