Green Bear

The world really has it’s way of bringing life back around. Life itself is a full domino effect. It’s funny how something so long forgotten can still bring you the same peace years down the road. It’s crazy to deep dive into your own mind and find the hidden gems of your past.

My head nods, the continuous bobbing up and down getting stronger and stronger. Every part of my brain feels full, like after twenty eight years it's finally hit capacity. I guess after sitting in a computer chair for fourteen hours, yours would feel that way too. I pull my head back up one last time before cracking my elbows and pushing myself up with the help of my desk. 

"Finally," my body sighs in relief, "a stretch." I walk around my office, eyeing every last sketch as they bask in the moonlight coming through the window. It's 3:28 now. I should go to bed. Should. Any other night I would have retired to sleep hours ago, but not right now. I couldn't let last night's dream escape me before I had the opportunity to work on preserving it. I was hungry though, so I set on to climb the stairs and grab a bite to eat from the kitchen. That was, until I passed the chair sitting diagonal to the corner of my desk, and saw a snack already lying there as if it were the one waiting for me. I picked up the white bag, giving myself a sly smile.

"Gummy bears." Just what I needed.

I took the bears over to my seat and removed one from the package. He would be my model, my bear inspiration if you will. After positioning him at just the right angle for my referencing, I close my eyes and try to bring every detail of last night's dream back. Each deep breath makes my strategy work harder.

I'm 4 years old. My dad is sitting beside me on my pink princess bed, in my purple princess room.

“What color for tonight?", he asks me.

“Hmm." childhood me ponders. "Green."

"Green?", my dad looks at me with a dumbfounded expression on his face and I giggle as he finishes his statement with an, "again?"

"Mhm."

I picked green last night too. Sometimes it was fun challenging him to make a new story with the same color twice in a row. "Okay, green.", he says. 

I cuddle in closer with my stuffed animal, a bright pink pig daddy won me from a claw machine. I'd, of course, named him Bubblegum Piggy.

"Close your eyes.”, daddy says. “Once upon time there was a...", he pauses as was the common courtesy of every story night. It's my cue.

"Green!", I yell.

"...bear.", He continues. "And the green bear had a..." 

"Garden."

"A garden, okay. And in the green bear's garden he grew plants. He grew..."

"Tomatoes! and carrots! and apples!"

My imagination runs wild throughout my fantasy world. I visualize the green bear, raking his garden and watering his plants.

It's so vivid, just like when I was small. The green bear is fluffy and happy, dancing in the sun while his plants grew higher and higher the more daddy continued the story.

I watch my imagination soar for a few moments longer, and pop my eyes open. I got it. The perfect way to illustrate my green bear for the children's book I was writing about my favorite of my dad's childhood tales.

The exact imagery I had been searching for for the last thirteen hours was right in front of me this whole time, right in the eyes of the gummy bears in my home office.

A few last brush strokes later, and I have my finished fluffy and happy green bear, holding his left arm out welcoming the sun to shine on his fur. He has a watering can in his right hand which has water droplets spilling from the top of it as he carelessly throws it up into the air. Green bear is wearing overalls with a slightly torn front pocket, and of course he has a straw hat to complete the outfit. He looks like his name actually may as well be “green thumb bear”.

With a deep sigh of content, I pick up my drawing and pin it onto the wall beside my monitor. I finally found the illustration style I would use for my first children’s book. A book about green bear. Fulfilling my dream to write a collection of the tales of my colorful bear friends was finally in sight.

"Thanks dad.", I whisper to myself with a smile. I remember how every other night as a child, this exact picture would be my full mental occupation. Dreaming out loud with daddy, creating my own ‘bears only’ universe. Now here I am, all these years later reverting back to those simpler times when happiness was equated to his undivided attention.

To be honest, I didn't ever know how it started, and I still don't remember now why it ended, but the days when my daddy and I were best friends and shared our creative ideas with each other were some of the best days of my youth. He'd taught me everything I knew about art, and he’d allowed my to inherit his love of English as well. I mean, it’d been years and years past since I’d last brought one of these dreamtime friends of ours to life, but even now looking at green bear himself I knew I'd absolutely nailed my faint memory of him.

A look at the clock tells me all I need to know. It’s 5:43 in the morning, go to bed. One final step back allows me to see my creation in a full beam of moonlight and I feel so safe standing in its presence. The sense of security I feel looking into the kind eyes of green bear feels like daddy’s arms wrapped around me late on my childhood nights, when I couldn't sleep and he would come in and soothe my mind with our world of bears. 

Now, if I could only find Bubblegum Piggy.