Too Close For Comfort

Thankfully, my house, garden, and outbuildings survived my ten days of house/cat sitting in Carmel so I could be close to my mom for longer than a weekend.  She had good days and bad, as did I, and we made many new memories, at least I did since her short term memory is shot.

            Seeing home intact was encouraging and being in my own bed was lovely.  The next day, after a cookie baking marathon with Simone, my granddaughter, I grilled some hamburgers.  We were eating when Simone looked over her shoulder out the kitchen window and did a double take.

            “What’re you looking at?” I asked.

            “A bear,” she answered very quietly.

            “You’re kidding?” I joked.

            “No Grams, it’s a bear.”

            I approached the window and watched unbelieving as a brown, shaggy bear with cob webs all over its head ambled between the fenced garden and the green house, sniffing the air.  He/she investigated the corrugated building but continued to follow its nose toward the open kitchen window. Now that I look back, I realize my heart was pounding, but I hadn’t really felt fear.  I was numb with a mixture of awe and wonder that this living being could be so close.  All life was in slow motion, and I believe I could have stood and watched until he/she had wandered past.

            However, a picnic table stands on wood blocks under the window so Y could have a place to work at waist level.  This bear, standing on all fours was taller than that table, and I swear, along with Simone, it was proposing to climb it and come through the open window.  For bears, it’s all about the food, and nothing gets in the way of their eating.

             “I don’t remember,” I said in a low voice, “do we stay quiet or make a big noise?”

            “Big noise,” Simone answered.

            I grabbed the plastic bag of recycling with its empty tuna and baked bean cans.  Shaking it to make any kind of sound while I searched for something louder, I watched as the bear lazily backed away, then walked toward the deck where the grill lives.

            I stomped out the screen door and said “Shoo!”

            Darn bear stood and looked at me as if to say, “Is that all you’ve got?”

            I felt foolish and a little helpless so I banged the recycling on top of the metal hood to the grill.  With what looked like a shrug, the bear sauntered down the hill, over the dry creek, and into the forest on the other side.  I never heard it crash through the trees so I can only assume it had merely moved out of sight.  I didn’t like the feeling it might be waiting til I went to bed to sample whatever it could of the meat that had clung to the metal of the grill, so I charred the remnants with a high fire for ten minutes

            Simone said, “I don’t know, but it seemed like a very sad bear.”

            “Maybe,” I said, “I’m glad I had a chance to see it that close, but it’s one more reason I really don’t want to live here anymore.”