Outside of my heavy fur coat and my preference for walking on all fours, I have the pretty standard life of an Ivy-league college grad; I grew up in a small suburban town outside of New York City, had two married parents who loved me and spoiled me rotten, got into an outrageously prestigious college at the tender age of 18, and now, have finally graduated with a degree in Comparative Literature in Spanish and Portuguese literatures. That's right; I speak three languages. When people tell me that's really difficult,and ask me exactly what it was that convinced me to pursue such a track, I say, if men can learn how to hunt, even though they're so relatively inefficient about everything, why can't I learn to speak three languages fluently? They look me up and down and say that I am a sexist person.
They are wrong. I am not a person. I am a bear.
This fact of my existence has been something with which I have wrestled my whole life. I knew from a young age that I was different from the other youth on the playground: Their moms made them lunch; mine told me to find it in the woods because "I'd have to learn how to fend for myself someday." When they climbed ladders and monkey bars, I scaled evergreens and oaks using only my claws and strength. When we had our usual 20 minute naptime one cold winter's day, I fell asleep for four months. When I woke up, in the spring, Mrs. Lewis, our teacher, looked concerned. She said I had been asleep for four months, and during that period my mother had been unreachable. I told her that my mother and father had probably both been asleep for approximately the same time period. I told her we did that every year, we just had a long family naptime. I told her that's how mommy lost the weight. She looked horrified, and suggested I go to counseling. I told her that wouldn't be necessary, because I was a bear.
But Mrs. Lewis would have none of it. "You are not a bear! Bears are savage creatures that kill people and turn over campsites!" I told her that was a narrow definition of what a bear was, and she stormed offto talk to her friend, the family counselor. She turned and whispered something to the counselor about "crack-dens" and "how unkempt" I was, and how my mother sent me to school looking like an animal.
I AM an animal. I am a bear.
However, no one seemed prepared to admit this. I made my way all through high school without anyone noticing - or commenting on - my large claws, my preference for walking on all fours, my lack of an
opposable thumb. Once I went to a party, and asked if the host had any fish, nuts, or berries. He laughed and said, "oh, South Beach Diet, huh?" I said, No, actually, I am a bear. And then I roared, ripped the door off of his fridge, and ate a raw fish carcass. The host just laughed politely, patted me on the back, and said, "Someone likes sushi!" To which I responded, "No, I am just a really hungry bear, and I could honestly eat fish right from the stream all day."
"Oh you girls," he said, leaning back with a champagne flute in hand, "listen, you're not fat! don't let anyone tell you that. I don't know what kind of boys you hang around, but you're a beautiful girl. Exotic, but in a good way! So just enjoy yourself."
Then I shredded all of his furniture in frustration and left the party angrily.
Applying to college was similarly frustrating. After I got an unprecedented 1610 on my SAT, my guidance counselor urged me to apply to all of the Ivy league universities. I decided I wanted to go to Brown, since their mascot is the Bear, and they seemed really open-minded about different kinds of students, different kinds of lifestyles, and interspecial relations (I hoped-- you can't exactly meet other bears at temple or church). When asked to designate my ethnicity or heritage, I wrote "other." When asked to specify what "other" meant, I wrote "Bear." I submitted my application in November and hibernated until April.
When I woke up, I not only found out that I had gotten in, but I had gotten all kinds of mailings from different organizations on campus. One particular group said that they were really excited to welcome someone "Of Ursa Origen" to their group on campus-- she said, touchingly, that they had never met a person who designated themselves "ursine." Excuse me - I wrote back to all of them in the finest script my non-opposable thumbs would allow - this is not a self-designation or an affirmative action ploy; and I am not a person, and certainly not an exotic new international refuge to be welcomed into the warm embrace of your hippie-dippie arms; oh no, I am actually a bear. Months later a student responded with a touchingly heartfelt letter saying that we all feel lonely sometimes, and like we are victims of our primal
needs, but at the core of it we are all people.
No, we are not. I am a bear.
Other than the beginning of college, the rest was relatively smooth sailing, with the exception of one violent "episode" which I somewhat regret; intolerance should not beget intolerance. I lost my virginity first semester freshman year. The guy I was with was always sending his friend instant messages from his computer bragging how I was a lady in the street but a tiger in the sack. I said, "I am not a tiger in the sack; I am a bear all the time." He just laughed at that, and said he liked how kinky I was, so I said, "You don't understand me at all." He said, "all women say that to me, but it's not true, baby." And I said, "I am not a woman though, I am a bear." He said we were just really different, but that was okay. I repeated, "we are really different, but that is because I am a bear."
He just laughed really rudely and I felt patronized so I mauled him and left without saying goodbye. Love hurts.
Weeks after that, I got many mailings from feminist organizations. They had seen me around campus, shaggy but proud, and had heard that I had very strong ideas about both my personal politics, and my desire
to be true to my inner beast. They had heard what happened with my boyfriend, and said it was good of me to assert myself, because the virgin-whore dichotomy was pervasive and oppressive to women and undermined their personal expressions and ownership of their sexuality. I told them that was very nice, and that I'd been invited to make my bed under many a political umbrella, but that I wasn't really being true to my inner beast; that was my outer beast. The feminists laughed and said that I was such a character, and that they liked my aggression. When I said that it wasn't an option so much as an evolutionary imperative,
they all just nodded and said things like, "sing it, sista."
I am not your sister. I am a bear.In other news, classes let out in December but reconvened in February; hibernation was thus shortened but not sacrificed. I ate a steady diet of fish and nuts and berries, and became known as "that organic pesca-vegetarian hippie girl" who hated to shave but was really always up for a good time. And a good time it was. I made a lot of friends and learned a lot of interesting things, including two foreign languages. The day I graduated, I heard a touching speech about how "we can't go home, but we're also nervous about moving on." It's true, I thought; I can't return to my old little cave in the woods, but I don't want to move to a condo in Miami yet either.
I have been applying to jobs for a while now. I finally got one. I am working in a pastry shop serving people. My boyfriend says I only got the job because of affirmative action, and because they have a bear quota to fill, but I tell him that's awful, and it's most likely my wit, sparkling personality, and the fact that no one ever seems to realize that I am a bear that got me the job. I am the only creature they have ever employed that is more likely to eat their customers than the merchandise. That is because I am a bear.
(source was taken down already)
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