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Am I too much bear?

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bear echo (2)

Am I too much bear? Does my bearness have a maximum capacity that I sometimes overflow with fuzziness and sniffing dirt and eating acorns and rolling in grass (you know, bear things)? It is hard to say. I often feel that I am exactly the right amount of bear. While my weight seems to fluctuate according to sticks I like to step on, perhaps measurements of bearness cannot be collected in common physical data. Maybe bearness is something intangible. A feeling you can’t put your paw on.

I took to surveying some fellow forest dwellers to get their input on my bearness. The results were mixed, as one would expect.

Badger:

‘Q’

‘You are a bear…I suppose a bear of an acceptable size. Does that answer your question? No? Then I don’t know what to tell you. I’m going back to digging. Sorry I couldn’t help.’

Rob (the squirrel):

‘Q’

Rob (the squirrel) replied with that strange barking sounds squirrels make and scurrying up a tree. Then he threw an acorn at me, but I dodged it. This seemed to frustrate him so he ran away. I am still trying to interpret this answer.

Rabbit:

‘Q’

‘If I tell you, I will need a favor in return. You have to promise. I’ll give you all the info you want regarding your own bearness, but there is something you much help me with. Agreed? Good. Shake on it…’

Apparently my bearness was too much for the rabbit. He stopped talking (and moving) after our pawshake. I even waited for a long time for him to say or do anything again. Nothing. I suppose I bored him.

Another Rabbit:

‘Q’

‘I’d love to answer your existential question but I’m in quite some rush. A friend, and I use the term “friend” loosely, stole a rather impressive gathering of apples I had amassed in my burrow and hid them from me.’

‘Q’

‘Sure I can tell you what he looked like. He looked like me. Long ears, furry tail, etc. Seen him? No? Okay, well if you do, you come find me. Thanks.’

Opossum:

‘Q’

‘Hhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeccccccccccccccc  Hisssssssssssss Rrrrrrgrgrrgrgrgrg Heeeeeeeeececeecec.’

I probably should not have asked my question while the opossum was in a dumpster.

Raccoon:

‘Q’

‘Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr’

I probably should not have asked my question while the raccoon was in a dumpster.

Dumpster:

‘Q’

Unfortunately, the dumpster did not have a verbal or physical response. It was actually a nice change of pace compared to the hissing.

The sky:

‘Q’

‘Am I too much bear bear ear r r r’

The sky, too, did not have an understandable response, but I did hear my echo in the vastness of its everything above. As my words bounced off the sky and spread as far my ears could hear, all throughout the forest, I realized that the degree of my bearness is actually irrelevant compared to just about everything else in the forest. This is why I received few revealing responses. Nobody is worried about me being a bear or how much of a bear I am. Only I am worried about such things. Only I care about my bearness. It is a little sad to realize how small I am even when compared to the daily thoughts and opinions of (physically much smaller) woodland creatures. I suppose my self-important questioning deserved the hisses it mostly received. I want my being a bear to mean something, to be important on some grand forest scale, but it just is not.

It is a relief, too, though. There is no huge role to fulfill or some grand journey to pursue. I am just a bear. There is not much more to the idea than that.

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

Sometimes I wonder what is inside of me.

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sun heart

I can hear a lot of commotion in me. Things moving and beating and pumping. I do not know what any of it is or why it is there. I assume it is important, but I have no concrete way of knowing. I remember thinking about these things aloud in front of Rob (the squirrel) one day. I mentioned how I had no idea why my body made so much noise, and I said that I wanted to know what all of it was for. He told me that his body did the same, and that all living bodies do the same. Then he related a grotesque story to me about a time he slept next to an old, tired raccoon one winter night because it was warm. It was not warm the next day, and all the sounds and movement associated with being alive had ceased to be in the raccoon.

I asked Rob (the squirrel) why he had slept next to a raccoon in the first place. Was it just because of its warmth? His response was tossing an acorn at my nose and running.

His strange (but admittedly interesting) story did give me some insight as to why all this noise is inside me and all living things, evidently. Being alive meant noise. Having noise and motion and grumbles and tumbles inside of you meant you were alive.

But what is in there? I know whatever it is, it moves, but what is it? I have thought about this question for quite some time, and I have a few (completely unverified) theories.

