Once there was a tree, and she loved a little boy..
I always saw the tree as a more willing participant than the boy in the relationship, and I saw the boy as needy. As time has gone on however, I have recognized the almost symbiotic relationship that had developed. The boy had wants, and the tree was always willing to oblige in exchange for the love from the boy. As Plato would call it Agape, but nonetheless there was selfless love between the boy and the tree .
The boy never took from the tree without first stating his wants. Did he ever come to the tree and say, "I'm taking this from you, you have no say."? He always presented the tree with his current dilemma, and the tree was more than willing to accommodate in every instance. What use did the tree have for apples or branches anyways?
Some may argue that the tree was saddened when the boy used the trunk to build a boat. Honestly, I believe the tree was saddened at the acknowledgment that the boy was himself sad and would be gone for quite some time sailing far away, not saddened however that the tree would now be a mere stump in the forest. The tree's despair came at the thought of losing the boy to the rest of the world, and not at the tree losing that which makes it a tree.
When the boy returned as a very old man, the tree was not bitter, but jubilant at the thought of providing the man with a place to rest his weary bones. The mere suggestion that the stump was an adequate place to provide the rest the old man was now seeking was an extension of the trees undying love for the little boy he once knew. How fitting that they both were nearing the end of their respective life cycles, both gaining that which they thought they could never have. The tree accepting the man for what he had become, watching his unexpected return fully materializing, and the man finding the rest that only the love from the tree could provide.
Or maybe it's just a child's book, and I'm reading too much into it. All my life, I would like to be the tree.
The boy never took from the tree without first stating his wants. Did he ever come to the tree and say, "I'm taking this from you, you have no say."? He always presented the tree with his current dilemma, and the tree was more than willing to accommodate in every instance. What use did the tree have for apples or branches anyways?
Some may argue that the tree was saddened when the boy used the trunk to build a boat. Honestly, I believe the tree was saddened at the acknowledgment that the boy was himself sad and would be gone for quite some time sailing far away, not saddened however that the tree would now be a mere stump in the forest. The tree's despair came at the thought of losing the boy to the rest of the world, and not at the tree losing that which makes it a tree.
When the boy returned as a very old man, the tree was not bitter, but jubilant at the thought of providing the man with a place to rest his weary bones. The mere suggestion that the stump was an adequate place to provide the rest the old man was now seeking was an extension of the trees undying love for the little boy he once knew. How fitting that they both were nearing the end of their respective life cycles, both gaining that which they thought they could never have. The tree accepting the man for what he had become, watching his unexpected return fully materializing, and the man finding the rest that only the love from the tree could provide.
Or maybe it's just a child's book, and I'm reading too much into it. All my life, I would like to be the tree.