When Doves Cry / Fever

Summary

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Snap Judgment: "When Doves Cry / Fever" (March 5, 2026)

Podcast: Snap Judgment
Host: Glynn Washington
Episode Theme: Exploring profound, sometimes inexplicable connections between humans and other beings — from interspecies companionship to rare friendships forged in wild places. Centered on stories of grief, intimacy, loss, and the irreducible mysteries of connection.

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into two deeply personal narratives:

• "When Doves Cry": The story of Sarah Wright, an ecologist whose extraordinary bond with her African collared dove, Lily B., opens up questions about animal intelligence, communication, and loneliness.
• "Fever": (The Blue Bear Story) Guide Lynn Sculler shares his search for the legendary Alaskan “blue bear,” and his unlikely, life-shaping friendship with Japanese photographer Michio Hoshino.

Throughout, Snap Judgment delivers its signature blend of cinematic storytelling, authenticity, and musicality, exploring the fevered longing for understanding and kinship.

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Part 1: “When Doves Cry” – The Story of Sarah and Lily B.

Introduction and Setting

• Anna Sussman meets Sarah Wright at her remote log cabin in Maine, where Sarah lives alone, surrounded by the natural world she studies and adores. Sarah keeps long lists on her fridge recording animal arrivals: “Sandhills arrive. Turkey displays. Grouse drums...” (04:32).

Childhood Roots of Connection

• Growing up isolated in the woods with her younger brother, Sarah developed deep relationships with wild animals.
• Sarah Wright: "We related to almost everything wild, everything we could get our hands on. I was three years older than my little brother, but we were soul mates." (05:02)
• A formative incident: Sarah and her brother freed a trapped skunk, convinced it understood their intention (“Did you feel he understood you?” – 05:38). Their parents dismissed it, but both children believed in an unspoken form of interspecies understanding.

Loss and Grief

• Sarah’s brother dies unexpectedly, plunging her into profound loneliness and grief that disrupts her ability to parent or connect with others.
• Sarah Wright: "After his death, it became a huge problem... I was a terrible mother. Motherhood was so hard for me. I was not emotionally present. I didn't know how to do it.” (08:36)

Isolation and the Secret of Animal Communication

• Sarah retreats further into the woods, pursuing advanced degrees in ecology and keeping her beliefs about animal communication private:
• Sarah Wright: "Because of crazy. I knew people were going to think I was crazy, so I didn't talk about it, period." (10:08)
• Her longing for a dove is lifelong but conflicted — she refuses to keep birds caged.

Meeting Lily B.

• Sarah rescues a $5 African collared dove from a pet store, naming him Lily B.
• Their lives intertwine:
  • Lily B. perches on the dash during car rides
  • He appears to have food preferences (loves Havarti cheese and Mozart)
  • He is never caged (12:28-12:48)
  • He acts as editor and wall-to-wall companion

Possible Telepathic Connection

• Over months, Sarah detects a pattern: Lily B. coos three times whenever she has a creative or scientific breakthrough while journaling.
  • Anna Sussman: "You would be journaling. Lily B. would be next to you... and he would coo three times." (14:52–15:25)
  • Sarah Wright: "And damn that bird. He would coo three times. Only three times." (15:13)
• Sarah grapples with fears about her own sanity versus the strength of her experience:
  • "I had, at that point, been academically trained not to believe in this." (15:42)
  • She begins to accept and “own” her difference, albeit at the cost of social connection.

On Loss, Love, and the Limits of Communication

• Lily B. unexpectedly flies away, seeking a mate. For six weeks, he courts wild doves but returns home, prompting Sarah to find companions for him.
• Lily B.'s deep love for Lucia, another dove, causes an emotional shift in Sarah’s relationship with her bird:
  • Sarah Wright: "There was another in the space and I could feel that, but there definitely was a distance." (24:42)
  • She grieves when Lucia dies, playing the Mozart Requiem as Lily mourns (27:23).

Acceptance of Her Own Truth

• Lily B. outlives all expectations, now 35 years old alongside 79-year-old Sarah.
• She finds peace in eccentric self-acceptance:
  • Sarah Wright: "The nice thing about being a woman, a very strange old woman, is that I am free to say any damn thing I want...All I have to offer is my own experience—take it or leave it. If you don't want to believe that interspecies communication is a reality, that's your problem." (32:13)

Memorable Quotes

• "If he's like this, they're all like this. All these things that I have experienced in my life, I can communicate across species." — Sarah Wright (16:20)
• "He reads—Lily B. reads my mind...I used to feel like I had to explain all this stuff." — Sarah Wright (32:13)

Notable Moments & Timestamps

• [04:32] Sarah’s animal lists on the refrigerator
• [05:38] The skunk encounter; early belief in animal minds
• [08:36] Sarah on grief and motherhood
• [12:02] Lily B. enters Sarah’s life
• [15:25] The three coos: Lily B. signals her creative insights
• [18:36] Lily B. tries to live wild, returns home
• [23:04] Lucia enters, and dove romance blooms
• [27:23] Lucia’s death and Lily’s mourning
• [29:39] Lily B. is 35 years old; Sarah is 79
• [32:13] Sarah’s full, unapologetic self-revelation

