The Bear

All the world's magic is now available

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Late at night, around the full moon, a bear joins me for tea. I’m still getting used to it.

I suspect you're wondering how a bear can manage a teacup. The answer is—well, it’s not exactly a teacup. I’ll get to that shortly.

After long days of writing I’m often awoken by characters jabbering until the wee hours. These semi-frequent bouts of insomnia find me outside with a cup of tea. I've tried almost everything to get back to sleep, but only the sound of crickets, the night creatures, and a cup of tea seem to work.

Recently, a hulking figure emerged from the woods. His broad shoulders and lumbering gait came through my wife’s hedges, trampling the hydrangeas and boxwood. I’d always thought bears were noisy, but this one moved in near silence. Startled, I watched him sniff the air, his graying muzzle pointed skyward.

Clearly, a scent had captured his attention...until I realized, as he looked in my direction, it was my rooibos. I like it because it's soothing, but the bear found it irresistible—a blend from the local shop, it carries earthy, honey-like notes with hints of vanilla and fruit. He sidled up to the porch, lightly clawing at the stairs. In a panic, I set my cup down, ran inside and watched through the kitchen window as he tipped it over and lapped the warm tea from the decking.

The next evening, before the voices woke me, he left a small package—a twist of sticks and bark—on my back stoop. He was seemingly apologizing for his abrupt entrance. It wasn’t until I turned it over that I realized it was an ornamental sculpture of the two of us, he at the bottom of the stairs on the ground, and me at the top, each holding a teacup. I was taken aback, not just by its fine detail (which it certainly had), but by the likeness—down to my striped housecoat. But there was no mistaking the tableau, and no mistaking the intent: this bear was inviting himself for tea.

What could I do but entertain the idea?

The next night, I started the kettle while regularly peering out the window for signs of the bear. I began to wonder, perhaps especially in my insomnia-induced state, how we would greet each other if he appeared. I needn’t have worried. 

As I carried the accoutrements—teacups, carafe, and sweeteners on a tray—and put them on the table outside, I heard a deep, throaty huff from below. Trembling, I set down the tray and saw the bear, sitting at the bottom of the stairs. Just as the carving depicted, his sizable frame rose nearly halfway up the steps from the garden below.

With one arm leaned on the middle tread, he looked up at me. By the light of the recently full moon, I could see him clearly—his strong muzzle framing a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth, his dark eyes fixed on me, and his large arm (if that’s what they’re called) resting in a relaxed state, forearm to paw spanning the width of the step.

But there was something else, something I hadn’t expected. He looked at me, then at the moon, directing my gaze, and said with a deep rasp, "You're a gracious host for having me on such a beautiful night. Thank you."

I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at the absurdity of it all—a bear and I, about to have tea together! Perhaps you would have done the same? Shaking, I proceeded to serve. Before pouring, I turned and asked, attempting to hide my nervous but wide smile, "How do you take it?"

He responded, almost apologetically, "Just a bit of honey, if you have some." I did, as that’s how my wife prefers her tea as well. 

Reflecting on the size of the cup and the bear's paw, I excused myself to the house for a moment but returned as quickly as I could.

"I'm at a loss for a cup of your size," I said to the bear, "Perhaps one of these will do?"

The bear examined the various cups and mugs I brought out. He regarded them carefully, sometimes placing his paws on either side to gauge the size. He settled on a bucket-like tub we sometimes use for chicken fat. Holding it gingerly between both paws, he lifted it, pantomimed drinking from it, then placed it back on the step with a satisfied huff of approval.

I set about preparing his tea in the, erm, tub, and my own as well. To ease the awkwardness, I attempted some small talk.

"Do you often have tea with, um, humans?"

He huffed several times in a high-pitched staccato. Was that a laugh?

"You're the first," he said, "but I've thought about it many times."

Tea in hand, er, paw, we sat—the bear on the grass below and I on the top step—and sipped our tea by moonlight.

During that first official meeting, I learned the bear’s name was Walter. Owing to his lack of tongue dexterity, I had to ask several times, apologetically, to understand him. "Water," it sounded at first. We exchanged pleasantries, inquiring about each other's families, how long we had lived in the area, and, of course, our thoughts on the tea. This was all quite civil, like we happened upon each other at the local diner and exchanged pleasantries.

When he finished, Walter set the tub gently on the step and licked his lips. He huffed, nearly a sigh, and looked at the waning crescent moon, then at me.

"Thank you. May I come back tomorrow?" he said finally.

“Yes!” I squeaked.

He nodded before lumbering off the way he had come. 

