Dispatches from the Underground: They're Coming for Us

The most vibrant town election season in recent memory has at last drawn to a close, but, as if on cue, a new threat emerged to obsess the Facebook-minded among Peterborough’s residents: the bears. They’re everywhere, there’s like an army of them, and they’re coming for us. 

When viewed with a sober mind, of course, it’s entirely possible that we are dealing with a very small number of bears – perhaps half a dozen or less – and just a lot of sightings of those bears. What we know for sure is that there are a lot of posts about the sightings of the bears, and they are increasing in frequency. By next week, we may hit five, perhaps even double digits, per day. These posts, in turn, spawn fierce discussions. One resident (it might have been me) suggested that we create a rideshare program to relocate the bears to a happier home in the mountains, which angered some of the other residents (some of whom seem to think I should invite the bears in for a beer). 

Mostly, however, the outrage is directed at the immoral, unethical people who leave their bird feeders out into the late spring and summer. Their selfish desire to see birds (who may or may not be superior to other animals) attracts the bears, who get used to eating the bird seed and then appear in more people’s yards looking for bird seed. Some claim this was the bears’ home before it was ours; others retort that until the reforestation of this region that started in the postwar era, this hadn’t been the bears’ home for centuries. This then becomes precariously close to another discussion about colonizers. Some people, of course, are now getting angry about the fact that these discussions are even taking place, so the whole thing is already going meta. 

So much, then, for last year’s frequent claim – which everyone will no doubt politely deny having ever made – that all the bear sightings were due either to more people stuck at home in lockdowns, or to nature healing itself (dolphins in Venice, baby!) because people are stuck at home in lockdowns, or both. We seem to be seeing as many terrifying soulless monster bears this year as we did then, and nobody is stuck at home, and the great healing has been postponed until the next disease comes round. 

(Speaking of Covid, the townsfolk are also currently losing their minds about the mask vs no mask thing, but I guess we probably shouldn’t get into that here.) 

Anyway, as usual, people tell me there’s nothing to worry about, but it’s really hard for me to not imagine that all of this increased activity and boldness has less to do with colonization and birdseed and more to do with the fact that they’re planning on making some kind of move. This has been a longstanding problem for me, but the last two years I’ve also taken it upon myself to go on more frequent and longer outdoor walks. They’re peaceful and beautiful and the whole goddamn time I am looking over my shoulder and scanning the forest for a large dark colored moving shape. Grimly, I have to remind myself to also look up into the trees, because these sinister creatures can also be lurking up there. 

People think I’m nuts, but try to follow along with me here: one of the best parts of living in New England is that nature doesn’t really try to kill you here. At least, it tries to kill you a lot less than it does in other places. Neither its forces nor its creatures pose a regular threat to people. But what’s the only goddamn monstrous beast that can actually kill you here? I’ll let you answer that. 

Animals are just, like, all over the place, and I sometimes have a hard time coming to grips with it. I know this is a character flaw. The thing is, despite my occasional claims to the contrary, I actually really like animals, I just wish they would appear and vanish according to my desires. It’s frustrating that they’re so completely out of my control. 

I mean – no lie – right now, as I write this, I am being harassed by a raccoon. He is prowling around outside my ground-level den windows just looking at me like a bastard, not really caring when I yell at him or shine a flashlight in his face. Then he’s going back up on my porch to try for the millionth time to claw through the thick plastic of our NASA-airlock-sealed compost container. (Yes, I know, this is what we get for composting – I tried to say this ahead of time, but noooo.)

That’s not to say it’s been all bad. In recent weeks, I’ve had multiple close encounters with some very nice and polite deer (deer can go wherever the hell they want, on their own schedule, as far as I’m concerned). And the birds – the birds have been very kind to me lately. I pretty much always like birds best but they really get extra high marks from me this year. (But no, before you ask, I am not currently feeding them and attracting the bears because that’s really self-defeating.)

*

It’s June, which is awesome, because it’s the best month of the year. It’s also the middle of Mercury Retrograde right now, which I would normally consider bad news, but this time I don’t actually give a shit. For me, at least, there are arguably more things going wrong in 2021 than there actually were in 2020; in some ways, the shenanigans we normally associate with Mercury Retrograde are just status quo. I’m used to it so, like, whatever. 

Because of the nature of memory, I have no doubt that a decade from now, when I look back on the first half of 2021, I’m going to immediately and primarily (maybe even only) think of the two huge personal life milestones I’ve passed through during this time, both of which are not just positive but borderline-miraculous: the purchase of our first (and hopefully only) home and the publication of my first full-length book. It is very kind, actually, that memory works that way. Unfortunately, living through it has been a mostly unpleasant ride for me so far – big career setbacks, unforeseen conflicts, unexpected disappointments, degraded personal performance owing to being thrown off-kilter, etc. 

Part of me suspects this is actually why the birds have been extra nice to me – such has been the case in the past when I was having a hard time. Birds are good. 

We all go through periods of time in which we sort of take a beating. The frequency and the length of these periods varies for all of us, but we all get them. This is probably the first such time in which I’ve already accepted this notion, and it helps. So it’s my turn now – so what. I won’t die or be ruined. I’ll come out the other side, and more likely than not, this will turn out to have been the very painful birthing process of the next stage of my life, which no doubt holds many wonders and advances and delights. 

Easy to say, harder to know, hardest to actually live it each day. I’ve had to constantly challenge myself – not without noting the humor in the situation – to actually believe the things that I myself say, that I would say to others in my situation. I’ve had to challenge myself on the notion that if indeed I am a person in the possession of some form of faith, that it’s times like these when I need to not just rely on it for comfort but really trust in it. 

And when confronted with that challenge, I do. I know that all I need will be provided, the ways will be revealed before me in time. I gotta be cool. Until then, I’ll curse about the animals and try, swimming against the current, to collect my shit together.