The Sleepytime Bear is Made for Modern Times
You may have noticed the Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime Bear making the rounds online recently.
In red sleep cap and powder blue tunic, the Sleepytime Bear dozes in a hunter green recliner by a wood-burning fire — one paw is draped over its belly. A plate of biscuits, a jar of jelly, and a white teapot are placed on the side table; a transistor radio and a clock on the wall indicate a simpler time.
The character on this conventional boxed tea is popular enough, one you’ve no doubt seen in grocery stores for decades, but a close-up look reveals something surprisingly tender.
The style invokes the fantasy of being read Goodnight Moon…but for frazzled adults. So it’s no wonder this image seems to resonate, especially on Twitter, offering a peaceful (cottage-core?) counterpoint to the often bleary-eyed media workers who hang out on the app.
And buoyed by the resurgence of affection for the tea icon, Celestial Seasonings last month, released a new digital campaign called “Sleepytime Bear Woke Up.” The idea is that “after five decades of peaceful snoozing,” our fuzzy friend is catching up, decade by decade, to the frenetic pace of our digital world. It’s actually a brilliant bit of advertising, one that is attuned to its new surge of online popularity. Of catching up to the ‘90s? the copy reads: “You know what’s great about the 90s? The way they were a long time ago but also yesterday. Haha ha ha.”
But, much like the original Sleepytime Bear, perennially in a position of…sleepytime-ness, I’ve long appreciated the sense of peace and ease that I can only really tap into when I don’t feel like I’m supposed to be productive (something that’s been true even before the shorter days arrived).
Working during the daytime? Too on the nose.
Remember that old meme: Tired of looking at bad screen, can’t wait to go home and look at good screen. It’s sort of like that. (I’ve recently solved the question of what is fun? and the answer is that it’s anything you don’t have to do.)
Once it’s dark, the expectations of the day are all but sloughed way, and I feel free. And, in a phenomenon that feels particular to writing, loose thoughts come easier in the shadows.
Much like the shift from “bad screen” to “good screen,” I can shove off from my desk, and find some other snug seat — laptop on limbs and knees crimped into the couch, propped up by pillows on top of my bed, even laying on my belly on the floor (somehow, my most effective position since high school when I would make study guides in the dim light after dinner — and still a good way to evade back pain!).
I get the visceral sense that when the light fades, no one is peaking over my shoulder, thereby vanquishing pressure, much like the disappearing of specks of dust in a sun beam, when they move out of the light.
Who knows, maybe it’s also a function of so much time spent in L.A., the hot, sunny days seem to demand you be outside. But as soon as the sun floats down and the light fades, there’s an overall sooth. Finally, it’s okay to be an indoor kid.
I’ve written before about my fondness for all things post-dinner related. Perhaps because it can be trying, sometimes to fulfill all the basic duties required of being a human. Consider the quotidian act of making dinner. In addition to the grocery shopping, there’s the returning of the cart. After cooking, it’s cleaning up. The small tasks that beget tasks. The If You Give A Mouse a Cookie of it all.
So naturally, there’s tranquility in the day’s work being done. I feel complete when dinner is cleared, the loud sports talking of Pardon the Interruption on TV pervades the space, and the white noise of the dishwasher rolls on in the background. That’s when I feel most free to do my best work — or, like the Sleepytime Bear, make a cup of tea, and nod off before I can take the first sip.