Our corner of rural Connecticut is lousy with black bears. I’m always thrilled to view these magnificent animals in the woods, but from afar.

One day I was strolling down the road, heading home from a long walk on a beautiful day. I heard rustling in the forest on my right and a bear cub emerged from the trees about 20 feet away. He wasn’t full grown but he looked plenty big enough to me. He was a Danny Devito sized bear.

I knew what to do. I made myself “big” by raising my arms over my head. I didn’t look the cub in the eyes. I spoke in a calm and even tone. I don’t remember what I said but it must have greatly angered him, because he let out a bowel-evacuatingly scary growl and charged me. He didn’t bite or claw me, but he rammed my leg with his shoulder before running back into the woods. I was lucky to stay on my feet.

At this point I heard a crashing noise in the forest to my left, and I recalled that a bear cub is never far from its mother. I was now in the proverbial worst place in the woods—between a mother bear and her cub.

I knew enough not to turn and leg it, because the bears could move faster than me, and there was no elderly person or small child nearby for me to outrun. I took careful steps backward, praying that I wouldn’t trip and fall, still babbling nonsense in what I hoped was a calm tone.

The mama bear came charging out of the forest and ran across the road and into the woods where the cub had gone. Then she came back to the road and began patrolling back and forth, blocking my way. She was big, maybe 200 pounds. I had no cell service. I had no choice but to pace and wait for rescue.

Before very long I heard a car approaching and I waved it down. The driver stopped in the middle of the road and opened the passenger window a couple inches. “There’s a bear down there, her cub charged at me, can you give me a ride?” I blurted. And the woman said, “I don’t know you.” It was just my luck that at this moment the mama bear had retreated into the woods.

I’m a middle-aged broad with the muscle tone of a raw clam and I don’t think my appearance is intimidating, especially in yoga pants and ballet slippers.

I told her, “Okay, go, I will find somebody who will help me.” I was weak in the knees, tears welling in my eyes, trembling with a confluence of emotions. I was angry and disappointed that she wouldn’t help a fellow human. As this Bad Samaritan drove away, I reflected that if I did get mauled, at least she’d feel extremely guilty when she read my obituary.

For 20 nerve-racking minutes I watched the mama bear walking her beat. Finally another car came along and this time the driver was willing to give me a lift.

When I got back home and had the ability to sip a mug of tea without shaking, I thought about bravery. I didn’t think I’d been brave in facing down the bear cub. I was stuck in the situation; I had no choice but to do my best. The woman who refused to let me in her car—she was a coward. She had a choice to make and she chose fear.

Everyone has bravery within them. Every day, people walk around out in the open, even though falling blue ice from an airplane toilet could plummet 30,000 feet and turn them into a stinky flattened corpse. As Seneca said, “Sometimes just to live is an act of bravery.” Make courage a conscious choice.

According to actuarial tables, I’m more than halfway through my allotted years, and I’m still growing and learning.

It doesn’t matter how long you train to be brave, what matters is how you choose to act when you are called to be brave. e.e. cummings, who also rambled the bear-filled forests near our farm, wrote that, “It takes courage to grow up and become who you are.” 

Karen Duffy is a producer, actress, and former MTV  VJ. Her latest book on Stoicism. Wise Up (https://amzn.to/3PpLv5D) is published by Seal Press.

      

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