The Willow Tree on Mother Teresa Boulevard

Prishtina, Kosovo

Photo: Louise. Prishtina, Kosovo May 2024

When I was living/working in Prishtina, Kosovo 2010-11, I would spend endless hours evenings and weekends just walking around the inner part of the city. You might say it became my “walking meditation ritual” to see me through a very difficult year of work, and a great sense of loneliness as I had left my spouse to take on another long assignment via the work I loved—in the international development sector.

Along the walking mall named, Mother Teresa Boulevard, I fell in love with a lone willow tree.

Mother Theresa Boulevard, Prishtina, Kosovo

For me, the metaphor of a willow tree informs one’s need to bend and sway even in some of the most destructive winds---as a matter of survival. It inspired this thinking in me, and I like to think that each time I passed it, it imbued in me a kind of interpersonal strength as I would reflect on why I love willow trees so much.

In many cultures, the willow tree is a powerful symbol of flexibility, endurance, and adaptability. Its long, flowing leaves often look like they're shedding tears, which is why the weeping willow has also come to represent grief and mourning. The grief and mourning symbolism also were fitting for its location. Kosovo, as in many countries around the world including the Balkans, has had its share of historical conflict and collective trauma.

I was saddened, when I returned last Spring (May 2024) to Kosovo for a business as well as personal purpose, to see the tree had been removed since my previous time there only a few years prior. Reading through past writings—I came across this ode to the willow tree that I had written in 2011.

Ode to The Willow Tree on Mother Teresa Blvd

The wind moves the warm air in such a way as to make the willow tree look like it’s dancing. But how can one dance while weeping? Especially, if one is a willow tree?

“It doesn’t actually dance,” she continues to think in her dialogue with self as she walks the city for the innumerable time. “It sways.”

And in swaying the tree shakes off its grief, languid branch by branch and one tiny tearful leaf at a time—so gently, it sways, so that no one really notices how the tree suffers the pain absorbed from passersby so they might continue their walk free of sorrowful memories and other burdens.

It is how laughter keeps alive in the nightlife of Mother Teresa Boulevard—where children chase the colorful balloons given to them by the parents who dodge their own shadows.

Mother Theresa Boulevard at Night, Prishtina Kosovo

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