Tag Archives: the forest

I smashed the scary pumpkins because they probably had ghosts in them.

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pumpkin-time-2

I like to stroll through the forest when the winds begin to cause cool breezes and the temperature becomes a nice kind of chill. It is a relaxing way to spend time in the forest, and such temperature and winds seem to only exist briefly between the anger of the sun and stunning cold of the snow. It is not here for long, so I like to enjoy it as much as I can. Sometimes my strolls go a bit far, however. It is easy to lose track where I am and how long I have been spending to get there. Recently, the stroll led to that strange part of the forest where the long, flat black rocks start to appear, cushioned by many human caves and far less trees. It is a strange place, and I try not to go there often (mostly because of all the yelling), but just today, I found myself happily traversing the strange area.

I should have run away when I first saw the pumpkin. I know that now, but something about its smell and its orangeness made me want to see it closer. There were so many of them around this part of the forest, too. I thought it was strange, and I thought it was stranger that all of these pumpkins had been mutilated. Holes had been cut into their thick skin (imagine what kind beast it would take to do that with such precision and power!). The first one I saw was very close to a human cave. I approached it, smelled it, and then tried to see what was inside of it (obviously). I pushed my paw through the holes that were already there, and, strangely enough, it was completely empty. There was nothing inside. I chewed on the thick skin of the pumpkin as I pondered the possibility. Why was this pumpkin empty? Were they always so empty? I had definitely seen pumpkins that were not empty before (mostly in dumpsters), so why was there nothing in this one?

I thought I should go see what other pumpkins nearby were like. There were so many to choose from.

The next one was not empty. I could see it from far away as I stood still on the long, flat black rock, staring at the strange glow coming from the pumpkin. I crept towards it. I had to know why it was glowing. Was there a tiny sun inside? It looked like the same color from a distance. Was the pumpkin angry? That was certainly possible.

When I got a paw’s length away, I batted at the pumpkin. I was cautious. Then, I decided to look through one of the strange holes it had, where the light was shining from.

Inside was a tiny ball of light.

It was bright.

It was scary.

I growled at it as I hurled my paw at it. Clearly, this pumpkin had some kind of pumpkin ghost sitting inside of it, and it was definitely trying to scare me. I smashed the pumpkin with my paws until a human ran out of its cave, yelling at me and swatting a long stick with pine straws on it at me. I tried to tell the human that I was just saving it and its cave from a pumpkin ghost, but the human refused to hear my pleas. It continued to swat at me until I left.

I ran back to my cave. I knew I had done the right thing, even if who it was for could not appreciate it.

I am a bear.

If you would like to try being a bear, why not read some of the bear adventures available on this very site? 

For any questions or comments directed at Bear, feel free to write to him using this email: justasinglebear@gmail.com

You can also now use Tumblr to address questions to Bear. Also, you can find bear photos and such on Bear’s Instagram, and don’t forget to “like” Bear on the book of faces.

Something happened to the eggs I found.

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eggs-2

Today, I found some little eggs and put them on a soft pile of dirt and stuff in my cave and put leaves on top of them for warmth. I liked them all. They were all very similar looking but somehow also all unique in their own ways. I spent the day watching over the eggs, studying their tiny, minute differences and trying to understand where they were from and where they were going. I also named them. Trashcan was the one with the tiny scratch mark on the bottom half of the oval. Pinecone was, in my opinion, the pointiest one. And Tree was the most charismatic one.

I liked all of the eggs I found, and I had a great day getting to know them until very recently when something very terrible happened to them.

I had left my cave for awhile to enjoy the cool winds that were gliding through the forest. After letting my fur get a nice puffy aesthetic, I decided to go back to my cave to check in on my new responsibilities.

That is how seriously I was taking getting to know my eggs. See? I even called them my eggs. I expected these eggs to be a crucial part of life, even after having known them for just a morning. I had plans and visions of me taking care of them and ensuring their egg-ness for as long as eggs happen to be eggs. I was excited. I was looking forward to my life with the eggs.

