On Bears

And invasive species.

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Hi friends,

Bears, not an animal I have thought much about before except when it comes to my friend Claire, and her wonderful book about them. But now here in Asheville not a day has gone by that I have not thought about them let alone have a conversation about them. This is their town.

I was warned about them the first day I arrived, given bear guidelines. How to behave when seeing one. When to put out the trash. Instructions were given in particular with regards to my dog. I was guaranteed to run into one. They were everywhere. Aw, I thought. Their habitats had been destroyed by development, pushing them into the city, I found out later. I rescind the Aw. (Although I still love the bears.)

“We cohabitate with them,” explained a man at a dinner party the other night. I had noticed the art on the wall of the home, some paintings of bears included in the mix. “It’s my way of making peace with them,” said the host. An offering of a kind. “They’re in my yard every other day.”

In New Orleans we have dogs and cats and chickens and possum and nutria not to mention all the pretty little ibises. Also we have gators. I wouldn’t go anywhere near a gator myself but there are tours people take further afield. You cannot argue with how cool a gator looks. A gator will fuck you up though.

At another party I met an environmental scientist and I mentioned the sweet smell of the honeysuckle in the woods by where I’m staying and she laughed and said, “That’s an invasive plant.” Like cat’s claw, I thought, but no one stops to smell the cat’s claw in New Orleans.

When I was in Key West last November people complained about the chickens. I love chickens but you know what? Those chickens were kind of annoying. Bossy, aggressive. One of them pecked me once. The tourists feed them, the locals grumbled. They were better fed than a New Orleans chicken, I observed. Their feathers were glossy, their bellies were fat. The chickens in my neighborhood are scrawny. They take what they can get.

There were iguanas, too, that had invaded Key West. They lived in the trees above our house there, eating all the leaves, leaving their waste on the ground. But we were all obsessed with them. We wanted to see one. There was a day I spotted so many in the state park. I had my fill of them that day. Their tails were the best part. They seemed like a weapon.

Yesterday I took a walk with a new friend. Two ladies and their dogs, in search of some coffee on a Sunday.

She described a life not much different than my own. Knowing her neighbors, working hard, the small delicate pleasures of life. A glass of wine, some chocolate. I hear so much talk about covens lately, I said. Women will end up taking care of women, she said.

She pointed out a turned-over trash can in someone’s yard. “Bears,” she said.

In the end it only took a few days here to see a bear. I heard the dog barking from the other room where he sits keeping guard at the window, the terrier side of him on high alert in these woods. I’ve learned to tune out the barking usually. But that bark sounds different, I thought. That’s a warning to me.

Out front two bears lumbered by us, a mama and her baby. When the dog barked the younger one turned her head but that big one knew better than to care about the sound of a small creature. Anyway they wanted nothing from us. They were just taking a stroll.

Later a neighbor I met on a walk told me there was a pear tree on the road the bears visited. I liked knowing they were being fed by the land, though I wished they still had their home.

Then this morning I picked a random book from the stack of poetry books I had bought at the bookstore last week. A staff pick. Always good to start the day with some interesting words. And here was Beasts of Chase. Unknowingly I had bought a book of poems about bears.

But of course—how could there not be a million poems about bears written in Asheville? A million poems, songs, stories, paintings about bears? And of course, the book is about bears, but also about so much more.

I am not done hearing about bears, not even remotely sick of it. I will listen to what people have to say about them while I am living amongst them.

What animals are you thinking about today? Who do you share space with in your home, on the land around you? Who are the animals you live with?

Jami

You are reading Craft Talk, the home of #1000wordsofsummer and also a weekly newsletter about writing from Jami Attenberg. I’m also on bluesky and instagram.