It’s fall here in the Pacific Northwest, kind of. Unlike the typical mix of rain and clouds and 60 degree highs, October has been filled with sunshine and smoke haze and high 80s afternoons. Call me a grump, but I’m sick of this beautiful, sunny weather.
The kids had off school yesterday, so we spent our day out in the Columbia River Gorge chasing waterfalls and then picking apples and petting a particularly friendly steer named Carlos in the Hood River Valley.
Ok fine. It was perfect.
Traipsing through the forest with my family always brings me back to my first true foray into writing for kids — The Forest Friends. You can listen to all of the Forest Friends adventures via the Lightcatchers Podcast. Inspired by my own four kids and all the uniqueness that makes them who they are, most of these started as a bedtime story.
As the pandemic began and I had to explore different creative outlets to stay sane, I started writing them down and putting them out in a podcast. I’ve always loved working across different modes as a creative, so I wanted to try and include music, audio, writing, and art into the whole process. I could do most of those myself, but had no skill with the art part.
When I reached out to my friend Tessa Coates (who just released her own children’s book!), she agreed to breath life into these characters and her illustrations literally brought me to tears.
Bear Feels Sad
I tried to balance humor and depth when I wrote these. I want kids (and parents) to be entertained by these stories, but I also wanted them to show the real challenge and emotions kids face as they grow up. As I wrote in a previous post, I strive to write light and hope for kids. But to do that, there has to be darkness. There has to be an appropriate honesty about the real things kids face.
This story in particular is one that hit close to home. The basics of the story is that Bear, the often kind, brave, and hardworking Forest Friend that loves to make everyone meals and carry Kit around, woke up feeling sad. There was no real reason for his sadness, except that he felt it.
The day was a typical adventure for them. They were going to Good but Grumpy Owl and Wise and Beautiful Horsey’s house to help pick berries and bake pies, an activity he normally would have loved. But he found himself only pretending to have fun. When they asked if he was okay, he made excuses about bugs in his eyes and other things like that.
Finally, after the rest of the crew went outside to pick berries, Bear lingered back. Good but Grumpy Owl came back to find him when this scene happens:
Bear didn’t realize how long he had been staring at the the picture on his basket that Wise and Beautiful Horsey painted, but it must have been a while. The door burst open, startling Bear, and Good but Grumpy Owl came through. “Oh good, you’re okay! I have been flying everywhere trying to find you.” Good but Grumpy Owl was a little out of breath. He would never say it out loud, but he was starting to get older and couldn’t do the same things he used to do. Bear tried to come up with an excuse, tried to figure out some way to brush it off, but he couldn’t do it anymore and slumped his big Bear shoulders forward and began to cry. Good but Grumpy Owl looked up from trying to fix his shirt and make it fit over his Owl belly. “Bear? Are you okay?” Bear couldn’t speak for a while and Good but Grumpy Owl flew over and put his big wings around him. “It’s okay, Bear. It’s okay. I understand.” “But how can you understand? I don’t even understand,” Bear finally said, a look of deep despair on his face. Good but Grumpy Owl sat down next to him. “There are days I wake up and feel a deep sadness I can’t explain. Days I can’t enjoy things I normally enjoy. Days when I don’t want to be around anyone, even Wise and Beautiful Horsey, which is crazy.” Bear’s eyes got wide as Good but Grumpy Owl spoke. “You feel those things too?” “Yes. I’ve always had it, underneath all of the joy and the friends and the fun and the delight. A deep sadness that I could fall into at any time.” Bear wiped his eyes. A weight felt like it lifted off his shoulder and it seemed like the whole room, the whole forest, the whole world was silent and calm. Finally Bear spoke. “I always thought something was wrong with me. That there was a problem that kept me from being like my friends. Some days it’s fine, but other days, it’s so hard to pretend like I’m okay.” Good but Grumpy Owl stood up and looked deep into Bear’s eyes. “There is nothing wrong with you, Bear. The sadness you feel, the sadness I feel underneath it all, is a super power. It is a super power that you will use to help others process pain, a super power that will give you wisdom, kindness, and empathy. There is nothing wrong with you, Bear.” Now Good but Grumpy Owl teared up and sat back down next to Bear. They both felt the peace and calm of the room and forgot all about the berries at the edge of the pasture and the pies and the clouds moving across the sun. They sat in the joy of sadness knowing they were okay. “Do you want to hear a song I’ve been working on?” Good but Grumpy Owl asked. “Yes. Very much so,” Bear said as Good but Grumpy Owl grabbed his guitar and started to play. “Sometimes I feel sad Sometimes I feel blue But lately I’ve been trying to keep The way I feel from you And sometimes I can’t sleep And wonder if you knew Would you still think of me The way I always think of you But then I remember I remember this here truth The sun needs the clouds to shine so bright And the day needs the dark to have the light And every song needs both the major and minor if its gonna be worth your time Cause even sadness helps us fight the better fight” Good but Grumpy Owl kept playing and singing as Bear closed his eyes and heard every thought he ever had and wept different tears and knew that somehow everything was going to be okay in the middle of the beautiful forest in the great big world.
I’m not going to lie, I cried as I wrote this part. I tear up now even reading it. As I’ve shared in other posts, I’ve had the monster of sadness haunt me all my life.
My goal in writing this was to write what I wish I knew as a kid—sadness is a superpower. I know most likely my kids will struggle with depression in some form or fashion. I know there are both children and adults who, like me, wake up feeling a deep and isolating sadness that seems completely incongruous to the world around them.
Bear is kind, empathetic, drawn to create beauty and long for the goodness BECAUSE of his depression, not in spite of it. The sadness is what gives him eyes to see pain and the strength to carry it with others. As the Good but Grumpy Owl writes in his song, “Sadness helps us fight the better fight.”
A note on multi-modal storytelling
Another really important thing that went into this story was the different layers of how the story was told. I didn’t just want it to be a good story, I wanted the music to work with the mood and I spent a lot of time talking with Tessa about the artwork.
If you notice in the illustration at the top of this here substack, she put detail into the band posters behind them on the wall, the Wilco shirt Bear is wearing, the hip Scandinavian vibe of the Aspen wall. We talked about the aesthetic of it all and I think it fits perfectly with the razor’s edge of talking and singing about depression without it being overbearing or patronizing.
I love all of the Forest Friend stories, but this one has always been one of my stand outs. If you or a kid wakes up feeling sad sometimes, or even if you know someone who does, maybe give this one a listen.