When I got back to my cave, one was broken.

Trashcan was split asunder, his top bits spread about the tiny nest I had made. His gooey innards were spread about the nest. I was horrified.

My initial investigation led me to a theory involving ghosts. Nothing else made sense. But then Pinecone began to tremble. The ghosts were about to strike again, I initially thought.

Before I could ask Pinecone what was wrong, a bird swooped into my cave. It shrieked at me and pecked at my eyes and bit me and made me really upset. Then the bird grasped Pinecone and flew off.

I was so traumatized by what was going on that when I looked at Tree, it took a moment to realize that she, too, was trembling and shaking violently. I sat, shaken from the loss, and stared at Tree.

A tiny, featherless bird burst through the egg, sending shards of egg all about the nest. It made weak sounding chirps.

I knew then that I was fooling myself by coveting the eggs and hoping they would never do what eggs always do: burst into tiny birds and reptiles.

The large bird swooped in once more. With less pecking and shrieking, it grabbed Tree’s innards (a tiny bird) and flew away.

I have had a difficult, weird day.

I am a bear.

If you would like to try being a bear, why not read some of the bear adventures available on this very site? 

For any questions or comments directed at Bear, feel free to write to him using this email: justasinglebear@gmail.com

You can also now use Tumblr to address questions to Bear. Also, you can find bear photos and such on Bear’s Instagram, and don’t forget to “like” Bear on the book of faces.

Something yelled at me today.

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yelling-2

There many very scary things that populate the forest and cause a steady stream of anxiety and nervousness all the time. Spiders? Sure. Lots of spiders? Absolutely. Snakes? Always? Lots of snakes? It is guaranteed. Ghosts? Likely.

The list is unfathomably long and frustrating, and it makes me wonder how I, or any creature for that matter, manages to go about the forest on a daily basis without curling into a ball and weeping until all of the terror is gone even though the terror can never be gone so the curling and weeping would last indefinitely. I suppose it is something we have to accept and adapt to, but that does not make it any more pleasant.

At least when it comes to spiders and snakes and ghosts I get some kind of warning. I see the snake before I run from it. I feel the spider in my fur before I jump around and try to shake it off. I think I might be able to smell ghosts (not fully tested yet) before they go about their hauntings and whatnot. One of the more terrifying things about the forest does not give you sufficient advanced notice, however. It jumps at you and surprises you and makes everything feel terrible. It pierces your ears and ruins your relationship with whatever is the source of it. It is terrible and horrifying and I do not like it.

Being yelled at.

Nobody likes being yelled at, but that does not stop many things from yelling at many other things. I have been yelled at by trees, wind, humans, raccoons, opossums, falling rocks, snapping twigs, a very determined bee, and several pointy leaves.

I hate it.

And I never get used to it. It makes me feel small and helpless, and I immediately begin considering how I can not be yelled at. I run. I always run from yelling. It is the best option I know about, and, no matter how long I think about it, I cannot come up with a better way to handle being yelled at.

I have, for a very long time, figured that being the yeller must be pleasant. So many things yell at me, and they must all have a reason for doing so. They have to get something out of it.

I tried to yell at something today.

I did not know what to yell at. I did not want to yell at another creature or a tree or the sky because I did not want them to not like me and think I was angry at them or force them to try to eat me. So I decided that yelling at nothing was the best place for me to practice my yelling.

I sat in my dark cave. I stared at the darkness. The nothingness of it all. Here was a place to yell. Here was a place to let out a yell that had to have been boiling within, long awaiting to retaliate for all of the forceful yelling I had endured.

I let it out.

I yelled.

And then the cave yelled back and I whimpered and I ran and I have no idea if it was actually the cave or something inside the cave but either way I am not going back to my cave until daylight or until I know that the yelling will be stopped forever, please do not yell at me anymore cave, please, or whatever yelled at me, please, I am so sorry for yelling.

I am a bear.

If you would like to try being a bear, why not read some of the bear adventures available on this very site? 