One idea I have had is that everything in me (and presumably you as well) is just another smaller version of me. Perhaps there is a tiny me inside of me trying to understand what all the noise outside of me is. Maybe it too has the idea that the outside of itself is a bigger version of itself trying to figure out what is inside of itself. I like to think that there might even be a whole forest in there, something huge for the inside me to explore and understand. I hope there are not as many squirrels in there, however. The idea of a population of tiny squirrels inside of me scares me, though it would explain any time my body is ill in any way.

I have also considered the idea of there being a tiny sun in me. I like the sun, and it seems like an important part of the sky. It also keeps me warm, which is nice. Whatever is inside me seems to help keep me warm as well, and I believe it is safe to assume that all the bits and pieces inside of me are vital to making me me. Consider a tiny sun inside of your body, glowing and keeping everything warm. Does it go away at night like the sun out here does? Does a moon replace it, providing the smallest amount of light and warmth while I sleep? Perhaps the same inexplicable aspects of the sun that keep everything warm happen inside of me, all the time.

Of course, none of these ideas really hold up when I consider what little of the inside of me I have actually seen. Recently, I climbed a tree and misjudged a branch that I wanted to rest on. It snapped and I fell. It hurt, but I was fine except for a gash above my paw where I had landed on a very sharp rock. Red water flowed out of it. There was no tiny me or tiny sun gloriously oozing from my wound. It was just liquid, and it hurt.

I licked the opening above my paw, saddened by evidence contrary to everything I hoped about the inside of me. There might still be a sun inside of me. I still do not know for sure, but I do know it is nice to consider 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

A cricket slept in my mouth.

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cricket

I do not know how I look when I fall asleep. I like to believe that my pristine fur calmly rests against the cool rock floor of my cave while my heavy, slow breathing gently vibrates through the forest’s night air. According to Rob (the squirrel), who has watched me sleep many times for reasons he will not explain to me, my entire body twitches as I rustle around on the ground, tossing and turning throughout the night and making sounds that are somewhere between growls and desperate gasps for air. Regardless as to which one is true, I would think it must be difficult for any creature to find a reliable place for repose near me while I sleep.

Yet one has.

I recently woke up to find something sleeping in my mouth. At first, I was unable to determine what the lumpy, salty mystery in my mouth was. I was tempted to just eat it (as I do with most lumpy, salty mysteries I find in or out of my mouth), but something told me to stay my jaws and wait. After a long morning of an open, dry jaw, I finally felt the tiny intrusion slip from my face. After shutting my mouth to let a torrent of soothing saliva rescue my tongue, I sniffed the ground below me.

What I found was a small cricket.

Perhaps small is not the right way to describe it (I have no idea if this cricket was small by cricket standards, but I do know that all crickets are small compared to me, trees, the sky, and even most mice). It was definitely a cricket, however small or big it might have been. It made a lovely chirping sound at me and then hopped away before I could ask any questions.

I did not put much more thought into the situation for the rest of the day. I was glad I had not accidentally eaten the cricket, but I also found its intrusion to be a tad bit inconvenient and somewhat unsettling.

Night came. I slept.

Day came. I woke up.

The cricket was in my mouth again.

I did not wait all morning to see if it would simply jump out this time. Instead, my tongue was its alarm clock as I pushed the cricket out of my mouth. It seemed startled, it chirped at me, and then it went on its way.

I must have made my point. The cricket never slept in my mouth again. I, at first, felt no remorse for my actions against the cricket. It was okay to sleep in my cave, I told myself, but I found it difficult to abide one sleeping inside my mouth without my explicit permission.

As the thought lingered in my mind, however, I contemplated how I sleep. I have never once asked my cave (and is not audacious for me to claim it my cave?) if I could sleep inside of it. I have napped on top of many things without explicit permission: dumpsters, abandoned campsites, piles of leaves, moss, a family of opossums (only once and by complete accident and nobody was permanently injured), on tree branches, and even under the sky.

I have never asked any of these things if I could have the privilege of using their personal vessels as my personal bed. And many of these things (except for the opossums anyway) tower in size compared to me as I did the cricket. I felt no need to ask something so massive for permission to rest on or under or inside of it, so why would the cricket feel it had to do the same with me?

I began to regret my hasty actions against the cricket, and I even considered how easy it could be for me to experience the cricket’s plight. After all, what could stop the cave in which I sleep from one day choosing to spit me out as I had done to the cricket?

Nothing.

Should the cave do so, I would be forced to leave.