This is how most nights ended. Sometimes there was more fanfare as he caught a scent on the wind and hurried off in its direction. In these cases, he would apologize the next day for his abrupt exit to chase down dinner or an after tea snack by appearing with a gift. Dangling from his mouth he’d bring an elegant weave of oak and maple leaves containing several handfuls of delicious local berries.

Not knowing how long these visits would last, I decided to write down a few questions for my new friend. I also took the opportunity to ask others about bears in the area. It seemed Walter was a black bear—by all accounts a mostly skittish, dumpster-diving local. He had been seen foraging for whatever he could find: insects, berries, fish, and remnants left behind at the campsites on the edge of town. Armed with a legal pad full of questions, I eagerly awaited his next visit—but Walter didn’t appear.

As the nights grew darker, the moon waning to a sliver, then disappearing, there was still no sign of Walter. Night after night as my new novel languished, the voices quiet, I slept more regularly. Though I still kept a tea tray ready just in case. Some two weeks passed before I saw him again, I almost forgot. My insomnia had returned and I was awake, tea in hand.

"Seth!" he said as he finally trundled through the bushes. I startled, nearly knocking my own tea to the ground, as I had almost fallen asleep, the warm air and sounds of summer lulling me back to bed.

"Walter!" I said.

I scurried inside, filling the kettle full and readying the serving tray. As the kettle was warming I stuck my head outside and said, "snack?" Walter grunted, I took this as a yes and set up another small tray of crackers and cheese.

Placing his tea and snacks on the step Walter looked at me. Then, he set a quite heavy paw down, the size of it covering the whole of my foot.

"Gibbous moon starts tonight," Walter said. I didn't take his meaning but followed his stare. 

"Ah, yes, the first quarter!" I said.

Walter sighed and nearly whispered, “All the world’s magic is now available”

We both stopped moving for a few minutes as we looked up to the moon making its slow arc. The transit here was quite beautiful as we were surrounded by the buzzing of the night insects and the moon’s soft glow.

There was something in his look that made me wonder who or what I was being visited by. Could this be an apparition of my own making? Is Walter for real or part of a latent insomnia-induced insanity?

Walter did not apologize for his absence, as it wasn't necessary, but I began to note the days he appeared—always, from the first quarter through the full moon, ending at the last of the waning gibbous.

That night and the next few leading to the full moon Walter was quite talkative. He told me about the cubs he had grown up with and their extended families. It was intriguing to learn about the various bears in the area, many of whom he hadn't seen since they were quite small. Though he admitted his pack didn't travel far, roaming only a few miles throughout the day, some had taken leave to other parts of the countryside enchanted by stories about rivers full of fish and valleys of wild berries. Walter, it seemed, did not share in their wanderlust.

When I inquired why not he only answered with a low grumble. But something about that stuck with me so the next night I broached the topic again, though hesitantly, "Why not travel out to find your own parcel?"

Walter sipped his tea but did not answer.

"I don't mean to intrude, of course," I continued, "but surely there is something more, out there, over the crest of the mountain or beyond the railroad tracks?"

Walter looked at the full moon as it broke through the trees over our heads and said, “Why go to the unknown when all I need is here? This land remembers me.”

It was an intriguing response, one I sort of understood.

Walter seemed to be thinking, perhaps about something that lay beyond words—words that could be shared between a man and a bear, I mean, until he said, “The sky has always watched me here. The winds that blow through these hills… they’re like old friends who know every secret, every joy, every loss. If I go somewhere else, it’ll be like…losing my name.”

One night, late in the season, as the countryside was beginning to chill, our conversation turned to me when he asked, "Why do you have trouble sleeping?" 

I stammered, not quite sure how to respond. Our late night chats over the months had ranged from the mundane to bordering on the esoteric but I was still taken aback.

"Perhaps it's because so much is going on in the middle of the night," I said, "and if I am asleep I might miss something.” To deflect the conversation away from me I added, “I would have missed meeting you, for example."

To this, Walter looked at me, his dark features angled up, searching my face. I could swear that I saw his brow furrow and his eyes focus somewhere in the middle distance between my nose and the back of my head, waiting for me to reply.

"I would,” I finally offered, “But the stories in my head keep me awake, or rather, wake me up at night."

He seemed to be taking in my words as he sipped. I glanced at my list of questions attempting to find something to divert the conversation, again away from me, until he interrupted—

“Do you find something in the stories that make you a better person?”

I had to think about this, remembering the shelf of novels bearing my name. I searched the characters in them, the insights revealed to me in the moments of writing now spanning more than half my life.