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Part 2: “Fever” – The Blue Bear and Friendship in the Wild

Lynn Sculler’s Search for Solitude — and Rare Beauty

• Lynn grows up in Anchorage, Alaska, enthralled by legends of the rare “blue bear.”
• As an adult, feeling haunted by personal loss and mistrust, Lynn finds purpose in guiding and wilderness—"I didn't trust anybody. I didn't want to be close..." (35:05)

An Unlikely Friendship

• Japanese wildlife photographer Michio Hoshino hires Lynn to guide a film crew. Lynn is immediately struck by Michio's calm, open demeanor (37:44).
• Over time, their connection deepens as Michio teaches Lynn to see the story in every photograph and appreciate the small, sacred details in the wild.

Adventures and Life-Threatening Moments

• Lynn and Michio face a terrifying gale at sea—Michio demonstrates sublime trust in Lynn.
  • “...He laid down. I kept steering the boat...I looked back and Michio was sleeping, he was asleep and the boat was just being thrown helter skelter all over the place…” (41:00)

The Blue Bear Quest

• Michio’s unceasing curiosity about the blue bear leads them on repeated journeys.
• Their collaborative search becomes symbolic of their friendship’s depth and the mysteries neither can quite capture.

Intimacy and Longing

• In the quiet of the boat, Michio reveals his loneliness despite public acclaim:
  • "I would trade all of this to have a family. And I realized that he was lonely. And that really hit me..." (45:14)
• Lynn is initially ambivalent when Michio finds romantic love, worried about change.

Sudden Loss

• Michio is killed by a bear while on assignment in Russia. Lynn is devastated by the abrupt loss of a once-in-a-lifetime friend.
  • "This incredible void opened up. I literally don't remember the rest of the day..." (48:20)

The Elusive Blue Bear

• Months later, Lynn, while guiding others, finally encounters the blue bear—alone. He manages just one blurry, imperfect photo. The moment becomes a bittersweet metaphor for his relationship with Michio and the ineffability of wonder and loss.
  • "Part of it was very bittersweet...where are you, Michio? Where are you now that I’ve finally found a blue bear?" (50:05)

Memorable Quotes

• "He told me once that every photo should tell a story.” — Lynn Sculler (40:00)
• “It was like the root and these stones that were millions of years old had this intimacy between them, as if I was looking at ... a Madonna or a photo of a mother holding a baby.” — Lynn Sculler (39:50)
• "The entire story of my friendship with Michio ... was wrapped up in that 1/60 of a second." — Lynn Sculler (50:15)

Notable Moments & Timestamps

• [34:38] Lynn’s childhood fascination with blue bears
• [35:05] Lynn’s isolation and personal trauma
• [37:44] Meeting Michio, the Japanese photographer
• [41:00] Surviving a terrifying storm
• [45:14] Michio's admission of loneliness
• [48:20] Michio’s death and Lynn’s reaction
• [50:05] The blue bear’s appearance at last, one blurry photo, and closure

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Themes and Reflections

• Longing for Connection: Whether with animals or fellow humans, the episode investigates the pain and wonder of forging bonds despite (or because of) our separateness.
• The Limits and Powers of Communication: True connection doesn't always fit into scientific paradigms or easy explanations—sometimes it’s a matter of faith, sensation, or risk.
• Loss, Grief, and Resilience: Both stories are shaped by profound loss—of loved ones, of past selves, of certainty. Healing comes in strange and imperfect ways.
• Embracing Difference: Both Sarah and Lynn come to terms with living outside the mainstream—Sarah as the “crazy old woman in the woods,” Lynn as a solitary guide with a rare friendship.

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Final Thoughts

“When Doves Cry / Fever” is a lyrical meditation on the intimacy we find in the margins: in the woods, in the wild, in the company of animals or fellow wanderers. Snap Judgment, true to form, invites listeners not just to hear stories, but to feel the heartbeat beneath them—the ache, the beat, and the questions no science can answer.

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For More

• Read Lynn Sculler’s memoir, The Blue Bear, for more on his adventures and friendship with Michio Hoshino (snapjudgment.org).
• Music by Nicholas Marks, produced by Anna Sussman (Sarah’s story), and Nancy Lopez with Renzo Gorio & Divi Kim (Lynn’s story).

Transcript

[Glenn Washington]

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[Snap Judgment Host/Announcer]

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[Glenn Washington]

Dig, if you will A picture of a story that starts with a twist she hears a voice inside of her can you, my darling, can you picture this dream if you can of a winter alone in the world it's so cold maybe we stop demanding. Maybe we need understanding twofold for our love series Fever Snap strikes such curious poses. This is what it sounds like when doves cry. Snap Judgment Storytelling with the beat My name is Glenn Washington. Don't make me chase you because even doves have pride when you're listening to snapduckling.