The night of the same day I forced the cricket from my mouth, I went to sleep with my mouth open. Intentionally. I was awake for quite some time, waiting and hoping the cricket would show up and rest where it once must have felt so comfortable.

The cricket never came.

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?

I found a chair.

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chair

The forest is cluttered with a variety of wonderful objects that are not native to the forest. Some of them are completely harmless (donuts, tents, wind). Some of them seem to serve no purpose to the forest (tires, chairs, strange birds). And some are downright bad for the forest’s overall well being (the deer across the river). Throughout my travels of the forest, I have found a great number of these curious artifacts. I almost always stop to inspect them. Sniff them. Lick them. Stare at them. However, no matter how I approach these objects, nearly all of my interactions with them have one thing in common: I usually accidentally break them.

I never mean to end the life of the strange objects I find in the forest, but I almost always do. Take, for example, a lovely plastic chair I recently stumbled upon. It was a beautiful red color, some of it fading into a more orange hue from exposure to the sun. It had to have been in the forest for quite some time, so I felt beckoned to examine it beyond a simple glance from afar.

I approached the chair.

It was still, so I was assured that any further poking around would not be met with some kind of violent reaction from the chair.

I sniffed it.

It smelled like dirt. It also smelled a little bit like insects (not any specific kind that I could detect).

I licked it.

Dirt. Again. Also insects. Again. I think I could taste the sun on it, too, but then again, I am not entirely certain what the sun actually tastes like (though I have my theories).

The chair was withstanding nearly every part of my normal investigation pattern: approach, sniff, lick. I only had one step left: sit. I frequently find myself trying to sit on new things I find in my ever vigilant search for the most comfortable things in the forest. Was this chair going to be comfortable? At the time, I had no idea, but I had to know.

So I sat on the chair.

It was nice for a moment. A brief moment. Then the tiny legs of the chair snapped and I found myself hurtling toward the ground. It was not a long trip from the top of the chair to the ground, but it was long enough to frighten me and send me running off into the forest. At the time, I did not know that this action was me actually killing the chair by accident. I had to run away just in case this was the chair’s way of trying to kill me on purpose.

I hid behind a tree for awhile.

When I felt like it was safe to come out, I did. The chair was still broken. Its sad cracked legs were shattered. Pieces of them were scattered around the forest floor. I felt guilty.

I put the broken chair through the same process of investigation as I had the whole chair (approach, sniff, lick, sit). This was to ensure that the chair did not change its mind about not being violently reactive to something after becoming a broken chair.

It did not break again when I sat on it the second time, but it was clear that I had left a significant amount of damage from my investigation.

I like finding new things in the forest. I like investigating those new things, too, but I wish I knew a more effective, less damaging manner of doing so. I am sorry, chair that I broke. Also, I am sorry, everything else I have sat on by accident or on purpose. That includes you, the opossum who was nesting in my moss collection. It was an accident, opossum. I promise.

I just want to know more about where I live, and I hope I can learn how to do so in ways that do not leave chairs and opossums upset and/or crushed.

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?

The sky is so violent but colorful.

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FIREWORKS

Just the other day, the night sky was screaming in color over its own black emptiness. It was extremely alarming at first. I was sitting in my cave, rolling the rib of a rabbit skeleton on the ground as I waited for sleep, when, very abruptly, a loud crashing sound echoed through the night sky and bounced off the walls of my empty cave.

I ran outside to check what could cause such a disturbance. My first guess was thunder, a sound with which I am familiar but still keeps me awake when it is being particularly cranky. But this sound was a little different from thunder. It was more continuous. More abrupt. More colorful.

When I got outside, the popping and crashing sounds came again. More this time, too. I looked up. The sky was filled with amazing colors that are not very common in the forest. The only things that come close to these colors in the forest are reptiles in various stages of anxiety, grief, or happiness. The sounds and the colors kept coming. Straight lines of white and gold zipped into the air. Each would then burst into a cloud of smoke and sharp looking color. It was hypnotizing. It was also terrifying. Unnatural yet oddly appropriate.

This was not the first time I have seen these strange lights and sounds, though. It happens on occasion, but it always takes me by surprise. I do not know where they come from or why they are ever here. I do not know why they are still slightly terrifying. I do not know why I like them so much.

