A Celebration
Writing letters to endangered species
Listen if you like…
I really wanted to start this post with the word Whilst, but I’m not British so I think it would come off as inauthentic.
So. While typing away at an email or some such worky stuff the other day, Clara came into my office (or, out to my office since it’s outdoors) with a weepy affect out of sync with the giggles I’d heard from her and her sister as soon as they got home from school.
As I tried to parse if her almost tears were crodililian, she squeaked,
“Is it true that humans are causing global warming and extincting the Polar Bears?”
Clara knows there’s no better way to get my attention than personal turmoil about the state of the planet. (Or asking if I want to work on a puzzle with her).
I turned away from my computer and held her.
“Are the Polar Bears extincting?” she asked again.
“Going extinct.” Grammar, unlike ice sheets, felt stable.
“Well, their habitat is being destroyed…”
And then I searched for something less clinical, as I knew instinctually that this was not the time for facts or figures.
“I’ve seen a Polar Bear in the wild,” I told her, remembering. “It was beautiful.”
“I’ve never gotten to see a Polar Bear,” Clara whimpered and her eyes got big and rheumy and I could see her heart melt as mine smouldered. We let her present perfect sadness hang there in the air, avoiding the subjunctive speculation of her someday Polar-Bear sighting.
Right then, Nora walked out, tilted her Mowgli mop, and furrowed her eyebrows in concern. (Also she seemed to be eyeing my lap and sussing out available space).
Clara continued, “People are causing climate change and the Polar Bears are extin–going extinct–and it’s all our fault.” And then, because a melting heart is a feeling heart, she turned to me with purpose: “How can we help them, Mom?”
Still smouldering, I searched my rolodex of 101 Things Kids Can Do to Save the Earth, a book I read and dog-eared and annotated and whose contents are basically imprinted in my behaviors including reuse-bordering-on-hoarding (Eric regularly makes funny-not-funny suggestions such as ‘Maybe you could make a drum with that cellophane’ as I’m about to throw a greasy piece in the trash), recycling, turning out lights when they’re not in use, carpooling, taking trains instead of planes, being mostly vegetarian, using bath water to flush toilets, squeezing every last drop out of the toothpaste tube, bringing my own tupperware containers for leftovers at restaurants, washing Ziplock bags until they no longer zip or lock and are more like sieves, you get the idea. I know these are mostly placebos to help me sleep at night even as I always wake to my hypocrisies.
I pulled Clara closer, the best answer I could think of.
Then Nora suggested, “We could write them a letter.”
My eyes crinkled.
“The Polar Bears?”
“Yeah.”
I wanted to ask Nora what she thought the letter should say, but she dropped the suggestion like a lead balloon and both girls ran off.
And I was left gripped by what I would write. Could write. Will write.
Dear Polar Bears,
Um…
Dear Polar Bears,
Well…
Dear Polar Bears,
You see…
Dear Polar Bears,
The thing is…
I crumple up each digital draft to throw in the trash can at the bottom right corner of my screen, a can which I have mentally relabeled as a recycling bin (seriously Apple, even my first IBM laptop had a recycling bin labeled as such).
The cursor blinks at me like a judgmental llama.
Think happy thoughts Peter!
A group of Polar Bears is called A Celebration because they are so solitary that any gathering must be a party. I picture a pair of cartoon Bears cracking open ice cold bottles of CocaCola while a few cubs slide on their bellies down a snowy slope.
When I saw a Polar Bear, she was by herself. I have no idea if she was a she or a he, but for now we’ll say she because that’s what makes sense to me.
Only a few hundred yards of clean air and salty Hudson Bay water separated us. The Bear walked along shore parallel to our canoes, heading in the opposite direction. We were paddling North toward Arviat, seven women in the final week of a 50-day expedition across the Canadian Arctic. The Bear was headed South toward the Tha’ane, looking for a seal lingering in the brackish water where river meets sea. When the Bear was directly in line with our canoes and downwind of our forty-five-days-no-shower bodies, she stood on her hind legs and stretched her nose skyward, sniffing. Then she returned to all fours and kept walking.
I felt invigorated and terrified. Alive and aware. Respectful and grateful and humble. Humbled.
Polar Bears are one of the only predators known to stalk humans as prey, identifying us as food rather than threat in resource-scarce environments.
Ironically, we are prey because we are threats, our predatory behavior floating in the air we breath — invisible yet palpable in the thawing permafrost, the melting ice sheets, the arhythmias of seasons, grumbling Polar Bear bellies.
That night, we took turns on Polar Bear watch, or “listen” actually, each of us sitting upright inside the nylon membrane of our tent alongside our companions who tried to sleep.
Armed listening, a loaded shotgun slung across our laps.
Talk about placebos.
But Goddess was she beautiful. And just walking out there in all of that space. In all her strength.
Did I want to be eaten by a Polar Bear? Hell no! And even while I felt genuinely afraid, I also remember my listening shift being filled with gratitude and feeling so alive and alert and in love with the Earth. And part of something and whole in a way that makes so very little sense when I try to explain it but I can only just tell you it’s how I felt. And hope you’ll trust me.
That night — during my shift and while I lay equally awake when it was my turn to sleep — I didn’t think she would come. I didn’t think she would eat us (and since I’m writing this now, it seems I was right). I told myself then (and still) that she could smell our love and appreciation for her. That she knew we needed to live to tell our daughters about her. To want our daughters to be able to feel that alive in a place that wild. And to do everything we can to make that possible. Including writing a long-overdue thank you note.
Dear Polar Bear (you know who you are; please share with others at your next celebration),
Thank you. First, for not eating me. And next, thank you. Thank you for making me feel so very small and also part of something so big and whole and Wild as this beautiful planet. And for sharing it with me and giving me the gift to share it with my daughters.
Love,
Becca
Such a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing it with us and the bears.
I recently saw a video of a polar bear mom nursing her two cubs, and she was tenderly stroking their backs while they ate. I can so relate, and I so wanted her family to live.