After Roquelle had turned up at our house a few weeks ago, I went on the app Nextdoor as one does when new to a neighborhood and curious about local wildlife and nearby yard sales. I learned a few things not at all surprising: (1) Debate of the sort that happens online when folx hold ideologically opposite views about things like, oh, I don’t know, guns is more apt to erupt into a virtual junior high–type schoolyard fight complete with verbal punches and personal takedowns and (2) yes, the bear, she roams, she rummages, she is a presence for which the neighbors hold all sorts of opinions mostly suggesting techniques for the loud banging of objects to move her away from the premises and ammonia sprayed on trash cans and compost bins. So those were the unsurprising things but there was one entry I stumbled across that stopped me because of what it didn’t say: “Cat is missing — bear broke into the house and cat escaped.” Followed by a phone number.

OK, stop. “bear broke into the house.” How did the bear break into your house? Under what circumstances would a bear be able to gain access? For hours, maybe days, perhaps even still, I turn this scenario over and over in my mind. Mostly I’ve concluded that the door was left open and the bear, with its extra-sensory smelling mechanism, stepped through following the scent of food. In my more whimsical/terrifying moments, the bear understands how to turn a doorknob. I mean, Roquelle was up on our porch and I’m pretty sure she was eyeing the rocking chair as a possible resting place. I realize I’m anthropomorphizing (love/hate that word for how it throws vowels and consonants around because it can) yet the bear was in her house. (PS, the cat was found hiding in a bureau. Smart cat.) The idea I can’t shake is that this woman, who had a bear in her house, didn’t really feel that was the main point. Her cat was the point. And I get that. It’s the thing you love versus the thing you’re terrified of.

When I was in J school, almost every class drilled down on the cardinal rule of not burying the lede, the introduction to a story that’s the juice of the thing, the reason a reader wants to give up their time to dive into the piece. Over my career in publishing, that lesson has never diminished no matter the format of the story, the opening bits want to include something that will grab your interest and hold you. I’ve been guilty of initial meanderings, wandering off the narrative road into the woods, then getting lost and losing all the breadcrumbs of the story. Right now, I’m going to attempt to stay the storytelling path although, fair warning, I am going to turn that bear into a metaphor.

We’ve all got bears in our house. If I were a person who wanted to go off on a political tangent, I’d say we have a gnarly bear(s) in our house currently that’s threatening in terrifying ways, and yet the focus is on, I don’t know, the cat, the couch, the curtains: The mistaken idea that if we just move all those things around into some new configuration, then all will be well and we’ll get back on track. But ferfuxsake people, there’s a bear in our house that’s causing havoc. Why are we discussing chair arrangement? But I’m going to move away from that national moment and bring the creature closer. There’s a bear in my mental house. It’s been there probably for as long as I’ve been here, no doubt moving in for good when I was wee and soaked in some shade of self-doubt that became a color I painted my interior walls with.

I started a new job last week. One filled with lovely learning curves that run alongside a skill I’ve been plying for decades. I’m surrounded by excellent like-minded people from the land of newspapers, magazines, and other publishing formats. I both feel at home and also at sea. The at-sea bit is no surprise given it takes time to learn new processes and what-have-you. Here’s where I spot the bear: I want to be immediately capable of mastering this new surrounding in some sort of super-fast “I got it” way without having to ask questions about how to do the thing(s). Yes, fair. I recognize that as a bit of overachieving whimsy. Then there’s a bigger grizzly growling inside me that suggests a more complicated inner turmoil: A skill I feel I’m lacking. This isn’t something insurmountable but rather a reminder that I can find what I need to strengthen what I feel is a deficit very easily. But like the cat in the Nextdoor bear story, facing that fact requires me to open the bureau and invite out the cat, which, ever since it’s been in there, has gotten a bit shy, underfed, and delusional while running film reels that imagine whisperings of “she can’t do this” among my workmates, leading to “the talk” with the final credits rolling on my dismissal, income loss, then me by the side of the road holding a can of bear spray fighting an actual bear for my next meal. Dystopian*, no?

That scenario has scrolled in my psyche since I recognized I had a psyche. I know the first step is to recognize the issue and, yes, I’m working on it. Have been for a very long time. I find I’m working harder now than I ever have since to my mind time + neuroses = madness (or at least just a whole load of wasted time). I recognize that this particular bear in my house doesn’t need to be there and that the cat in the bureau can take on said creature and show it to the door. I understand I’ve got this. This being an ability to slow down and recognize life’s all sorts of things. Bears, cats, work, joy, heart-wrenching, challenging, delightful, fine, dandy, and all the things in between. Sure, I can meet my bear at the door and suggest it take a nice ramble into the woods rather than wander through my house wreaking havoc. I do want to keep it in sight since that’s important but I’d rather not it become my roommate. Ramble on Roquelle into the great outdoors. I’ll watch from the window.

* If you haven’t seen episode three of the TV show The Bear, stop reading. If you have already seen it, I must point out one of my absolute favorite scenes: When Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt) asks why the bill for butter is so f$kn expensive, Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) tells him it’s Orwellian butter, to which Jimmy replies “It’s dystopian butter?” The answer: No, it’s from Orwell, Vermont. (Apparently a reference to a real farm with the best butter ever.)