The first time I remember hearing and seeing them is a distant memory at this point. I remember that my cave was still new to me. I had just recently found it (it came with several piles of lovely moss and a mouse who eventually died one winter later). I was trying my best to be comfortable in my new habitat when the violent sounds ripped through the sky. I was so terrified that I decided to put my paws over my ears and wait for the sounds to go away. After a long while, however, I realized they were going to keep going. I decided to investigate. The colors were so foreign to me then (just as they are now, frankly). I stared all night. They eventually died down, but I stayed outside of my cave until the sun rose. For a brief moment, I was hoping that the sun, too, would shout some violent colors in the sky. It did not. It made its usual warm, glowing color and sounds.

I still have no idea what causes these strange lights and sounds. I wish I did. I wish I understood their purpose and place in the forest. Maybe one day I will go following them. I will follow the sounds and the sights. I will try to locate exactly from where they are coming. I will make a discovery and expand my understanding of something strange to me.

Or maybe I will just let them continue being a mystery. A mystery which I will take pleasure in knowing that I will never really know anything about 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?

I stepped on something crunchy.

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bear paw

It is difficult for me to take the time needed to understand everything happening beneath my paws. As I walk through the forest, I surely step on many different living things: bugs, grass, dirt, glass bottles, and tiny sticks. All of these things are smashed and smeared by the tough, rugged skin on the bottom of my paws. Most of the time, I can deal with ignoring the sounds of these unfortunate beings, but sometimes they crawl through my ears and take unforgiving space in my mind.

Recently, I finally stopped to see what I could do about my intrusive paw stomping. As I left my cave, I took one step on the grassy ground and then immediately stopped. I then hurled my nose into the meeting place of my being and the ground. I searched for any living things. I shouted to all possible survivors, asking them to make some kind of sound to indicate that they were okay with my paw being here. I even asked the dirt that was being dug up by my claws how it was doing.

No response.

Not a single sound came from that tiny section of earth. For a moment, I deducted that I had just been overanalyzing everything about this situation. Nothing on the ground minds me being on the ground, too, I told myself.

I went on about my day.

A few paces later, I stopped in my tracks again and realized: the silence of the forest floor might have been caused by me. Of course no creatures made any sounds upon my request, I had been the one who silenced them all.

I ran back to the entrance of my cave and began to search for that first step of the day. As my paws slammed against the ground to make my way back to the origin of my destructive path, I mumbled apologies and begged for forgiveness. I even tried to keep my feet in my old tracks as to minimize the overall damage, an ultimately pointless effort as I ended up breaking several different plants by accident, not to mention the countless bugs and other lifeforms I likely disturbed or destroyed.

When I got to my first paw print, I hurled my nose into the dirt once more. I wanted to know what kind of mark I had left. Was it repairable? Did it leave the natives of that patch of dirt in disarray? Was I a monster? Did I need to spend the rest of my days in my cave, never stepping into the forest again? Could I live in trees instead? Would the trees mind that? Of course they would, they are trees and deserve to be left alone.

I could not find anything beyond the smashed dirt. I definitely killed the dirt in that part of the forest, but killing dirt to get by was something I had accepted a long time ago. I could not see any bugs, plants, or other creatures whom I had destroyed by accident.

I want to live as peaceful of an existence as I can. I know sometimes I will eat some bees or accidentally sit on a bird’s nest that got knocked down from a tree (I am so sorry, bird eggs), but I have to keep trying to ensure that my existence cooperates with everything else that exists in the forest. Everything (except for the deer across the river) deserves to live without being stepped on by something much larger than it. I hope dirt does not mind us all killing it all the time, but maybe that is how dirt lives its own peaceful 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?

Fuzziness matters.

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rubs (2)

Fuzziness is an important aspect of who I am and how I see myself as an individual creature of the forest. My ears are fuzzy. My belly is fuzzy. My neck is fuzzy. Even my paws are fuzzy, which is strange considering they are also leathery and tough. Paws are strange, but we are not here to discuss paws. We are here to discuss fuzziness.

How do I maintain the fuzziness of my fur? This is an important question for any creature who is given the gift of a thick coat of lovely hairs. I cannot speak for all creatures of the forest, but my fuzziness is maintained through a regiment of important daily processes.

Allow me to elaborate.