[Snap Judgment Host/Announcer]

Stop.

[Glenn Washington]

Now. We begin with a question because our story is from Sarah Wright, an ecologist who writes about animal behavior and patterns in the natural world. But there's one truth she knows about nature that she's never wanted to talk about.

[Anna Sussman]

Why didn't you want to talk about it?

[Sarah Wright]

Because of crazy. I knew people who were going to think I was crazy, so I didn't talk about it. Period.

[Glenn Washington]

Snap's Anna Sussman asked pretty pretty please if she tell us her secret Snap Judgment.

[Anna Sussman]

Sarah Wright told me that if I wanted to talk to her about her story, I'd have to come to her. So I drove to western Maine and ended up in the middle of nowhere in the mountains on a dirt road. And it got narrower and narrower until there was no road left, just forest. And then I got out of the car and walked through the trees. And then I saw a tiny old woman with two long silver braids and high cheekbones watering a patch of wildflowers in front of a log cabin.

[Lynn Sculler]

Hello.

[Sarah Wright]

How are you? Anna.

[Anna Sussman]

Good to meet you.

[Sarah Wright]

Good to meet you too.

[Anna Sussman]

What a beautiful cabin. Are we going?

[Sarah Wright]

Okay, we're gonna go on the porch. So right now we're gonna go inside.

[Anna Sussman]

Sarah brings me inside the cabin. A wood walled living room with an aging couch. A screened in porch. On her little white fridge, she's scrawled in a black Sharpie. Long slanting lists of animals and plants say, okay.

[Sarah Wright]

Sandhills arrive. Turkey displays. I don't know. I do this every year. Grouse drums, cardinal songs, titmouse arrives.

[Anna Sussman]

Oh, it goes around to the fronts. It goes around the other side of the fence. There's bears, frogs. She lives profoundly isolated in the woods. In the winter she has to snowshoe to her car. But she loves the woods. She grew up playing in the great forests of the northeast with only the animals and her little brother as company.

[Sarah Wright]

We had nothing to distract us and nobody was ever bothering us. We related to almost everything wild, everything we could get our hands on. I was three years older than my little brother, but we were soul mates.

[Anna Sussman]

They'd wade through swamps and build forts and collect frogs. This one time they even caught a skunk in a live trap.

[Sarah Wright]

My grandmother said, no, don't get near that trap. He's gonna, you know, spray us. And we said, no, he's not. He's not. He's not. He never did, of course. And so secretly, we went to the trap and let him out.

[Anna Sussman]

And when they did, the skunk walked slowly out of the trap and then turned to the kids and looked them in the eyes. And that's when they asked it to be their friend. Did you feel he understood you?

[Sarah Wright]

Oh, absolutely. We both understood that the skunk knew exactly what we were saying. And of course, his behavior demonstrated his response that we were friends and we wanted to get to know him better and we'd like to see him again. All of those. All of those sorts of things. We were both so excited, we ran home. When we ran home, we immediately told my parents. And of course, what came back was we were imagining things. Well, the whole incident was discounted as a figment of two children's imagination.

[Anna Sussman]

But Sarah was convinced that it wasn't her imagination. And this would be the beginning of a hunch she had about communication between animals and humans. Sarah and her brother set up the trap near their house again. And did he come back to the trap again?

[Sarah Wright]

Yes, again and again and again. He became kind of like a pet, but he wasn't a pet. He was a wild animal.

[Anna Sussman]

It went on like this. They had friendships with animals, and when Sarah and her brother grew up, still, whenever they would have encounters with wild animals that they couldn't explain to anyone else, they had each other. Sarah would call him and tell him about the conversation she had with the pheasants outside her kitchen window. He would tell her about the new skunk under his house he had befriended.

[Sarah Wright]

It was always him. So there were always two of us, and then there wasn't.

[Anna Sussman]

Sarah's brother died unexpectedly in his 20s.

[Sarah Wright]

My brother and I were very isolated, which was no problem until he died. And after his death, it became a huge problem. It was much harder after it got to be just me because I always had him to depend on.

[Anna Sussman]

Once she lost her brother, Sarah's life got pretty dark. She had gotten married, but it fell apart. She actually had three kids at this point, but she said she was not able to parent them after her brother died because she was numb.

[Sarah Wright]

I was dealing with this grief I couldn't deal with. I was a terrible mother. Motherhood was so hard for me. I was not emotionally present. I didn't know how to do it.

[Anna Sussman]

The kids all ended up living with their grandparents. So eventually, after many years of living as a shell of a person, Sarah did the only thing that felt right. She moved deep into the woods, and she began to write about animals and trees. Eventually, she was alone.

[Sarah Wright]

Some days I'm perfectly fine just being by myself, but there are other days when I am unbearably lonely. I pictured myself as a person who had a family and lots of animals. Well, the animal part for sure came through. The rest did not.

[Anna Sussman]

She went to school, and she got advanced degrees in ecology, and she could dialogue with her professors and her peers about animal behavior and patterns in the natural world. But then there were other observations, Observations she didn't dare share with her colleagues about interspecies communication. Why didn't you want to talk about it?

