Tuna Sandwich

“Over the years, Claire and I have enjoyed occasional face-to-face with bears. Our experience is that they typically are too shy to have much of an encounter. But, on this occasion, I shared a more intimate negotiation with a bear. And it all had to do with a Tuna sandwich.

I was a few hours out into the Sangre de Cristo mountains on a solo backpack for several days. I had left my car at the trailhead and entered the wilderness from the West near Crestone, CO. After a rather severe uphill, I entered a small clearing in the shade where a convenient log provided a comfy seat and shed my backpack, leaning it against the same downed tree. After satisfying my thirst, I pulled my lunch from my pack, a tuna sandwich with lettuce, celery, and mayo, which I had been looking forward to.

About the time I started the first half, a bear briefly poked her face out of the dense undergrowth in front of me. About 30 feet away. Seeing me, she quickly withdrew but didn’t go far. She didn’t run away. That tuna was simply more inviting than any amount of caution she might otherwise have felt.

I have always enjoyed bears and entertained a daydream wherein I meet a bear in the deep woods, and we enjoy one another’s company mediated by the Holy Spirit. Something like encounters I have enjoyed with other, more predictable and less intimidating inhabitants. This is not one of those stories. Although, who knows, maybe it was the Spirit’s presence that kept this one from going sideways.

Making soft and low grunting sounds, she moved to my left, counterclockwise, just outside of the clearing and inside of the scrub oaks on the edge of the clearing. I was finishing up the first half of the sandwich. To my left, then behind me, and now on my right. I could see her back above the oaks from time to time. Obviously, she was being as polite as she knew how to be, yet there was a certain assertion of entitlement on her part. After all, she had not come into my home insisting on a portion of my dinner; I was in her living room eating my lunch.

I came to see her point. Washing down my sandwich with the remaining cold water from my thermos, I determined I needed to honor her position. I stood, shouldered my backpack, unwrapped her half of the Tuna sandwich, laid it on the log where I had been sitting, and was on my way up the mountain. No sooner had I taken one step out of the clearing than she was on that sandwich. And, while I didn’t get all that I had hoped to get out of the discussion, like both halves of my lunch, I suppose we both got enough to look back on the negotiation as successful. And I learned something. I never brought another Tuna sandwich into a bear’s living room, expecting that I wouldn’t have to share.”

“The Lord’s blessing on you, Helder.”