I spend a great deal of time every single morning rubbing my fur onto something with an interesting texture. Sometimes I seek out the smooth edges of a pebbles to help slick back my fur. Other times I look for something jagged and scratchy like the side of a tree or the side of a rusted dumpster. These rough textures also help alleviate various itches I might feel at the base of my fur. They ruffle my fur, too, making my fuzziness much more messy than usual, but the feeling of the means are worth the awkward looking ends.

I once dragged an old, ragged piece of a carpet I found into my cave. I spent a great deal of time rubbing all of my fur against it. It was one of the best things I had ever found in a dumpster, and I loved every minute I spent with my fur practically glued to its surface. Unfortunately, I eventually had to dispose of that prize after several raccoons ate most of it. I stopped them from completely devouring it, but what was left was hardly enough to maintain my fuzziness.

Water is also important part of fuzziness. Though fur smells incredible after rolling around and basking in many weeks’ worth of forest odors, it is occasionally nice to refresh and revitalize that fur with some clear, cool river water. At first, it seems counterintuitive. When fur is wet, it ceases to have fuzziness. It becomes drenched and loses everything that defines fuzzy. Once the water dries, however, the fuzziness feels crisp, clean, and brand new. I do this process minimally, though. I have a great deal of pride in the collection of smells and debris I collect as I traverse through the forest, and I do not take lightly the idea of trading all of that in just for some wet fur.

Furthermore, this process also means having to see the deer across the river. Oh, how vile that creature is with its ghastly, empty stare. It knows what it did. It will never forget what it did. I will never forget what it did.

I apologize for the digression.

Another great way to maintain fuzziness is to seek out a symbiotic relationship with another creature and/or find a very good friend. For a very long time, no less than three mice (one large one and two tiny ones) resided in a tuft of fur on my back. Their warmth and tiny hands soothed and combed my back fur. I did not let them go uncompensated, too. As often as I could, I would toss small berries or patches of grass onto the tuft by slinging them with my mouth. This beautiful relationship lasted until the tiny mice outgrew the large mouse. They ended up arguing and fighting over the rations of berries and grass. The quarrels became so terrible that their violent squeaks would keep me up at night. I finally evicted them from my body lying on my side and shaking. They quickly scattered into the forest, which was unfortunate because I would have liked to at least formally meet them before they left for good.

I sometimes ask other forest creatures if they would be willing to fill in where the mice left off, but I can find no takers. Those relationships are rare, so if you are lucky enough to find one, make sure you nurture it to the best of your abilities.

Fuzziness matters. It is not simply an issue of aesthetics either. How my fur interacts with my environment says a lot about who I am, and I truly hope all other creatures of the forest take their fuzziness as seriously as I do.

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?

What was before bears?

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tree bearness

I have no idea what came before bears. If I had to guess, I would say lots of things. Trees seem older than bears. I bet trees were around long before bears. Maybe ants? Ants seem like they have been around much longer than bears. The sky. There is no way any bear has been around longer than the sky.

I suppose trying to figure out all of the things that came before bears is a little too grand of a task. After all, it seems like everything is older than bears, especially mold, rocks, and most frogs (their wisdom proves that). I need to narrow down my line of questioning.

What was before bears that led to bears?

I have no idea what was before bears that led to bears. I have some guesses, but that is really all they are: guesses. I do not have any hard evidence like bear bones I dug up or a lovely picture of an old bear.

Bear-trees. That is one of my hypotheses. I think it might be possible trees and bears used to be one thing at one time, a very very long time ago. I feel connected to trees in an inexplicable way. They are so silent and so peaceful and so nice about me chewing on them, collecting their stick children for further chewing, and letting me have the moss on their sides for possible chewing. Trees give. Maybe I am being too self-centered, but sometimes I feel like trees give specifically to me (and presumably all bears). That connection feels ancient. It feels like trees have been giving to bears since before bears were even bears and trees were even trees. So that leads to me thinking that maybe a very, very long time ago we were one thing.

I know this is hard to visualize, but it is very nice to think about. The peaceful, giving life of a tree is something I understand, so it makes sense to me that bears and trees might have once shared lives.

Another guess I have about what was before bears that led to bears is based around another thing that feels ancient and old to me. Dirt. Maybe bears are just fuzzy dirt. Dirt seems like it has been around for everything. Just ask it. Dirt even manages to be more silent and peaceful than trees. I have a myth in my brain that involves dirt realizing it wanted to try being more than dirt by being like all the creatures and non-dirt things that step all over it all the time. In this myth I made up, dirt decides to be a thing that is still rather silent and peaceful but gets to be fuzzy and eat fish. So some of dirt becomes the first bear. That might be me just making up stories, but would it not be so pleasant to consider it true? Maybe everything comes from dirt like that.