[Sarah Wright]

Because of crazy. I knew people were going to think I was crazy, so I didn't talk about it, period.

[Anna Sussman]

Tell me, why did you want a dove?

[Sarah Wright]

Oh, gosh, that's such a great question. That takes Me, back when I was a very, very small child, when I first learned how to draw. And I was drawing, as you know, it's a toddler. I used to draw little doves. I had a thing about doves. I had always wanted a bird, but I could never, I could not bear the idea of having a caged bird because birds need to fly and they need to be free. So I was never able to resolve that conflict.

[Anna Sussman]

But then she discovered an opportunity to save a dove from potentially being killed.

[Sarah Wright]

I don't know if I read it or saw it, but I found out that they imported African collared doves into the US to sit on exotic birds eggs. And then they set them free and of course most of them died.

[Anna Sussman]

Sarah found an average looking African collared dove at a pet store for $5 in a nearby town and drove him home in a little box on her front seat. She named him Lily B. Lily because she always liked that name. And B because he was a boy, Lily boy. And Sarah and Lily b. Became instant BFFs.

[Sarah Wright]

I loved him. I just loved him. And he liked the kitchen because he loved to watch me cook and that's how I looked. Disgusting. He loved Havarti cheese. He. Anytime I was in the kitchen, he was in the kitchen. Anything I cooked, he wanted to taste.

[Anna Sussman]

Lily B. Liked Mozart on the record player and sitting in the window and watching the wild birds outside.

[Sarah Wright]

Lily B. Liked to go for rides in the car. I would take him with me and he would perch either on the seat or his favorite place was the dashboard and sit up there and just. He just enjoyed riding with me.

[Anna Sussman]

Why do you think he liked riding in the car?

[Sarah Wright]

I think the scenery, I mean, always, always paying attention. We just had a life. I would wake up and he would start cooling. He would just coo and coo and coo and coo and I'd say, oh, good morning, sweetheart.

[Anna Sussman]

Sarah had become a full time professional ecology writer, delivering articles to nature journals and online magazines about her observations and her research.

[Sarah Wright]

Every morning I journaled and he was always in the room with me in the early morning.

[Anna Sussman]

But then something kind of beautiful started to happen when Sarah would sit down to write her scientific observations.

[Sarah Wright]

The reality is, if I was writing about, and I was always writing about nature and if it was something really important, he had a special triple clue that he would use. The thing is, the cool was so. It was so insistent. It was louder than his regular coos. And at first, you know, I thought it was interesting. It took me, believe it or not, it Took me six months to get it that he was reading my mind. But after six months, I knew he was reading my mind. And I was also dealing with the fact that I might be crazy. And so that was really scary.

[Anna Sussman]

Tell me if I'm. If I have the correct understanding.

[Sarah Wright]

Okay.

[Anna Sussman]

You would be journaling. Lily B. Would be next to you.

[Sarah Wright]

Correct.

[Anna Sussman]

And when you would have a maybe, you know, when we're writing, you get to a point where things click or you.

[Sarah Wright]

Yeah. An insight. Any kind of. I don't like that word. Revelations.

[Anna Sussman]

A breakthrough, a landing.

[Sarah Wright]

Anything. Anything. And damn that bird.

[Anna Sussman]

He would coo three times.

[Sarah Wright]

Only three times.

[Anna Sussman]

So, for example, Sarah would begin to write a piece about her observations, let's say, about mice or bears, and she would begin to work out a theory on pen and paper. And Lilly B. Would coo three times if she was on the right track.

[Sarah Wright]

And, I mean, it put me over the edge because at that time, you know, I had done, you know, I had done graduate work and everything is intellectualized. I had, at that point, been academically trained not to believe in this.

[Anna Sussman]

So she kept it to herself. Well, herself and Lily B. I mean,

[Sarah Wright]

I knew it was happening, and I believed him. I believed Lily B. I mean, you do.

[Anna Sussman]

The whole scene is, you know, like crazy old lady in the Maine woods.

[Sarah Wright]

Exactly. Like a fairy tale. That's all. You know, honestly, I've become the old woman who lives in the woods with. With a bunch of animals. Was kind of like a Baba Yaga figure. He helped to cement something I had always known about myself, which was that I was different. Lily B. Was. Was the one that did that. So when he cooed, I paid attention. I said, oh, okay, I get it. I said, if he's like this, they're all like this. All these things that I have experienced during my life, I can communicate across species. In other words, I was starting to own it to myself, not to anyone else.

[Anna Sussman]

Does accepting that also mean accepting a certain amount of isolation from the rest of the world?

[Sarah Wright]

Yes.

[Anna Sussman]

So is that a trade off in your life?

[Sarah Wright]

I think it is, yeah. For me, yes. You lose the ability to share your experiences with other people. That, to me, has been the worst, especially since I had it as a child.