I thought of raising my children, now grown and on their own, and how I worried about them through childhood. How, like the stories, they taught me as much or more as I taught them. And how my smile, though tested during their adolescence, remained as they graduated from university and started a life of their own.

Then, to my wife and the comfort we have been to each other from our younger days until now, sometime in middle age. While not perfect, in all, the good far outpaced the bad.

“Yes, I think so,” I said, “writing helps me better understand who I am, how I see the world.”

As he nodded I could see that Walter understood this idea. A thought occurred to me, an outlandish, wild thought that I could never have dreamt for one of my stories: this bear and I were friends.

It was then that I remembered the carving from the night after our first meeting, the tableau of he and I having tea. Even now, some months later, I see it frequently—though, my eyes now often skip over it on the wall in our kitchen—and I wondered if more bears, like Walter, have an inner soul, a creative sprite that lives inside them, too?

“Do other bears create? I mean, do they make things?” I ask.

“Yes, sometimes,” He said and held up his giant paws to me, “Even these blunt tools are capable of creating when the moon is more full.” 

Though I wasn’t sure he would understand the gesture, I widened my eyes and sipped my tea without saying anything, hoping he would take the opportunity to expound without me leading him to a further answer.

“Seth, all creatures create, not just humans,” he said almost matter-of-factly. It was so simple a thought I am embarrassed to note that it hadn’t occurred to me.

But Walter didn’t stop there. 

His great arms spread wide as if gathering all of the night around us and turned toward me to explain, “In spring, wildflowers bloom louder than an orchestra fanfare. The jays that nest just beyond your property are excellent poets. Brown squirrels, climbing up and down collecting acorns, make us laugh by telling jokes. Mighty ant kingdoms are built right below your feet. And the insects, the elders of the forest, the crickets and beetles you hear each night, are constantly whispering stories full of imagination and insight. It’s their voices, I suspect, that wake you and also lull you to sleep.”

Walter paused, making sure he and I were looking directly at one another as he finished by saying, “Creating is learning, it’s what keeps us alive, isn’t it?”

I nodded, not wanting to break the spell of his words and the night. 

Walter shook, his fur wriggling from his head down to his back. He then rolled his head like he was stretching his neck, much the same as I do after sitting at my writing desk for a number of hours. 

“Thank you again for the tea,” Walter said. He glanced at the moon, the last of the waning gibbous slipping away, “See you in a few weeks.” 

When he had gone, I sat in silence and listened to the sound of insects playing, conversing, laughing all around me. I heard harmonies in the skittering and chirping and more as my ears became attuned in the cool night air.

Walter was right, all the world’s magic was now available. At least, for the next few hours.

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Music to read by:

Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra by Aaron Copeland

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Backstory

The genesis of this story is from a dream where I had tea with a bear. Really.

My half-awake notes read:

So it came to pass that the bear (Walter?) and I would have tea, on the porch in the waxing&waning nights of a full moon.

"Don't you hibernate?", "not anymore", "global warming" we both mumbled aloud

I must have been thinking about bears because of where we live. Often, a black bear will dance with our trash can. If we can get the dogs outside soon enough to scare them away they’ll get nothing. But every once in a while they’re prone to create a mess. Living rurally, you get used to it. After all, we live in their woods.

But, something about these bears made me wonder what else happens the other 23 hours of the day when I don’t see them.

Owing a little to Murakami, I thought it might be worth exploring —

• Are they having conversations with other animals?

• Are they creating works of art that pass our consciousness because we’re not looking?

• If we could have a conversation with a bear — what might we learn?

Though I don’t prescribe to any astrological whim, I do think there’s something magical about the moon phases that lead and follow a full moon. Here in the woods I may notice them just a bit more than when we lived in the city as the world beyond our tree line seems a little more alive, a little more wild.

Right now, as I’m writing this, the moon is a waxing gibbous and my dogs have been on edge, barking at the various skitterings beyond the fencing of our yard. “It’s wild out there, boys,” I tell them. They won’t look at me as they growl, bark and want to chase whatever scent is on the wind.

Those same moon phases seem to make conversations deeper and more introspective—why not between a man and a bear, too?

And, maybe to the central point of Seth’s character: yes, writing does teach us about ourselves and the world. That line is specifically me speaking through my text. While I may not be the first to say it, I’d like to think my character is the first one to reveal that idea to a bear.

Lastly, my Canadian-by-way-of-South Africa family loves to drink tea. Rooibos, though not their favorite—Honeybush holds that honor—was likely one of the first words my son learned, as it’s always stocked in our tea drawer.

I hope you enjoyed it.

-j.

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