The Bear Facts

From follies to facts, and why we need to pay attention.

It’s amazing how our eyes can play tricks on us.  I think mine do this just for the sheer delight.  Take for instance last week when I was walking to our detached garage, all the while enjoying the scenery.  It’s a beautiful tree lined path with many squirrels, chipmunks, deer, songbirds, and BEAR!  

I stopped right in my tracks.  My heart sank to my stomach, and I stopped breathing. Be very, very quiet.  This was a good sized black bear, and I had just applied a bottle’s worth of scented moisturizer all over my little body.  

“You know the rules,” I said under my breath, which I repeated like a prayer.  As I watched the bear forage for food with its backside turned towards me, I planned my escape route.  But it was too late.  The black bear turned towards me.  Maybe if I close my eyes, he won’t see me.  What type of reasoning is that?   Then the bear took two steps and made the strangest of sounds when it opened its mouth wide and said, “Hi Honey.  What’s for dinner?”  

It was my husband dressed in black from head to toe. “I thought you were a bear!”  Of course he had a good long laugh at my follies.  

Sometimes we see or hear things because something has distorted our perception. Or we choose to hear and see things in order to support our controlled narrative.  Our eyes and ears can play tricks on us, if we allow them to.  I have certainly jumped to conclusions before having all the facts in place. It is a humbling experience when what you thought is correct turns out to be incorrect or may not be the complete truth after all. 

I think the world at large could benefit from a little more humility. It takes a certain level of maturity and composure to entertain the facts and to then present them in an unbiased manner.  But this is something I am striving towards, along with making certain my husband wears clothing in a lovely shade of salmon pink while out gathering wood.