There’s a single aspen on the hill. It’s bent halfway up, kinked in the gentlest of turns. But since it’s a tree trunk, whatever sent it in that new direction must have possessed quite the force.

Aspens exist in large stands that contain hundreds (sometimes thousands) of trees. But they are uniquely interconnected in a way that means they exist as one. The “Trembling Giant” in Utah is a stand of aspens covering 106 acres. it’s also known as Pando, and it is genetically one organism.

If many trees exist as one, then what happens when they are alone, like this one on the side of the road? Do they miss their fellow creatures? Do they wonder at their smallness, their single trunk? Do they fear the silence that comes from not hearing the news reports from their fellow trees through the mychorrizal network? Because they do that - communicate through the fungi that coat the roots. They have an internet of fungi.

Social is not the same thing as connected, but there are parallels. If a creature is capable of thriving amongst its brethren, then what happens when that condition isn’t met? Does it merely survive? Like this one, it’s leaf-coins fluttering in the wind from branches both straight and bent?

Maybe it’s a loner, an introvert tree. Maybe it would rather have the space to stretch its branches. Anthropomorphism aside, even creatures of the same species can have different personalities. A school of fish could have one with a twinkle in its eyes. Or a wolf pup that lags behind to smell the daisies.

I would like to think the same is true of plants. That there’s a fireweed racing to the site of a recent blaze just to get there first. That there’s a columbine reaching its petals a little wider just for the stretch of it.

But perhaps that aspen on the side of the highway was just the first of many. Maybe its seeds found just the right creche in which to become what it is, fighting against whatever bent its trunk.

Maybe all of that will lead to this one tree releasing its seeds and whispering to them to fly. Maybe they will land nearby, find their own places to flourish, and slowly build a network of roots through which they will speak of the radiant baths of sunshine and the sorrow of a bitter winter. Perhaps that one will become many and they will feed each other not as parents and children…