Bear With Me

Even though a virus is blind, we have learned, yet again, that like so many oppressive things, it disproportionately finds its way to those who are already suffering.

I feel privileged that, during the coronavirus pandemic, I was able to escape the confines of traumatized New York City and spend the autumn of the fateful year of 2020 living and working remotely as a psychiatrist in Vermont.

One September day, I was hiking up Magic Mountain. The wide grassy trail was bounded by tall trees whose leaves were raging with color. It was as if I was alone on the mountain. I felt small in a good way. Having climbed about an hour up, in the quietude of the moment, I decided to return a patient's call. We had just started to talk when, shockingly, our conversation was crashed by a huge black bear barreling out of the woods ahead. I was about forty yards away on open grass.

Three things came to mind about bears: they can climb trees, they can run fast (about thirty miles per hour), and you're not supposed to run when you see one. I don't how the math works out as to how long it takes to cover forty yards at thirty miles per hour, but it's not a long time. Images of burly dudes wrestling bears into submission in the wilds of Yellowstone came to mind. But being a New York City Jew, the prospect of staring down an enormous frickin' bear seemed out of the question. I wasn't channeling strongmen out west. More like Upper West Side. I felt like the bear even knew I was Jewish. I joke now, but I wasn't laughing then. When it seemed as if the bear wasn't looking, I started to run. Like my life depended on it.

Peering over my shoulder, I saw that the bear was mercifully running in the opposite direction. I had a long way to go, but I kept running until I arrived at the base of the mountain, where I told a local guy I had just run away from a bear. He smiled knowingly and then pointed out what, in my fea