Joan Bauer's Journal

Father's Day: Episode 1 "The Gerbil"

I was looking under my couch trying to find my glasses, when I remembered a time, maybe 25 years ago, when my daughter's gerbil Lassie escaped. We'd looked everywhere for this rodent to no avail and Jean had left for first grade in tears.  

"If you find her, you'll call the school, right?"  I promised I would.  Jean sniffed, "Because she's little and can't fight back."  

I stepped over the lettuce I'd put on the floor as gerbil bait and looked at my husband who was lying miserably on the couch.  The day before he'd had his tonsils removed and you know how these things go.  It occurred to me that Lassie might be holding out for the good stuff. I added endive to the lettuce on the floor and heard scuffling under the couch my poor husband was on.  I knelt by the couch, looked underneath, peered into little gerbil eyes and actually said, "I've got endive."  Lassie considered this, then scurried out.  I tried to grab her and missed, but Evan, thinking quickly, scooped her up.  Lassie, thinking quickly, bit Evan's thumb through to the bone, causing Evan to shriek in pain, his tonsillectomy so wretchedly raw. Into the cage Lassie went with the endive as Evan flopped on the couch holding his throat.  I called the school and in one of the great moments of education the principal got on the loudspeaker and announced to every classroom K to 5:  "Jean Bauer, your father has found your gerbil."  

You can't ask for more than that from your elementary school, or from a father for that matter.  Happy Father's Day, Evan!  You always get the job done.  

A Different Mothers Day

I’m in Chicago, it’s Mother’s Day weekend.  I won’t be with my husband and daughter on Sunday, and my mom died a few years ago, I’m here for auditions for the reading of SQUASHED The Musical, the most fun new venture -- a musical of my first novel, SQUASHED, the book that got me started in YA, the book I wrote after a car accident, neurosurgery, pain, and absolute despair.  I didn’t know what I was doing writing that first story! I’d never written a novel, I hurt like crazy, I was unsure, but my character Ellie Morgan -- she was sure.  I heard her voice, I let her show me, I gave myself to her story, and let her quest to grow the biggest pumpkin in Iowa be my quest for doing something big and bold.  SQUASHED was wonderfully reviewed, and now it’s got a new voice, a musical voice, and I’ve found my music after all these years.

I was surrounded by serious music growing up -- my mom was a jazz pianist -- that woman could swing. She had such a gift, such a love for it.  My sisters and I danced around the dining room table as Mom played.  I’m convinced there’s a great jazz band up in heaven.  I played the flute and Mom and I would play duets -- some of my best memories were standing at the piano doing that.  And here I am with this musical in the works and she’s not here.  It’s the one hole in the show.  I know, she’s in the soil of it, I know she handed me her love of music like a baton.  She told me to study the piano -- I didn’t listen -- why didn’t I?  But I’m listening now -- I need to get better on the piano, so much better, but every now and then I’ll play a deep bluesy chord and I know that my mom played that chord with everything she had.  

It’s easy to hold back on trying something bold and new -- oh, I’m too old, or too busy, or not old enough, or whatever.  For years I had carpel tunnel and couldn’t play an instrument, but those days are over, and when the stirrings came a few years ago to start writing songs, I could hear the melodies in my head, and I stepped out, so cautiously at first.  I found the nerve to sing one of those songs for a musician friend.  I waited for his eyes to glaze over, but they didn’t.  I waited for him to back out of the room when the song was over.  He didn’t do that either.  He encouraged me.  Keep going, keep at it, you’ve got something.  We need encouragers in our lives!  My husband, my greatest encourager, wouldn’t let me quit.  Keep going.  Okay!  I felt bolder and now here I am about to listen to singers audition for the SQUASHED reading with my collaborator, Jeff Bouthiette, head of Second City’s music training program. We wrote this show together.  

I can see my mother grinning, pounding out the beat with her mighty left foot, giving herself to the music.  You’ve got to give yourself to a thing, and let all it is and all you can bring to it come out.

How very cool to have a mother who taught me that.

When It Hurts

I had a dumb accident two weeks ago,  browning a chicken in a 450 degree oven; my wrist touched the heating element and...well...it was a bad, bad burn.  I iced, covered it with antibiotic cream, non stick bandages, picturing the scar that would come. Day after day I slathered it with ointment, kept it covered, protected, so protected. 10 days passed, it wasn't healing. My pharmacist looked at it: "You have to take the bandage off, Joan.  It needs air to heal."  I was afraid to do that, afraid it would get wounded again somehow, but I took the bandage off and in one day the scab formed, the redness reduced.  Each day it's gotten better.  And I thought of the hurts we get in this world, physical and otherwise -- sometimes we overdo the medicine and the bandaging, we don't want the air to get anywhere near the injury, but getting out there again can be the best thing for that.  That's when the real healing begins.