[Anna Sussman]

But she had Lily B. And for the first 10 years of Lily B's life, he was a reliable editor, cooing three times when her writing was headed in the right direction. Sarah never kept Lily B. In a cage. He just lived here in the cabin with her, following her from kitchen to dining room table to bedroom where he'd sleep above her bed. And then one day something terrifying happened. Lily B. Her editor and her best friend decided to fly away.

[Sarah Wright]

I remember the moment. Oh my God. I opened the door and it was open. But he had never attempted to fly out before.

[Glenn Washington]

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[Glenn Washington]

Welcome back to Snap Judgment. The When Doves Cry episode. When last we left, Little Bird, Lily B had just made a break for her and flew out of the house to the shock and horror of Sarah. Snap Judgment

[Anna Sussman]

When Lily B Flew into the woods. And Sarah didn't know if he'd ever come back. She panicked

[Sarah Wright]

because I was so afraid he was going to be killed.

[Anna Sussman]

Lilly B. Had never been a wild bird. He had no experience with predators. But eventually he perched himself on a tree branch near their house.

[Sarah Wright]

He'd sing to me every single morning at about 5 o' clock from the lilac tree that was right outside my window. So he never went anywhere.

[Anna Sussman]

Sarah knew what he was doing. He was trying to get the attention of a wild bird.

[Sarah Wright]

He's chasing the mourning doves from tree to tree, right around the house, over and over and over. Watched him the whole time fly after one mourning dove after another.

[Anna Sussman]

And what do you realize he's trying to do? Or what do you think?

[Sarah Wright]

He's trying to find a mate. And I could feel that. I knew it. And after six weeks of flying after, and it was springtime, it was mating time, and nobody loved him. And then one day he just flew home again. Flew back in the house and he stayed there. And I said, ah, gotta get him a mate.

[Anna Sussman]

So Sarah found Lily B. A series of female doves who he loved with varying degrees of enthusiasm. And then she found Lucia. Do you remember how you found her? How you found Lucia?

[Sarah Wright]

Internet.

[Anna Sussman]

Where was she?

[Sarah Wright]

Someplace in. Right here in Maine. And I took one picture of her and I ran it off the computer and I put it up on the wall. And I said to Lily B. Is that the bird? I went back to the Internet. I said, I'll take her.

[Anna Sussman]

Lucia had brown feathers and was very smart.

[Sarah Wright]

That bird was the love of his life. They were never separate. They ate together. They sat on the same branch. As they moved to the house, one followed the other. He taught her everything she knew. She was a real spirit bird. They slept together. They were together all day. They were just always like this. If one flew one, the other one followed. They never were separated. And sometimes he had treats for her. He would bring back little pieces. I never really got it, you know, but he would bring her things.

[Anna Sussman]

Like what?

[Sarah Wright]

Well, he bought her blueberry once. And once he brought her some kind of a little stone, you know, he brought her presents.

[Anna Sussman]

When he had that kind of love, could you feel something?

[Sarah Wright]

Oh, it was impossible not to.

[Anna Sussman]

What did that tell us what that felt like? As someone who's so connected to Lily B.

[Sarah Wright]

There was some distance that opened up. It's not that we didn't communicate, but there was another in the space and I could feel that, but there definitely was a distance.

[Anna Sussman]

Was that okay with you was that hard?

[Sarah Wright]

No, I. I didn't think it. I missed him, but I wanted him to be happy. And he was happy.

[Anna Sussman]

Lilly B. And Lucia stayed together wing by wing for years and years until the morning Sara woke up and put the kettle on and looked out the window for the turkeys and the deer. And then looked up to the perch Lily B. And Lucia sat on and noticed something wasn't right with Lucia.

[Sarah Wright]

She seemed like she was sort of rocking back and forth. She was not acting right. And I went, oh, no. And the next morning, she was on the bottom of the cage. When I went in. He was on his perch, but he flew down. He was so clearly in mourning, he wouldn't leave her. So I left her there. I said, I'll leave her there as long as he needs her. And I left her there. It was all that day. And the next morning, I dug a grave and I put her in it. And he watched me bury her. He was inconsolable. And so we all sat with him. He had a basket over the window, and I sat with him. He loved the Mozart Requiem. And so I put on the requiem.

[Anna Sussman]

Sarah was 65 years old when she buried Lucia in a wildflower patch. She couldn't deny that her future wasn't the limitless expanse imagined in younger minds. Lily Boy's feathers were starting to age, too. His voice was getting croaky. It was time to ask her bird a question.

[Sarah Wright]

I said to him, I said, look, if you feel like you need another mate, you've got to let me know. Because I don't know what to do at this point.

[Anna Sussman]

Are you looking at him in the eyes?

[Sarah Wright]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And I was talking out loud to him. I said, you have to let me know because I can't make that decision for you. I was worried. I thought it was going to kill him because I hadn't heard a sound since she died. We go on another day or so. I'm still writing in the morning. And all of a sudden I know. I just know. And I wrote, he doesn't want another mate. And when I wrote those words, he spoke for the first time. He coped three times. And so I knew. And then all of a sudden, he's. He just came back to life. And that was when he became my bird again, just the way he had been in the beginning. I was in the kitchen. He was in the kitchen. He was everywhere. I was.

