The leaves are beginning to turn into lovely brown and orange colors. The crisp green tree ends fall and tumble to the ground, and by the time they land they have converted to a soothing orange, brown color. The tree tops slowly follow, and then one day it feels as though the entire forest has changed its wardrobe, adjusting its appearance to match the overall tone of the season (or maybe its appearance contributes to the overall mood of the season?). It really is nice, and when coupled with chill winds that come around this time, it easy to relax and enjoy living in the forest.
Generally I can hold on to that nice feeling for a few days before I begin to get a little upset with the orange and brown leaves and the nice winds and the pleasantness of everything. I try to ease my own bearself into feelings of this sort of forest dwelling, but my efforts are so quickly diminished by my own greedy wants.
I want to be orange.
Not all of the time, of course, but I do want to try to be orange. Or brown. Or any color really. I would like some kind of change. Any kind of change. But my fur stays the same jet black it usually is all the time.
Why?
Why do I not get to be orange?
I like my black fur, please understand. I love the way it looks when my fuzziness is particularly active, and I love the way it looks when there is water soaked into it, and I love the way it gets a nice sort of shine when I roll around in the dirt long enough. I do, really I do, love my fur. But why is that the only fur I get to have? So many things in the forest get to have different colors and hues and other subtle variations of themselves, but I do not. I never get to be any bear but the bear I am, and sometimes I even doubt that I really get to be that bear, too (which is another, totally different subject).
I tried to fix the ordeal recently by eating a very large collection of leaves I had accumulated over the weeks. They were orange and green and brown and grey and broken and whole and everything a leaf really could be, the many lovely variations of which leaves are capable.
I ate them all.
I do not know why, but I thought perhaps if I ate the leaves, I could mimic their colorations. I was very wrong. I did not turn orange. I did not turn any color. My tummy began to hurt. Then the leaves came back up. And they had turned into a different color I had never seen before. And it was not a nice color.
I suppose I cannot change colors, but I can change the color of leaves (kind of). Life in the forest can be very odd.
If you would like to try being a bear, why not read some of the bear adventures available on this very site?
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