So, there’s an interesting story about Sonnet’s “head gear”. It’s not her tiara, it’s mine. 
Last year my mother-in-law (to be one day) – Carole, and I went shopping in downtown Vancouver. So we’re in Dressew and they have everything you need to sew as well as an assortment of discontinued yarn and knitting books. We’re totally engrossed. I think I picked up a couple of Rowan knitting books for a few dollars each – which was a total score. We were paying at the register and the woman at the till was very monotone in her presence which she checked out our items.
Carole suddenly says to me, “Oh Sabrina – look at the tiaras!” Then suddenly the woman with the monotone presence comes to life (I love it when that happens – it’s like someone said the magic words)! She starts telling us how her daughter has a bunch of them and that they give her a new one every few years for her birthday, how great they are to wear when you’re cleaning the house and want to make it fun and how her daughter wears one whenever she’s going to sit down and write a paper for a class at university. Carole and I thought that was a grand idea and started to try on the tiaras. It had never occurred to me to just wear one any ol’ time I felt like it. I thought I needed a reason outside of myself. It never occurred to me before to give myself a reason. I am after all the most influential person in my life. Aren’t we all?
Well, Carole bought one for me as a gift and one for herself also as a gift. I drove home with it on, which just felt fun (my valid reason). I had inklings at the time of writing more habitually as a creative habit, but wasn’t fully committed to the idea. I never knew what a ‘thinking cap’ could look like, but I decided that this was mine. The weird thing was that whenever I thought about writing something (anything at all) and found myself in resistance, I would put the tiara on and write. This tiara was obviously anointed with magical powers. And so it is. Whenever I needed to write, on it went.
The physical object created some space in my mind somehow or perhaps it was a ritual or the inner permission to be okay with whatever I was writing. Sonnet and I practiced with a tea towel on her head for about a week and then she accepted the tiara. I call her my writing dog because of her supportive ear when I’m working through a concept and because of her name! So her wearing the tiara just made a lot of dog-gone sense. I love this photo!