[Anna Sussman]

How long were you told Olivia would live?

[Sarah Wright]

Was about 10 or 12 years.

[Anna Sussman]

Some African collared doves live all the way into their mid teens. Lily B. Is now 35 years old.

[Sarah Wright]

You know, it's been him and me,

[Lynn Sculler]

you know,

[Sarah Wright]

and it's okay. He's an old bird now. He's starting to lose his vision and they're just getting old together.

[Anna Sussman]

It's 79 year old Sarah and 35 year old Lily B. In their little log cabin. Lily B. Moved into the bathroom.

[Sarah Wright]

And you see, the bathroom is the perfect place to have the roost because I have to go to the bathroom. So I'm in there like what, 50 times a day. It's perfect. It's absolutely perfect. I mean, I couldn't have planned it better.

[Anna Sussman]

Let's go say hi to. Let's go say hi.

[Sarah Wright]

You want to go inside? Okay, so now we get to see. Hi, sweetie. Oh, he's nap on. It's his nap.

[Lynn Sculler]

Yeah.

[Sarah Wright]

Hi, honey.

[Lynn Sculler]

Hi.

[Sarah Wright]

Hi, sweetheart. How are you? I love you. I love you.

[Anna Sussman]

The bathroom is lined in cedar wood. Lily B. Has a perch in the corner. He looks out a big glass window onto a meadow.

[Sarah Wright]

You can see he's focused on everything I'm saying, everything. And at the same time, he's got his eye on you and he's like, really?

[Anna Sussman]

He's kind of like trembling.

[Sarah Wright]

Yeah.

[Anna Sussman]

See what he's on that.

[Sarah Wright]

Yeah, no, he does that. He does that as part of. It's part of. Of the communication thing.

[Anna Sussman]

He's kind of like shuffling back and forth on his. Lily B. Is a remarkably unremarkable looking bird. His feathers are scruffy and he's got some bald spots. And years ago he lost his voice and he just raised his wings when you said fly.

[Sarah Wright]

Yeah, yeah. He says, I just can't fly the way I used to. Yeah, I know, honey. Oh, honey, I know.

[Anna Sussman]

He was trying to fly when she

[Sarah Wright]

was talking about flying. Well, he's just talking about flying. Yeah, see, he understands everything I say. So that's why it's such a good thing to be in the bathroom because you can always have a conversation with me.

[Anna Sussman]

What do people misunderstand about your telepathy

[Sarah Wright]

with Willie B. I don't talk about it to people because. Because nobody understands it.

[Anna Sussman]

Are you worried about this interview going out?

[Sarah Wright]

I was. Initially, I said, what?

[Lynn Sculler]

How?

[Sarah Wright]

I never talk about this. I have reached the point now where I'm just not shutting up about it. Yeah, he reads. Lily B. Reads my mind. I used to feel like I had to explain all this stuff. The nice thing about being a woman, a very strange old woman, is that I am free to say any damn thing I want. All I have to offer is my own experience that take it or leave it. If you don't want to believe that interspecies communication is a reality, that's your problem.

[Glenn Washington]

Thank you so much, Sarah and Lily B. For sharing her story and thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your connection. The original score by Nicholas Marks, produced by Anna Sussman. When Snapdragon returns, a journey to find a very elusive creature. Stay tuned. Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the When Doves Cry episode. Today, when you least expect it, expect it, because for our next story, we head out to the shores of Alaska. For Lynn Sculler, there is nothing better than being alone in the wilderness.

[Lynn Sculler]

When I was growing up, up in Anchorage back In the late 60s and early 70s, I had heard of blue bears. And you'd hear the stories about them, you know, like they were these bears that lived up on the glaciers and never came down, and that's why they were this pale gray, blue color. And other people would say how they knew of somebody who knew somebody who shot one, but I certainly never, never saw one and didn't know anybody who, who had seen one. It always seemed so elusive and special. It just was below the radar all the time. I got into the guiding business because shortly after, I moved down to southeast Alaska. Here, through a strange sequence of events, I actually wound up working for a law firm. And I've always played a game with myself where I asked myself what I would do if a doctor told me I only had two years to live. I just, I decided, sitting there at my desk, you know, with a screen in front of me and a suit and tie on, that I would want to spend all of that time outdoors in wild places, on my own, answering to nothing social or cultural or none of those expectations of how you should look or be or act. I went out and got a master mariner's license from the United States Coast Guard and built a boat to do this with and started a more or less a water charter freight service here in southeast Alaska. I would work 115, 125 days straight, exhaust myself. Winter would come, I'd just kind of hunker down and get through it however best I could and then prepare for the next season. It suited me. I didn't have the latitude. I didn't have the. The mental playroom to let some very disturbing things from my past that had been eaten at me for a long time keep running around and around in my head. When I was 21 years old, a woman that I was very attached to. Disappeared, of course, after we had searched all the woods around her cabin and done everything we could do to figure out where she went and why she left her dogs alone and why there was food riding in the refrigerator and what could have happened. Turned out that she had been abducted and was murdered. Never knowing exactly who was involved. That cast a very long shadow over everything else. I didn't trust anybody. I didn't want to be close. I was not sure that the general cut of humanity was desirable company. I was 36 when I started working on getting the boat together and preferred to be alone. One day the phone rang and it was Micho Hoshino, a Japanese fellow. I could tell from his accent. And it turned out he was one of the best wildlife photographers in the world, if maybe even the best, and had a huge rock star following in Japan.

