Shortly after midsummer it was time for me to take off for a while. I decided that I am old enough and I think I was much inspired by all the other young learning peoples around Oulu. Buggering off for the summer. I left against all of Gabor’s recommendations. No matter how vividly he recounted me our first encounter... I thought and I still think I am a lucky bear, especially because of our meeting so I was sure, and I was sure rightly it would be just fine. I felt invincible!
Answering the calling of the wild I hopped off the train at Rollo, Rovaniemi on its official name, and hitched a ride with a friendly reindeer farmer further north into the wilderness. I spent the night in the barn and early morning set out to find them wild bears. Eventually I did and my joy was great but it came to a quick surprise. Wild bears at first are never so friendly as grumpy old Moses or Theodor Junior. In fact they gave me quite a harsh welcome. An ice cold one in fact as I quickly landed in the river.
Eventually I learnt to swim and becoming friends with Jaakko and Leonid – who is an illegal immigrant by the way so I am not using his real name here – at the end proved easier than expecting after their surprising welcome. They don’t have TV you know. In fact they don’t really have much of anything out there so sitting around our imaginary campfire in the evenings they listened endlessly to my stories from the south, from the amazing, great cosmopolitan metropolis by the name Oulu. Of course I must say that I may have gotten carried away and my recounts and description became a bit tall. I think at certain parts they begun to suspect but fortunately neither Leonid nor Jaakko cared much. It was a welcome change of scenery.
Maybe you should wonder about one thing; why imaginary campfire? But the explanation is simple. I am mostly made of slightly flammable and meltable fabric so I prefer not to handle fire as such. While bears in general are not so much into making campfires for usually they are not cold meanwhile this time of the year it doesn’t really get dark unless it’s really rainy. If cold Bears I think usually reach for a crude form of geothermal heating. Environmentalist from whom we shall learn much.
At the end I realised that I am who I am. A bear. An urban Bear who was not created for life in the wild. Simple as that and who helped me to learn that? Mosquitoes. Millions of them. Although I have not the blood to suck they tried and tried and tried and circled around my head till I had enough. One could ask if I feel defeated and I would have to admit that yes, I do. But one could ask also have I learnt anything from this trip about myself, my place or better said aspirations in this life and I would answer hell yeah! It was wonderful coming home, seeing those familiar places and telling the stories from the wild. Some gotten a bit more colourful I guess but they, Lili, Gabor, Jen and Itchy didn’t seem to mind. Moses is convinced that one day I will grow to be a great story teller. Maybe he is right. It will be for the benefit of you who are reading these lines.
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