For any questions or comments directed at Bear, feel free to write to him using this email: justasinglebear@gmail.com

You can also now use Tumblr to address questions to Bear. Also, you can find bear photos and such on Bear’s Instagram, and don’t forget to “like” Bear on the book of faces.

Things possibly related to something probably very important that I might have forgotten or maybe not.

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raccoon-bag-2

What thing did I forget that is probably related to the following list of various things that might be the details of the thing I might have forgotten probably?

  • A dumpster
  • Muddy, slippery ground
  • I slipped in some mud?
  • Feelings of inadequate height
  • The dumpster might have been taller than I am, and I do not like that about dumpsters because they are very difficult to climb into?
  • At least one baby raccoon
  • A very ripped up blue plastic bag
  • The raccoon was maybe inside the very ripped up blue plastic bag?
  • Lots of screeching
  • So much screeching
  • It hurt my ears, I know that
  • The moon looking very judgmental
  • The moon did not say anything, I doubt, but it looked very judgmental probably
  • Handling very fragile things
  • Moving things with my teeth, which are not very good for handling very fragile things
  • Moving very fragile things with my teeth even though I know that handling very fragile things with my teeth is not a great idea
  • Maybe the bag was fragile?
  • Maybe the baby raccoon inside the bag was fragile?
  • Oh, there are faint memories or even more screeching
  • It is difficult to stress just how much screeching there was
  • The baby raccoon was definitely contributing to the screeching
  • I think wanting to find a place for something was involved, but I do not know
  • Finding a very warm place to rest my face in my cave because I wanted to be warm
  • But I always want to be warm?
  • I think I found the baby raccoon in the blue bag
  • I was definitely very hungry during all of whatever this was
  • But I am always very hungry?
  • I wanted to help the baby raccoon
  • And it was inside a plastic blue bag and screeched a lot
  • The moon was just so judgmental
  • Why were you so mad at me, moon? What had I done to you?
  • So maybe it was night
  • That seems reasonable
  • The screeching is in my mind, though
  • And that baby raccoon
  • Oh no
  • I remember now
  • I had to find a warm place for that baby raccoon I found in the dumpster because it was very clearly very upset about being inside the dumpster and I think I left the blue bag and the baby raccoon in my cave
  • Oh no, the bag is still in the corner of my cave but the baby raccoon is not
  • Um
  • There is no baby raccoon anywhere
  • I checked all around my cave
  • And all over the place
  • Um
  • Well
  • Oops
  • I hope it is okay
  • It is, right?

I am a bear.

If you would like to try being a bear, why not read some of the bear adventures available on this very site? 

For any questions or comments directed at Bear, feel free to write to him using this email: justasinglebear@gmail.com

You can also now use Tumblr to address questions to Bear. Also, you can find bear photos and such on Bear’s Instagram, and don’t forget to “like” Bear on the book of faces.

How to tell if you are a ghost and what you can do about if you are.

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ghost-bear

Here is how you can tell you are a bear ghost and what you can do about it if you are:

  1. Examine your surroundings
  2. Ensure that your surroundings are as you generally perceive them on a regular basis
  3. If your surroundings seem as you generally perceive them, you are not a ghost bear
  4. If your surroundings seem strange or hazy or difficult to understand or leave you with a feeling like you have done something wrong that you deserve to face and understand, then ascertain that you are in your normal environment
  5. If you are not in your normal environment, the feelings mentioned previously might happen regardless of your state of ghostism (example: you might just feel bad because you woke up in a dumpster again)
  6. If you are in your normal environment and still feel the feelings mentioned previously then you must examine yourself
  7. If seeing your paws/fur/belly make you feel the same kind of dread mentioned previously regarding your environment, then your level of ghostliness is becoming very evident
  8. I made these rules up
  9. I made them up because I really do not know how to understand being a ghost and sometimes I think I might be a ghost
  10. I mean, I do not think being a ghost might be all that bad
  11. But I also do not know for sure that ghosts even exist
  12. Maybe they do not
  13. But maybe they do?
  14. Oh no, I have no idea
  15. I started this with such confidence, and I was certain that I knew what I was describing, but I really do not
  16. I have no idea what to do or say here
  17. I have to try again
  18. If you are a ghost, you can do things to help you not be a ghost
  19. Maybe
  20. Try not being a ghost?
  21. That makes no sense and works for nothing else
  22. You cannot just stop being a bear, you are always a bear
  23. I am a bear
  24. I am not a ghost
  25. I am really certain of it
  26. Now I am afraid that you do not believe me
  27. I promise you I am not a ghost
  28. Now I am more afraid of not being believed about my ghostism than I am of actually being a ghost
  29. I mean, if I am a ghost, then I do not mind being a ghost because I like being the whatever thing I happen to be right now
  30. But maybe being a ghost is actually terrible and I do not know because I am not a ghost
  31. I do not want to be a ghost
  32. Unless I am one already
  33. Please