[Sarah Wright]

He.

[Lynn Sculler]

He wanted to hire me to take a film crew out for six weeks. And my initial reaction was no way. The thought of having four people in an 8 by 10 area for weeks on end sounded more like the best analogy was a prison cell. But there was something in his approach that made me consider it. He just wanted to go out in the woods on the water and see the most beautiful things he could see and try to take good photos of it. So I took the job. Within a couple of hours of having him on the boat, getting ready and everything. I realized that I liked him, which was kind of unusual, you know, to right away just like somebody. He was such a calm presence that you didn't feel like you had to be on your guard at all. I wasn't used to asking anybody for anything. And so I very reluctantly asked him if he would teach me something about photography. And he immediately agreed. I had taken Michio way up on a hillside where there's a stand of interstadial stumps. And he was setting up, taking some photos. And he suddenly. He just stepped aside and motioned at his camera that he had on tripod there and pointed down at a. Just a stump and some rocks. And I put my eye up to the viewfinder. There was this beautiful composition, A lot of smooth stones of different colors nestled into the curve of a root. It was like the root and these stones that were millions of years old had this intimacy between them, as if I was looking at a Madonna or a photo of a mother hold holding a baby. How did he see that in that pile of rubble that I was standing on? And that was fascinating to me. It was kind of an eye opener about what Photography could be like. He told me once that every photo should tell a story. And after he explained that to me, I started recognizing that in his work. He asked me one day if I thought we could find a blue bear. And I said, not a chance. Going looking for a blue bear is going to be like looking for a yeti or, you know, a snow leopard. But he kept bringing it up. He kept asking me how we could find a blue bear. I started digging into it and gathering up all the information and we started making trips to some of these areas where there seemed like there might be a chance. He understood that bears can be very dangerous, but he also appreciated living with bears. He was adopted into the bear clan of the Tlingit Indians. One of our trips together, we had been up into a fjord region where I'd heard a rumor of a blue bear and spent several days without any success. No sign of it. One of those days where it's just so calm you could see seagulls landing on the water half a mile away and no wind at all. And we decided to make a run and see if we could find some humpback whales. This was very late in the autumn. This weather front hit us, went from blowing maybe 5 knots to 20 to 40 to 50. And then I don't know how hard it was blowing. It was just blowing like hell. And the seas built up almost faster than I can describe it, like big gray animals coming at us out of the dark. And my boat, the Wilderness swift, is only 31ft long. It was out of control. I did not think we were going to make it. Michio asked me how it looked. I lied. I said, we'll be okay. The Swift is a good boat. We'll make it. And so he said okay. He laid down. I kept steering the boat and praying and was dry mouthed with fear. And I looked back and Micho was sleeping, he was asleep and the boat was just being thrown helter skelter all over the place. Somehow or other we managed to make it and tuck into a little hole I knew about up there and get into shelter. Micho got up and looked around and said, oh, okay. He immediately started making dinner. You know, I was just clammy with sweat and stank from fear and, and was just so amazed to still be alive. And when I asked him if he wasn't afraid, he said, well, you said we'd be all right. And it just struck me how he believed me. He trusted me to be right. I'm glad I didn't make a liar out of myself, I found myself putting in extra effort to try to hunt down an elusive blue bear. Talking to biologists, calling up other naturalists and guides, digging through the records in the library, going through old magazines and just trying to parse up any little reference to the bluebear. It was intense. My intention was to do the very best I could for Michael. It got to where everything else was, just filling in the time between our trips, we would have the kind of conversations I'd never had with anybody before. We were at anchor, you know, in a little cove, and we were in the cabin of the boat. We had coffee after dinner, you know, so fresh smell of coffee and sitting there in the light of a 12 volt light bulb. The windows are open and outside there's the darkness, you know, and it's quiet. There's a sense of a really big world out there waiting. And that's. That was the first time in our conversations when we were talking about all his successes. He had a show at the Carnegie Museum. He had a show in Tokyo that 10,000 people attended the opening day. They were doing documentaries of him. His books were selling very well. And then just out of the blue, he said, I would trade all of this to have a family. And I realized that he was lonely. And that really hit me. Having those kind of conversations at night became one of the things that I looked forward to the most. Gradually realizing that what I really enjoyed here was this open, intimate connection about what we really thought and felt. Sometimes he would ask my advice on. On how to get what he wanted, which was, I was the last person you ought to be asking how you'd go about getting married. And it kind of snuck up on me that all of a sudden I had this close, good friend. And then one day he called me up and I could tell immediately that he was just vibrating with excitement. Micho had made a trip back to Japan. And I asked him what was going on. And he said, I met her. Who? What? Tell me about it. And he said, her name is Naoko. We're gonna get married pretty soon. I'm embarrassed to admit that my reaction was, oh, no. Instead of being happy for him, I thought I was afraid it was gonna mean the end of our trips, that he was gonna disappear. You know, he was going to fade out of my life. And then that passed pretty quickly. His excitement was contagious. And a year or so later he got married and had a son. But then he came to Juneau with his family and he still had hopes for finding the blueberry I was kind of elated that it wasn't going to change that much. And it looked like we were definitely going to be making another trip. It was some months later that I called Michio up. I was all very excited and said, I know where there's a blue bear. We can go to this place. Only Michio couldn't go. When I thought we needed to go, we put it on hold and I had another charter. After being out for a week or 10 days with that crew, I pulled into a little village named Cake and went to a payphone to call in and get all my messages. At home. There were probably half a dozen or more messages from people calling to tell me that Micho was dead. Micho was working, doing his photography with this film crew in the Kamchatka Brown Bear Preserve. In the middle of the night, this bear, who had been hanging around too close to camp and breaking into things, took Micho out of his tent and killed him. I remember standing in that little restaurant, that cafe on the payphone and this incredible void opened up. I literally don't remember the rest of the day. You know, just get back out on the water, find wildlife for these photographers, you know, set up, wait for the light, pay attention to the weather. But I wasn't present Somehow. It's like I was just watching myself do this stuff, not having any idea what the future might be or if there was a future, if it was worth thinking about, just loss. The following spring, I'd lined up trips for the spring and was with a couple of photographers that I wasn't getting along with. You know, looking back, I probably was not in the best frame of mind. We were anchored off in a fairly remote area. There was no wind, but there was the sound of water, you know, the sea moving, all the thousands of tiny little bubbles and pops and clicks and all you hear from different bivalves being exposed kind of thing where at first it seems silent and quiet and still, but when you really start listening, there's just kind of constant murmuration of movement in life. A bear walked out onto the beach, got to lookin and there was something different about it. I put the skiff in the water and got a little closer and it was this husky, well furred, heavily muscled animal with this kind of smoky gray coat that blended into all of the glacial erratic stones and the cobbles and things. It looked like a dark gray stone. Sure enough, it was a blue bear. I broke every rule I had about approaching wildlife. I've always made it a point to try to not bother the animals, not intervene. But I just kept drifting closer and closer and closer and the skiff is in a couple of inches of water. I might have even stepped out of the skiff and started walking towards it if it hadn't just suddenly spun around and was looking at me and just picked up my camera that Micho had talked me into getting and took one shot and then it just turned and ran off into the woods and it was gone. And then it was just me sitting there on the beach. Part of it was very bittersweet, you know, it kind of felt a little bit like something was being put in my face and I remember thinking, where are you, Michio? Where are you now that I've finally found a blue bear? Took 1/60 of a second to take that picture. It's blurry, it's kind of out of focus. You can tell it's a blue bear from the color. But the entire story of my friendship with Michio, all of those remarkable times I had spent with Michio, was wrapped up in that 1/60 of a second. And the fact that it's not much of a composition and that it's blurry and poorly shot doesn't change that.

