"Man is the only animal who refuses to be what he is," noted Albert Camus, seeker of meaning amid an indifferent universe. Which always sent me spiraling into contemplation about acceptance and giving in to human nature. But there is another facet to Camus' observation: what if plants and animals tried to be more than they are?

One of the most fascinating and delightful discoveries of recent eras has been the symbiotic nature of trees: their language, friendships, and alliances, which keep themselves, and the forests alive. It might be chemically induced, but their actions, at least in sum, feel like acts of consciousness.

No stretch, then, to toss our human empathy outward until it lands on a little tree, a significant being by its singular survival from millions of seeds... 

From the mind and hand that gave us Amanda Gorman's illustrated anthem of social change and the beloved Otis series comes this delight, Loren Long's Little Tree.

Once there was a little tree, filled with little leaves,
who was surrounded by other little trees,
who had little leaves of their own...

In the heat of the long summer days, Little Tree's leaves kept him cool. The squirrels would climb up on his branches to play. The mourning dove landed in him and sang her flutey song. Little Tree was sure to grow up big and strong.

Change comes to us all, change in nature is synonymous with autumn. "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, a close-bosom friend of the maturing sun..." wrote Keats in his last great ode to the mellow and full season.  As he was nearing the end of his almost mind-bending four-month, non-stop creation of The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck wrote heavily in his diary: "The air has the feeling of autumn," and we nod in recognition. The over-wrought emotions of autumn are enough to send any little tree into paralysis, stasis.

Autumn arrived and cool winds filled the air. The wind tickled the little tree as it passed through his branches and ruffled his leaves. The air grew cold and the leaves on all the trees changed color, becoming yellow, red, and orange.

Then one by one, the trees began to drop their leaves.

But not Little Tree. He just hugged his leaves tight.

The seasons continued to come and go. "Little Tree," quacked a duckling, "your leaves are brown. Are you feeling sick?" But Little Tree just hugged his leaves tight.

[...]

Little Tree looked up at the other trees, at their branches reaching high into the sky. He remembered when all the trees had been his size.

And then he let go.

As his last leaf floated to the ground, for the first time, Little Tree felt the harsh cold of winter.

And then something happened...

For all the little trees, humans, adults, dogs, kittens, and other specimens of this world, who ache to be more than they are, or sometimes, even less than they are: this is a beautiful story of being and becoming. It is also the story of elders: those who came before show us the way. In our current cult of young, youth, newness, and erasure of things past - remember, the old were once young, too.  

Speaking of elders: read Wendell Berry (he is inching towards 89) on the wholeness of forests, David Attenborough (he just completed 97 rotations around the earth) on the irreplaceable value of ecological diversity, and Annie Dillard (she is almost 80) on the ancient but never old stillness of being present in nature. How many leaves are shed in the lifetime of a tree? How many circles have grown, and how many seeds have flown? What a thing to become who we are!