Commonly one may go through emotional or spiritual or existential crises. Some have crises of faith although I have had none for a long time. Because I am me, myself, my crises came early and often. I have joked that I moved from the crises of puberty and adolescence to existential angst in my young adulthood to midlife crisis, with no time for respite in between any.
When I was a young man in the city with a neat and tidy and orderly apartment – but never neat or tidy or orderly enough for my peace of mind – I had a bearskin rug – full, with head and gaping maw – on the hardwood floors. It was the centerpiece of my white-painted and hardwood floored apartment, on which my cat slid as it bounded round the corner from hallway to living room.
The bear was my grandfather’s. He took the meat, had it processed, and shared the hamburger with us (which meant only cheap meat for me back then) and had the bear hide made into a rug, then handed it down, leaving it to me eventually to keep dearly, pricelessly in my apartment in the city where there were almost no bow hunters and even less bear hunters.
James Egan created a necklace from three bear claws that were left over from a bear rug. Photo courtesy of James Egan
When my young adulthood had run its course, I packed all my possessions – most notably my bow and shotgun and paintings and Beatles records and analogue system, and moved them up to my father’s pole barn in Wisconsin, packed very carefully and secure for the longest term possible.
“Are you going somewhere?” my father asked.
“I’m moving to Asia, “ I said at the bonfire in his far yard in front of the cow barn, burning everything that need not be kept for posterity – books and yearbooks and photos and clothes.
Pause.
“Do you have to go so far away?” he asked.
“I have to go where I feel valued.”
Much of it, after many, many years was sold. My bow, the bedding, pots and pans. Much of it – the Beatles and paintings – are gone. The shotgun abided.
Now I am here.
My father is moving on now and the farm and the barns will be ours no more. We slowly clean out the basement and pole barn and cow barn and come upon a 5-gallon bucket.
“I kept these for you,” he said.
Three paws left over from the old bear rug. The mice had destroyed the hide over the 20 years I was gone and only three paws remained.
“You can remove the claws from the paws and drill holes in them and make a necklace.”
So that will be all that is left.
“It’ll give me virility,” I said.
“It’s a symbol of vitality, “ my father said.
The three paws I soaked in a solution to dissolve. First, a base, of baking soda and salt and borax. That didn’t work. Then in an acidic solution of vinegar and citric acid. And that worked. The cuticles slipped and claw separated from flesh.
Now I have the great bear claws that I will make a necklace out of, a symbol of life or death, survival above all, time and the tides of change wait for no man, except a man who stands solidly or sternly against – or just travels with – them.
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