i finally saw a bear
four years of annoying conversation finally paid off
It finally happened.
If you’ve known me at all in the last four years I have probably spent a minimum of one conversation detailing that I wanted to see a bear on my own volition. Not at a zoo or anything planned, but a surprise bear encounter which actually is a very scary thing to have on one’s wishlist. I just knew seeing a bear without warning would check some weird box in my stupid little brain.
The only other time I ever saw a bear was around 2016 when I was walking my friend’s dog in Griffith Park and stumbled upon a commercial shoot. They let me pass through and I could suddenly feel the dog’s leash tighten and her hair stiffen and as I looked up I saw a huge cage with a bear rolling around in it mere feet from us. I remember someone on the shoot made a comment to me with a little chuckle as I was about to pass through about “holding tight to the leash” but never would I have ever expected the reason was that there was a caged bear on our path.
I’ve also never made any attempts to see a bear either. I don’t willingly go on hikes and I’m definitely not spending my weekends aimlessly wandering around the Angeles National Forest in hopes of a run in. I’ve always wanted this elusive bear encounter to come to me, to find their way for me to view it from a safe and enclosed distance.
Also four years I had no intention of ever finding my birth mother. Four years ago you couldn’t convince me for a single second to do the 23andme kit. Four years ago all I wanted to do was not be in a pandemic. The only reason I made my way to bears was because I developed a debilitating habit during lockdown where I would watch Youtube videos before bed. This was before I downloaded TikTok and I am absolutely convinced if I had downloaded TikTok earlier I would not believe in Sasquatch today (well maybe not believe in but definitely have some questions). All I wanted at the time was to be outside, and the things that were freely outside were bears. There was no thought about DNA, birth family or even aging at that point. All I was looking for was a connection to the outside.
I wrote this Substack almost 4 years ago about how I was desperate to not assign meaning to an experience. At the time I was watching these videos to turn my brain and I didn’t want to find some hopeful meaning in any of it. I was tired of hoping at that point and tired of squinting trying to find some bright side of a pandemic. Just wanted to watch my bears and go to sleep. But now 4 years later in the foothills of La Crescenta I would finally assign some kind of meaning. It’s honestly dumb how the world does work in the some ways. That the one thing I didn’t want to mean anything would come back at me full force yelling at me to mean something.
Two years ago when I started my current nanny job in La Crescenta, the dad told me that they do sometimes get bears but the sightings are infrequent. He said I would know because I would hear the trash bins knock over. I’ve spent a lot of my time at this house over the last two years and have even lived there for months at a time to dogsit while the family travels. I truly never thought the day would come when I would hear the trash bins knock over because truthfully, I have terrible hearing and didn’t think the sound could be so shocking. Then three weeks ago late at night, I was sitting on their couch playing the easy level of the NYT Sodoku puzzle when I heard the trash bin forcefully hit the ground. I flew to the window and pulled back the curtains to finally see a bear. I felt like I skipped into a different timeline. There it was ripping open a bag of trash and there I was shaking and trying to simultaneously contact every single person I know with only 7% battery life left. I instantly texted the mom, which looking back probably warranted more of a phone call in the moment, and shook as I tried my best to get a clear video of the bear.
Earlier that day when I was unloading the 3 year old from my car with armfuls of things I decided to not lock my car that day. I had the thought that there was really nothing in my car that could be stolen and also their neighborhood is insanely safe. A few days later I remembered this moment and how bears could open car doors and for once in my life felt relieved I was spared an unlucky misfortune, this one being having to call my insurance agents about a bear entering my car the one day I decided not to lock it.
So yes, this bear sighting has brought me back to my birth mom and how I need to reach out. I think in a way I’ve always likened seeing a bear to finding my birth mom- seemingly impossible when one doesn’t willingly go into the woods but still anxiously awaiting for it to happen. But the bear did come to me. Twice in fact. The second encounter lasted a lot longer than the first and I was able to savor that experience a little more because my battery life wasn’t on it’s deathbed.
I’m good on bears right now and am ready to return to enjoying them from a safer distance (seeing them on Tiktok). The bear has come two other times when I wasn’t there so we officially can say we have a bear problem, and right now I don’t need anything with the world problem attached to it. I’m inching closer to maybe some resolution with the other thing and feeling more confident about that every day and I can sort of thank this bear for that.