Trees and dirt are nice, but I do think those two ideas are more me trying to find commonality in the things I admire about the forest and less about what was actually before bears that led to bears. My practical guess for this situation that I do not truly understand is that all bears came from smaller bears. This line of thinking seems the most reasonable (and boring) to me. As much as I like to believe that I am the product of trees and dirt, I have a feeling that I am actually the product of just some other, smaller bear. A bear that is tiny and helpless and trying to figure out the forest just like I am. A bear that wants to be of trees and dirt and not an even smaller bear. A bear that likes tiny fish in tiny rivers and collects tiny rabbit skeletons. I suppose that is not so awful. It is not as magnificent as dirt and trees, but it is nice to think about a creature that is like me in every way but just tiny.

I will probably never actually know what led to bears, what was before bears, or why I feel more connected to dirt and trees than I do anything else in the forest. I like not knowing, though. It lets my brain wander into things that might or might not be, and who knows if I would be able to do that if I actually knew the answers to all of these questions.

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?

I took a nap on some ants.

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ants (2)

I took a nap on some ants. I did not do so out of malice. In fact, it was never my intention to sleep on ants at all. Sometimes, when spontaneous naps strike you, the number of ideal places to lay your fuzzy head dwindle. A bear (me, for example) must work with what is around them. In this case, what seemed to be comfiest place on the forest floor was an ant hill.

The tiny mound looked soft and inviting. Little did I know, my carelessness would cause a kingdom to fall.

I woke to the sound of hundreds of tiny voices crying out in terror, pining over the destruction of their home. I sat up to survey the damage. It was severe and undeniably horrible.

What had I done?

A few surviving colonists clung to my nose. Some were frantically shouting in my face. A few were biting me. But the pain they inflicted upon my muzzle was nothing compared the remorse that filled my heart.

I begged for their forgiveness, but there was none to be had. The ants could not let this atrocity go unpunished. With tears welling in my eyes, I accepted whatever fate the small insects had planned for me. There was much deliberation over what course of action to take.

After what seemed like an eternity of silence, one of the ants simply said, “You must rebuild, bear. Make right your wrongs.”

I agreed. I told them it was only fair. Reconstruction would begin immediately (after I finished my nap, of course). Tiny cries of protest ringed in my ears. Some more nose biting occurred.

Realizing I would not get to complete the grievous act that led to my punishment in the first place, I set out into the forest to find supplies. I came back with the essentials for any reconstruction

  • Leaves
  • Six sticks
  • Napkins covered in some kind of spicy sauce
  • Three ribs from a rabbit skeleton I had been saving for a special occasion
  • Dirt in an empty aluminum can that I chewed on

I placed the tools on the ground before the displaced ants.

“What’s this?” asked one of them.

Certain these ants had never encountered such items (with the exception of dirt; they seemed to be very familiar with that), I explained what they were.

One of the ants suggested they rebuild the hill themselves. It was a bit insulting. Now, I will be the first to admit I have never built an ant hill, but I suspected their structure could not have been too complex. After all, it looked like a cone dirt pillow. I had made many piles of dirt into lovely pillows for nothing more than my own enjoyment. Surely this would be no different.

I was terribly wrong.

It turned out ants are very competent builders. There was so much beneath the surface I did not understand. After trying to shove the saucy napkins into an opening of the collapsed hill, the ants told me to stop. I had done enough.

I thanked them for the opportunity to try my hand at a new trade. They did not reply kindly. Instead, they demanded I leave behind the leaves, the can full of dirt, and one of the rabbit ribs (for some strange reason).

Feeling slightly accomplished (and slightly beaten down), I trotted back to my cave to resume my nap. As the blanket of sleep began to fall over me, I wondered if other complex things in the world seemed so simple at face value. I am a bear, and inside, I am still a bear (I think). Is Rob (the squirrel) a squirrel on the inside or is his squirrelness simply a facade?  Where does the outer layer of reality stop and why can our core beings be that outer layer? Why did the ants want my aluminum can?

I woke up a few hours later, hungry. As I exited my cave to do some foraging, I stepped on a wasp nest that had fallen from a tree.

Wasps are not as complex as ants or squirrels or bears. They like to sting things. That is about it.

