I don’t remember being afraid.
That’s probably the strangest part.
I was six years old, living with my family in our ranch house in the country near Tekamah, Nebraska.
And one night, I woke up to find a band of bears playing at the foot of my bed.
They had a jug. A guitar. Drums. An upright bass.
And they were putting on one hell of a show.
I sat straight up in bed and pushed the covers aside.
I couldn’t believe it.
The bears were about my size, maybe a little smaller, and they were glowing. Reds and blues and purples moved around them while moonlight came through my bedroom window.
I didn’t call for Mom.
I didn’t yell for Dad.
I didn’t even get out of bed.
I just watched.
Because somehow, at six years old, I understood something very important:
You don’t interrupt a band of bears playing a private concert in your bedroom.
Besides, I knew these guys.
We had been to Disneyland not long before, and I had seen the Country Bear Jamboree. My mom read stories to me, too. I remember The Jungle Book particularly well because after she read it to me, I could listen to it again on our stereo console.
So talking animals weren’t exactly a foreign concept.
I’d just never had any show up in my bedroom before.
I sat there with the blankets pushed away from my legs and watched them play.
I felt like the luckiest kid in the world.
I don’t know how long the concert lasted.
In my memory, it was an hour.
It could have been five minutes.
It could have been thirty seconds.
When you’re six and a bear is playing an upright bass at the foot of your bed, you’re probably not watching the clock.
Then something happened.
The bears started getting smaller.
Not slowly, either.
They shrank.
The music kept playing as a strange colorful wind began swirling around them. Red. Blue. Purple. It twisted around their bodies and instruments and started carrying them toward my closet.
Then my closet doors opened.
By themselves.
The bears disappeared inside.
The doors slid shut.
And I was alone.
For about two seconds.
Because the music was still playing.
I stared at the closet.
There was light coming from underneath the doors.
Not bedroom light.
Not moonlight.
Their light.
Red and blue and purple glowing through that little space between the wooden doors and the carpet.
They were still in there.
I had no idea what was happening inside my closet.
Maybe the concert had moved.
Maybe there was another room back there.
Maybe that’s where the bears lived.
There was only one way to find out.
I climbed out of bed.
I crossed the room.
The music was still playing.
The colored light was still glowing beneath the doors.
I put my hand on the left closet door.
And slid it open.
I stepped inside.
Then everything happened at once.
The other closet door flew open.
My bedroom window sprang open.
And the bears shot out.
They flew.
Right past me.
Across my bedroom.
Out the window.
Jug.
Guitar.
Drums.
Bass.
Bears.
All of them flying through my room in a swirling trail of red, blue and purple light.
And I went after them.
I came out the other side of the closet and ran to the window.
By the time I got there, they were already in the sky.
I watched them fly north over the Nebraska countryside, their colored light streaming behind them like the tail of a comet.
And beyond them was something even bigger.
The northern lights.
Growing up in the country, far away from city lights, we could sometimes see the aurora during the dark Nebraska winters.
In my memory of that night, the sky was filled with it.
Red.
Blue.
Purple.
The same colors that had filled my bedroom.
The bears flew toward it.
And I wanted to fly, too.
I wanted to climb through that window and launch myself into the night sky.
I wanted to catch them.
Not because I wanted to go anywhere.
I just wanted to see what happened next.
Maybe there was another concert up there.
Maybe they were going somewhere magical.
Maybe if I could just figure out how to fly, the show wouldn’t have to end.
But I couldn’t fly.
So I stood at my bedroom window and watched until the bears and their colored trail disappeared into the northern sky.
Then everything was quiet.
No jug.
No guitar.
No drums.
No bass.
Just my bedroom.
I closed the window.
Climbed back into bed.
Pulled the covers over myself.
And went back to sleep.
More than fifty years have passed since that night.
I know what you’re thinking.
It was a dream.
You’re probably right.
I’ve had incredibly vivid dreams my entire life. I’m not always a spectator in them. I walk around. I make decisions. I talk to people. I explore places. Sometimes they’re so real that waking up is the moment that doesn’t make sense.
So yes.
It was probably a dream.
But I can still tell you where the bears stood.
I can still see them shrinking.
I can still see that colored wind carrying them into my closet.
And I can still see the red, blue and purple light glowing underneath those wooden doors.
That’s the funny thing about being six.
The impossible doesn’t need an explanation yet.
Sometimes a band of bears comes to your bedroom in the middle of the night.
And if you’re really lucky, you get to watch them play.
I just wish the show could have lasted a little longer.
If this resonated with you, you’re not alone.
