I made a willow crown this morning.

It’s trickier than you might think. It requires patience and a certain stubborn desire to get things just right. Willow crowns taught me something about myself when I was still young. That I am willing to try so hard for the most inconsequential things, that I will do it over and over again until it works the way it should. But only if it doesn’t really matter.

The key is to start with two long branches-thick but not stiff-of the same length. And every subsequent branch much be braided into the one that came before it, or it will all unravel. If you like, you can put things in the gaps where the branches bend and twist away from one another. Flowers, mostly, or other kinds of leaves.

There are these roses that grow wild behind an outbuilding on our property. At least, I think they are wild. I can think of no reason why anyone would have deliberately planted them there. Either way, if they weren’t always wild, we’ve made them that way with our negligent ways and tall razor grass. They are a dark Barbie pink, rippled and crenellated like a person’s pursed-tight mouth. They have little thorns all on their stems, like light, prickly fur.

I picked one of the roses (the best one, that still had its shape and had mostly escaped the ravages of bugs) but I didn’t put it in my willow crown. Instead, I destroyed it, picked apart the individual petals and watched the odd shapes they made against the fresh-mown grass.

I sat underneath the willow tree and the moon was still in front of me, fading and no longer full. The sun was rising behind me and if I were to turn around, the spangle of yellow light on wet grass would leave me blinking. I could see the red stop sign at the end of the road, the gold wheels of baled-up hay. My feet were cold and sticky with wet grass and suddenly all I could think was “I’m going to go far away from this place.”

I put the willow crown on my head and I waited for the sun to rise.