I hope these instructions have helped you determine whether or not you are a ghost, and if you are a ghost, I hope you have more guidance for your general existence.

I am a bear.

If you would like to try being a bear, why not read some of the bear adventures available on this very site? 

For any questions or comments directed at Bear, feel free to write to him using this email: justasinglebear@gmail.com

You can also now use Tumblr to address questions to Bear. Also, you can find bear photos and such on Bear’s Instagram, and don’t forget to “like” Bear on the book of faces.

Sky tantrums.

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sky tantrum

The forest and the sky above it can get very angry on occasion, the past few days have exhibited that anger a great deal. Furious winds swept through trees and pulled branches and leaves and sharp rain cut through the dirt of the forest floor, turning it into untraversable plots of gritty mud. From my experiences, this kind of sky tantrum is common when the temperature of the forest climbs down from its summer tower and begins to calm itself leading into the more humble autumn. I have been through a great deal of sky tantrums myself, and I know all creatures in the forest have their own ways of handling these events.

Most creatures, particularly the tinnier ones, tend to hide under logs, rocks, human caves, dumpsters, and other creatures to protect them from the unnecessary anger of the wind. How birds carry themselves through sky tantrums is a bit of a mystery. I have never seen a bird successfully fly during one, but I also rarely see them perched among trees, their alternative to their routine flying. Maybe they hide with the other creatures? Maybe all birds crash into trees during these sometimes terrifying acts of the forest and then new birds are born from the remains the very next day? I hope that is not the case. That would be strange/scary.

I like to walk through it for as long as I can. I squint my eyes and grit my teeth and dig my claws into the ground as I make one laborious step after another. It feels refreshing to do this right after a blazing summer day, and there is something freeing about letting the rushing wind toss through my fur, despite knowing that at any moment that same wind could turn on me and hurt me.

That actually happened during this particular sky tantrum. The wind carried a very large, very pointy, very unsafe branch from a tree and hurled it directly at my face/ears/nose. It was not a pleasant feeling, and, for the briefest of moments, I thought I had met my end to the vengeful acts of the violent wind (I certainly do not blame the branch as it must have been just as terrifying for it to be carried so forcefully by the wind). It hurt, and as soon as I processed what was going on and realized that I was still a bear and not no longer a bear, I galloped back to my cave. I carried the branch with me. I was certain it, too, needed protection. From there, I rested on a cold rock and watched the water from the rain continue to attack the forest floor throughout the night, occasionally gnawing at my guest branch, which might have been rude but I never asked. It would be fun to nap in some of the puddles tomorrow, I thought to myself, and then I continued to chew on the branch.

I am a bear.

If you would like to try being a bear, why not read some of the bear adventures available on this very site? 

For any questions or comments directed at Bear, feel free to write to him using this email: justasinglebear@gmail.com

You can also now use Tumblr to address questions to Bear. Also, you can find bear photos and such on Bear’s Instagram, and don’t forget to “like” Bear on the book of faces.

You are a bear. Do not get ants in your nose.

