Finding Focus: Lessons from Bears and Black Holes
I think I’m finally learning an important lesson.
Watch out for September. 👀
Yes, this is a caution about this month and the season it kicks off. It can get hectic!
🍂 There’s the change of season – which is always an underappreciated source of transitory energy. There’s the back-to-work and back-to-school energy. And, there’s three more months to do everything you intended to this year. That, plus all the other unexpected things that pop up out of nowhere, can lead to a lot of overwhelm.
And as I think of this time of year, and what it calls for, I keep coming back to one of my favorite moments with my husband.
Bears and Black Holes
We were backcountry camping in a Pacific Northwest national park. Every night, after supper, washing all the dishes and brushing our teeth, we had to pack up all our food and even our toothpaste into a sack and cross a wide meadow to another grove of firs. Here, there was a “bear wire,” a cable wire and pulley so we could suspend anything that might attract a bear 15 feet into the air.
Otherwise, we’d risk a black bear coming into our camp at night. 🐻
The Pyrenees, the mountain range closest to where my husband is from, has very few bears; they’ve nearly gone extinct. So he was excited and a bit nervous about being in a place that was home to bears.
As he quizzed me about the bears, though — about their habits, our likelihood of seeing one and what we should do if we did — he was surprised at how cool I seemed about encountering one.
Here’s the thing, I’m definitely going to take every precaution when camping around bears and I also know from experience that black bears are generally shy of humans and if anything we’d be lucky if we saw the rear end of one scampering away from us.
He wasn’t so sure.
Nevertheless, Manel and I always went together in the evening to hang the food, because it was a little unsettling, even if you were a cool-headed, outdoorsy Oregon girl. It was a time of day when wild animals are more active, and we were entering an area with food dangling in the air, perfect for attracting bears.
After a few days, we adopted a regular route to the bear wire, which we had to use multiple times a day, walking a slim path likely created by other campers. It crossed the meadow more or less directly, dipping down a little gully and winding around a large tree on the way back up.
And at the base of that tree, I noticed, was a dark hollow, about twice as big as an 8 ball and twice as black.
At first I looked at it curiously, wondering what creature might call it home. Then, I unwillingly let it begin to captivate me.
When we passed it, it would suck my gaze in, and I’d feel fear crawl up my back. Like that feeling I’d have as a child when it was time to walk up the basement stairs in the dark, and I’d tell myself there was nothing to be scared of but then my skin would prickle and I knew that actually there WAS something to be scared up and I’d race up the rest of the stairs in a surge of adrenaline.
Now as an adult of course, I could appreciate that I was letting myself get scared by some black hole in a tree and all I had to do was walk by without looking at it. But I couldn’t help myself. So every time Manel and I would walk by, I’d look and let myself get freaked out and then giggle because it was so absurd. Eventually I had to let him in on the joke.
“Manel, do you see that black hole? Isn’t it so creepy? It’s so black! What do you think is in there!?”
It was silly and I was being silly – but we were also newly in love, so I was ready to let him in on all the silliness.
He saw it, yeah, but what about it? It was just a hole.
“But it’s so black! It looks bottomless,” I blurted out. “Like it could suck you in!! What’s in there?!”
He snorted. “I can’t believe we are walking to hang up our food from bears,” he said. “Which don’t bother you at all,” he added. “And you’re getting freaked out by a black hole!”
I laughed too.
Manel and I dutifully hoisted our food bag into the air and turned back toward camp, taking the same trail back. This time we were walking in near complete darkness, switching on our headlamps.
As we approached the tree, I decided to ham up my silliness and whispered dramatically, “Here it comes! The hole!”
“Don’t look at it!” I hissed, right as a burst of noise exploded in the tree canopy above us.
I screamed.
The unmistakable sound of a pigeon flapping off in the night had nearly given me a heart attack.
Manel fell about laughing. My theatrics had totally backfired. 🤦🏻♀️
What was even worse was that apparently that pigeon roosted every night in that tree and every time we startled it walking past, I’d still jump a foot, and Manel never missed it.
On the long hike out (9 years of marriage since) I’ve never heard the end of it. Lisa’s not afraid of bears, but keep her away from black holes!
In the end, we never saw any bears, and we haven’t since, so now his big joke is how it’s a hoax that there are bears in Oregon and Washington and all the locals are in on it. 🤫
So why is this story perfect for kicking off September?
No, I’m not telling you to watch out for black holes. Or bears.
Though that might be good advice too.
For me, this story is about the power of focus. Our attention and what we do with it is one of the greatest powers we have.
It had the power for me to nearly die of fright from a tree hollow and a common pigeon.
This month, and this season, tends to send up a lot.
So I wanted to encourage you to carefully select, as you navigate your own winding path, where you’ll train your gaze, how you’ll tame your fears, and what you’ll choose to focus on.
Take a moment to clarify what your top one to three priorities are as you head into the remainder of this year, and then, don’t take your eyes off them. 👀
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