I am a bear.

“Boris the Bear’s Circus Adventure Extravaganza of Suffer for Lonely, No” is the latest adventure you can read on helloiamabear.com! Please enjoy!

 

I might be the only one who knows you can eat anything you find on the ground.

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market

You can eat just about anything. It is one of the greatest joys of life in the forest. Berries, dirt, sticks, pine-cones, fish skeletons, fox carcasses, anthills, plastic cups, tents, those plastic sticks that hold up tents, hats, or even pebbles. All of those things and more. You can eat it all if you really want to.

I fear I might be the only creature in the forest who is completely aware of this fact. This thought occurred to me when I found a perfectly good aluminum can to chew on buried under some pine needles (edible) and worms (also edible). There is no way that I was the first creature to stumble upon such a wonderful gift for any stomach. It could have very easily been anybody’s wonderful gift for their respective stomachs. The can was old. It was crushed and covered in hard dirt (which was also edible).

This can had been seen. It had to have come in contact with someone (or someones) who eats things.

So why did I find it before those other someones? Why was it not consumed prior before I got to it? This is not an uncommon occurrence, either. I frequently find these kinds of treasures throughout the forest. Untouched gifts that I gather and feast upon in my cave. Am I truly the only one who spends nights in a cave, enjoying the fruits of a bountiful foraging expedition? Does nobody else in the forest find the nutritional value in the brown paper bag I found caught on the limb of a tree, tattered and torn and likely delicious?

I decided I would try to spread the word of these limitless gifts. Using a moss covered, hollowed out log I found near my cave as a table, I setup a shop that displayed the numerous wonders the forest had to offer. For free, any creature was welcomed to approach my display, ask about an item, and take it back to his/her den.

As I waited for other forest inhabitants to take a gander at my wares, I accidentally ate many of them. At first, I had displayed a fish skeleton, a small bushel of red berries I had never seen before, the aforementioned aluminum can, a glass bottle, a crumpled up paper bag, a tin can, and some sticks.

By the time the first creature arrived, I only had the glass bottle, the tin can, and the paper bag left. She was a raccoon. She must have been in the log the entire time. I had not seen her enter or exit my makeshift table before then. She slowly shuffled out of the log and climbed to the top.

She sniffed the tin can.

She pushed it with her tiny paws.

Then she grabbed it with her teeth and ran away.

Success! I had convinced a fellow forest friend to partake in the wonders of forest foraging. She did not have anything to say about the can other than the distant hisses I heard from the direction she ran toward, but I was still excited at the idea of spreading awareness.

I waited a little while longer for any other forest creatures who wanted to be enlightened. Eventually, the wind picked up the paper bag and carried it off. I had not considered that even elements of the forest might like to enjoy what the forest had to offer. Perhaps the rain would like to try the glass bottle?

I wanted to ensure any creature or thing in the forest who wanted to see my findings could be able to, so I decided to stick around long after my inventory was down to just one glass bottle. I waited for a very long time. To pass the time, I chewed on the moss (another amazing thing to eat in the forest) that covered the old log. Surely there had to be something or someone out there who wanted to hear what I had to share about the forest.

Nobody came. The moon was overhead as I picked up the empty bottle and carried it to my cave. I wanted to spread awareness, which I did to a small extent, but I was saddened to realize very few animals of the forest were interested in what I had to say.

I wanted to help my fellow forest dwellers, but I hardly made an impact when it came to sharing my ideas. I should have been delighted. After all, if nobody wanted to eat the old wallet I found in an abandoned tent, did that not just mean more for me? Yet I could not get over how unheard I felt. I had something to say, but nobody wanted to listen. Even the raccoon did not stay long enough to hear why I had a display of tin cans and paper bags.

I keep a rock in my cave. It rests in the darkest part of my dwelling. When I feel like I have not been heard or when I need to say something that I cannot tell anyone, I tell my rock. I dropped the empty bottle next to the rock and explained how useful item was. I told my rock that it had a wonderful taste and smelled like mold. Then I told my rock about the raccoon and the wind. Then I explained how I felt not being listened to by anyone else.

I think the rock understood. I left the bottle next to it and curled up in a ball to sleep. It is nice to be heard, even by rocks.

I am a bear.

To read more thoughts from this particular bear, interact with the blue or grey parts of this sentence. Also, be on the look out for a new bear adventure.