When I first saw him, I thought I was hallucinating.
I looked up and saw a twinkling bear dancing through the audience at the top of the Superdome. I blinked my eyes a few times, and decided, real or not, this bear was my kindred spirit.
Turns out the dancing bear was real.
I was at a Grateful Dead show in San Francisco with several friends, when I first saw the Bear, and after hours of dancing, I walked outside to get a drink of water. I was wearing a flowing white shirt, a long colorful skirt, and because I needed my hands free so I could properly dance, I didn’t carry a bag — I carried a teddy bear head around my neck full of my important items, namely lipstick and cash.
I was taking a long cold drink, when I looked up and there he was. His name was Rob and he was wearing a furry sort of apron. He had created the iconic Grateful Dead bear on the front, and it lit up like it was dancing and was holding a flower. On his back, he had created a sun with a big smiley face that lit up and winked. He also carried a spinning ball of lights, a sort of magic wand. He was wearing a tie-dyed skirt and brown hiking boots, and he had a beard, which made him seem to me like an actual bear.
I lifted my head from the cool clear water and he smiled and held his wand high, spinning the all for me to make it even more impressive. I smiled back and held up my bear purse for him to see we were kindred spirits.
“What’s your name?”
I smiled back, “Marci.”
He danced on.
Later, I was lying on the auditorium floor with my friends. It was time for “Space Music,” the portion of Grateful Dead concerts where the band leaves the stage and “spacey “ music plays with an elaborate light show so you feel like you are soaring through outer space. Some people sit down, some go get snacks, some dance, and some lay down and let the lights and music take them on a journey. For this particular show, every color change was sending me into new realms of laughterRob came by in full regalia and everyone around me stared at him, entranced by his lights. He heard my laughter, paused and said, “Is that Marci?”“Yes!” I yelled, laughing. My friends were shocked that out of the thousands of people in the audience, the dancing bear knew my name.
Rob and I became friends. At the time, I was a struggling actress. My friends and went to visit him in Palo Alto and saw the café, 60-acre park, and the ten houses he owned, all named after Grateful Dead songs. When he came to visit me, we drove around to my musical theater auditions in my put-put VW bug painted with fairies and he camped out in a sleeping bag on the blue shag carpet in my single Hollywood bungalow.
He knew I couldn’t afford shows, so he always left me a “miracle.”
“Miracles” at Grateful Dead shows are free tickets, and people love to give them away to those who can’t afford their own. Rob would call me and say, “I’ll leave you a ticket under the large gray rock outside the Shoreline show,” or “I’ll leave you a ticket under the third red rock outside the Vegas show.” I can still clearly remember standing and watching the silhouettes of people dancing wildly on top of a bus in Vegas against the desert sunset. They were beautiful.
Rob put together a huge elaborate float for the Mardi Grateful Dead Shows in Oakland and invited me to join. Imagine riding through a Grateful Dead show with the Dead playing Iko Iko and thousands of screaming fans, all reaching their hands out to you. It was an experience I will never forget, and it occurred to me that perhaps the reason they are called “floats” is because the entire experience makes you feel like you are floating.
So flash forward twenty-five years and I am now living in a quaint New England town. My first day here, I was walking down the street and noticed a large oval bubble in a random wall with a picture of Jerry Garcia in it. Every time I walk by, it reminds me of a beautiful time in my life, where money didn’t matter and magic swirled around the music makers singing lyrics like, “All I want to know is, are you kind?”
… a time when a Dancing Bear shared inspiration and limitless possibilities with a thirsty young woman… a miracle indeed.