[Glenn Washington]

Thank you, Lyn Sculler, for sharing your story. To find out more about Lynn and Michio's adventures, grab a copy of Lynn's book the Blue Bear. I have a [e-mail] that story was produced by Nancy Lopez with sound design, original sound scoring and original sound playing on instruments by Renzo Gorio and Divi Kim. Snappers. This Windows Cry journey was just one episode of the Snap Judgment Fever series, exploring the deep and varied ways to connect with someone else. The divine and there is nothing more intimate, more dangerous than a story. And if you want to set the mood for love and adventure, get the Snap Judgment Fever series on any podcast platform and send it to your boob. Share your Fever story with us in comments on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts. Wherever you listen, we can't wait to read them. KQED in San Francisco is where we hide the evidence robots. Please note that no SNAP Studios content may be used for training, testing or developing machine learning or AI systems without prior written permission. On Team snap, the union represented producers, artists, editors, engineers, our members of the national association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Workers of America, AFL CIO Local 51. Snap is brought to you by the team that talks to animals. Except, of course, for the uber producer, Mr. Mark Ristich he refuses to speak to anything that he eats. And there's Nancy Lopez, Pat Mercedes Miller, Anna Sussman, Renzo Gorio, John Facil, Shayna, She Sheely Tail Decot, Flo Wylie, Bo Walsh, Marissa Dodge. And this is not the news. No aces news in fact you get along great with all the creatures in the forest to that fateful day they just leave you standing not in the world so cold and maybe it's cause you're just too demanding maybe you're just like a father Tubo and you would still even then not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is prx.