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You are a bear. Living in the forest provides you with an array of fascinating smells, sights, and food. You live for the eclectic forest experiences that you collect on a daily basis. Every tree stump, abandoned cave, riverbed, bushel, and strange human structure offers a unique, amazing sensory overload.

Among these fascinating structures: an anthill.

You have never licked, smelled, clawed at, or even thought too deeply of anthills. Before today, you had never even seen an anthill that was idle, without ants. This anthill currently has no ants rummaging around the top of it. It is idle.

Without ants. At least ones you can see.

It is a very nice anthill.

You choose to…

I am afraid of being eaten and so should you.

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snake food (2)

There are many dangers in the forest. Angry berries can poison your belly. Pointy, sharp sticks can pierce your fur and skin and paws and tongue. Rocks might fall on you from above. You can trip into the river and get mocked by a deer. You can get sad. The sky might fall from itself only to consume you and embarrass you. A very unfriendly squirrel might ask you a question you cannot answer.

You can get eaten.

Being eaten is the really scary one. There is no telling when or even if a thing might want to eat you or whether or not that thing will actually decide to really eat you. It is a constant threat in the lives of all things in the forest. I have seen many things get eaten. I have even eaten many things (sorry, things I have eaten). I once saw a cluster of ants devour a bird who was very still and not very bird-like in what must have been a brief moment of bird weakness. The ants plucked away every bit of the bird’s outsides, leaving tiny innards and bones behind. As if the devouring was not enough to damage the weakened bird, another larger bird dropped from the sky and plucked the remains of the shattered bird, chewing and swallowing the bits and bones as it flew away.

That bird was eaten. And I am sure that bird was not fond of being eaten.

The image of that helpless bird being torn apart and spread out through different creatures of the forest haunts me and fuels my constant worry of being eaten.

Nothing thwarts that worry. I live in a constant state of not wanting to be eaten, and I am sure that almost everything else in the forest feels the same. After all, who is not vulnerable to being eaten? This becomes even more of a difficult concept for me to wrestle with when I consider all the things I eat. Berries, twigs, fish, the moss on my cave, flies who get very close to my nose, and even plastic bags I find all live in a similar state of fear because of me and other creatures who want to eat them. They all, too, probably invoke that fear into the things they eat. The forest perpetuates a strange cycle of anxiety through everyone being food for someone else. It makes me wish that eating, despite how fulfilling and lovely the act is, was not necessary. I wish we could all be the things we are without having to eat other things that the things they are.

But that probably is not going to happen, so maybe acceptance of the inevitability of being eaten is the next best option. It is not that easy, though. I do not want to be eaten. Nobody does, and even though I know it will probably happen one day, I really hope is does not. Until it does, though, I will probably obsess over it. I will spend too much of my time worrying about the possibility of it happening and the potential gory details that might result from it. It is silly to fret over something that is so wildly out of your control, but there is no helping it. I will always want to not get eaten.

I am a bear.

If you would like to try being a bear, why not read some of the bear adventures available on this very site? 

For any questions or comments directed at Bear, feel free to write to him using this email: justasinglebear@gmail.com

You can also now use Tumblr to address questions to Bear. Also, you can find bear photos and such on Bear’s Instagram, and don’t forget to “like” Bear on the book of faces.

PS

Please look at this bear thing that @lirien made. It talks what Bear talks:

I am very proud of my stick structure.

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stick structure (2)

I spent a very long time today creating a stick structure. It was made out of sticks. It was also made out of several other crucial building materials to ensure the integrity of the structure’s build (rocks, tiny rocks, dirt, leaves, some excess fur, and the uplifting encouragement of a buzzing bee who kept me company for awhile).

I had a great time creating my stick structure, and when it was completed, I felt incredibly proud. It sat in the cool dirt, taller than most of the blades of grass that surrounded its base, reaching for the lovely blue sky as its graceful design towered over the ants who were climbing into it, nipping at the leaves that supported the sticks.

