The tree ...

I’m a big fan of both nature shows and public broadcasting so, for me, an hour spent watching NOVA is akin to achieving nirvana. That said, one particular episode sent my mind reeling…It was about the oldest living organism on the planet: a tree. In particular, a 4,774 year old bristlecone pine located somewhere in the Inyo National Forest in the White Mountains of California near the Nevada border.

Let me say that again: a living tree that is 4,774 years old…meaning the darn thing germinated before the pyramids were even built! Biologists have named this specimen “Methuselah” after the biblical relative of Noah who presumably lived to be 969 years old. Whether or not you subscribe to that story is immaterial, however. For me, it was the notion of living so long – and experiencing so much -- that caught my imagination. I mean, you’d think in order to live for thousands of years you’d need to be nurtured and protected, right? Truth is, however, that this tree inhabits a desolate place: wind-scoured and drought-ridden. For me, it became a symbol of perseverance and resilience, a lot like the kids I’ve worked with and taught over the years…

Then this poem was shared on the video and it got me thinking...

Methuselah
Robert McGough

Men drop to the earth like leaves
lives as brief as footprints in snow.
Bristlecones enthroned on top of the world
watch civilizations come and go.
They seek our secret, immortality,
but search in vain, for its vanity.
If truth be known I would rather
be a flower, or a leaf that lives
and breathes with brief intensity.
My life is as thin as the wind
and I am done with counting stars.
On the side of this mountain
I might live forever,
could you imagine anything worse?
My name is Methuselah and this is my curse.

Literature is crammed with characters searching for immortality, the fear of death driving some of them to sell their souls. But Methuselah, he’s looking for relief from living. He’s seen enough. He wants to be done. And so I thought about what that would feel like: to lose so much, to bear witness to the suffering that necessarily accompanies this gift of existence and to do that over and over and over again…And what if a kid in one of my stories felt this way? What if, in his mind, he’d lived through something so horrible that he felt the burden -- the weight of what he’d experienced -- was too much to bear? What if he learned about this tree and became obsessed with the idea that living had become a curse? And what if another character in the same book saw things a whole lot differently and what he wanted out of life crashed up against what this other kid wanted from death? What would happen then???

Anyway, that’s the core (pun intended) of my current YA novel…It’s called *Sentenced to Life* and I’m working to have it ready for agents and editors in the next few months. While you’re waiting for that, check out the link here for more information on this amazing story of Methuselah… http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/methuselah/

Happy wondering~!