Oh, there were lots of ants, but that did not diminish my love for the stick structure I had created. Even when they took a very important supporting twig that rested in the middle, tens of them gathering around it and carrying it off in baffling efficiency, I was not deterred from my lovely stick structure. As the top level sticks and bits of branch tumbled toward the bottom, making the whole structure much smaller than any blade of grass, I still admired it. I still adored how it managed to simply be even under the pressure of an insect invasion.

There was the mud, too. The mud got everywhere as soon as it began to rain. As the soggy, gritty dirt got thicker and more menacing, it swallowed up the bottom of my stick structure. The whole thing sunk into the ground, slowly but surely.

Still, I loved my stick structure. The top sticks might have fallen and the bottom sticks might have ventured underground and the middle supporting stick was long taken, but even all dilapidation taken into account, I still loved my stick structure.

Even as it sunk into the ground and the rain water washed it away into oblivion and it practically become nonexistent, I still loved it.

It was my stick structure.

And it had no practical use and it was actually more of a hindrance to create and try to maintain and even watching it fall into disrepair was upsetting and emotionally draining.

It was all of those things, and it was mine. I made it. Well, I helped make it (I suppose the forest did most of the original creating for the sticks and such).

Thank you, stick structure I made today. You were strange and, frankly, quite useless, but I liked you all the same.

 

I am a bear.

If you would like to try being a bear, why not read some of the bear adventures available on this very site? 

For any questions or comments directed at Bear, feel free to write to him using this email: justasinglebear@gmail.com

You can also now use Tumblr to address questions to Bear. Also, you can find bear photos and such on Bear’s Instagram, and don’t forget to “like” Bear on the book of faces.

Ants probably crawled in my nose, and I do not know why I let that happen.

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What have I done (3)

Anthills have very neat smells. I know this firsthand because I have smelled an anthill.

It smelled very lovely. The stinging aromatic bits of organized soil shot into my nostrils and, for just a brief, limited lovely piece of time, I experienced the many pleasing and eclectic smells that anthills have to offer. It was nice. I do not know if it was nice enough, however, to merit the much longer, seemingly unlimited horrible chunks of time that plagued my nose and mouth and face and other parts of me I cannot identify but can definitely feel.

The pain that irradiated throughout the face area of my body was only fueled by the anxiety and worry I felt about what was going inside of the face area of my body. What was going on in there? What or who was burning what part of me? Are there ants in me? Will they stay in me? Am I now a furry anthill for ants to live in forever and ever? Not relevant, but how many ants would it take to lift me like they lift small twigs together? Can they do that from within me? I hope not.

After a little bit of time (horribly long feeling time), I realized that the face area of my body was probably okay, and I most likely did not have ants in my face, making me a fuzzy, hair and skin based anthill. The feeling that settled in after I made this conclusion: embarrassment.

I did this. I made a choice to sniff an anthill. I knew what anthills were and what was inside them and the risks that came with smelling an anthill. I knew all of these things, and I still chose to sniff the anthill.

Why did I do that?

I am not sure what goes into decision making processes. Do I do things just because I am a bear and those things are just things that bears do? Do I do them because they need to be done and doing them keeps an important balance in the forest of which I am not aware? Do I just do things for the sake of doing things, and those things are determined by me and my motivations and thoughts?

I have no idea, and no matter how long I try to figure out which one of those answers makes the most sense, I am not able to figure it out. I do feel responsible for sniffing the anthill. I controlled my sniffing and everything else involved in making the decision, but beyond that, I am not sure why I did it and why I chose to do it knowing the consequences.

Regardless, I have to live with the aftermath of sniffing an anthill. The good and the bad of that action are mine to hold and understand, even I cannot do either very well.

Hopefully if there are ants in me, they at least like being there.

I am a bear.

If you would like to try being a bear, why not read some of the bear adventures available on this very site? 

For any questions or comments directed at Bear, feel free to write to him using this email: justasinglebear@gmail.com

You can also now use Tumblr to address questions to Bear. Also, you can find bear photos and such on Bear’s Instagram, and don’t forget to “like” Bear on the book of faces.