This Week, Mom

I started crying for no apparent reason yesterday.  Was it the mess in the kitchen?  Not enough to warrant tears. Was it was concern about someone I love? I didn't think so. But of course, it was Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week, the week my mom and I shared more uniquely than any other.  She died a few years ago, and there's something about this time when the shadows of the years, and the decapitated chocolate rabbits, and the awful Easter hats, and the music, the glorious music seem to come and sit with me, just like my mother would sit at the piano and I would grab my flute and we would play Easter hymns together.   

I found a tiny painted box that she'd kept in her dressing table -- in it are odd buttons she'd been meaning to sew back on.  The things we mean to do.  It's good if they can be contained in a small, painted box -- we know where they are at least -- when they're all over the map of our lives, we try to grab at them, but there isn't time to do it all, to have it all, to sew it all back on. 

This week, Mom, I remember your beauty, I remember how whenever I would start a new novel you would pick up the phone and ask, "What are you going to do to the mother this time?" I remember your brilliance as a jazz pianist, you could have gone pro, but you became a teacher to take care of us.  I remember how you went back to grad school to get your masters degree and sat near the piano and did your homework wearing earplugs.  I remember how you celebrated the seasons, no matter what, and how Easter was your most happy day.   

I suppose every button has a story, every Easter egg that has been lost for years and suddenly appears behind the sofa has a tale to tell of overcoming, I suppose that no one can tell the full story about one's  mother, we never get it all. How could we?  But this I know -- it is a colossal blessing to be the child of a survivor who struggled with everything she had to become a prevailer.  This week, Mom, I'm particularly remembering that.  

 

Turn Left

I'm back from walking in the park and just had one of those moments that makes you wonder.  I wasn't wearing boots, it's still snowy and slushy here from the blizzard, I didn't plan to go into the icy park, but I felt strongly I was supposed to go, so I did.  Then I felt strongly I was supposed to turn left, and I did.  A woman was sitting on a bench, head bowed, crying.  I didn't want to interfere, I didn't want to walk by.  I asked, "Are you okay?"  She wasn't.  Her dad had died suddenly, it had happened a few months before, but she was still so sad.  I put my arm around her and she wept and I did, too, a bit.  We talked, we prayed, and then the work day had to begin. 

I have my routines, but I need to be open to turning left more.  I don't want to miss the moments.

Are We Sure?

I came upon this after a paritcularly noisy weekend, it was in an old book of meditations that my grandmother loved, Springs in the Valley: "The greatest forces in nature are quiet ones." The example given was the law of gravitation -- no sound, but utterly sure and powerful. Another example: the center of a whirlpool where waters surge madly, but in the center, there is stillness.

I think of the ability to stay calm and caring in the face of anger and mistreatment, to choose not to speak when harsh words come rushing at us. This world is so noisy, and yet we're made, I believe, to need peace. Mary E. Shannon wrote, "We need not be noisy if we are sure."

 

In Our DNA

Protecting kids.  It's there inside of us.  We know it's our responsibility, whether they are our kids or somebody else's. The front page of the New York Times today showed a boy in Chicago holding up a sign:  DON'T SHOOT.  I WANT TO GROW UP.  Today Sandy Hook students go back to school. Violence is everywhere in movies, in Internet games. There is a scary thing called crisis fatigue that can come upon people as awful news pummels our spirits and it seems like nothing can be done.  It's too hard, too painful.  We need to bar the gates and doors to that, and make sure we stay alert and caring.  I have a friend who just returned from Uganda where she introduced the powerful concept of a tribe encircling a child after they are born as a sign of commitment and protection.  Whether we circle or speak or act in other practical ways, protecting kids, keeping them safe isn't somebody else's job.  It's ours.  It's there in our DNA -- self-replicating, fundamental, and distinctive.

Perishable. Please Open Immediately.

Life's like that, the little moments that we need to open right away, or they'll be gone, the things we need to say now, the small moments of care, the mighty acts of courage.   A phone call with a friend, a longer chat than usual with a neighbor, snatching a moment with someone you love instead of picking up a room, I keep trying to make things perfect, but things are never perfect, especially rooms, but to stop and connect is the right thing.  Open immediately.  

The news of the day, well, it's going to get old, we need to understand the world we're in, the day we find ourselves, and think about this crazy planet and what we can do to extend ourselves to other people.  I've procrastinated on something for so long it's embarrassing, it's past the perishable stage, but I'm going to do it anyway.  Not just to get it off my list, but because I want to, I care about this person.  What do we want to do?  And if we don't act, will it be lost forever, or get brown spots, or turn to smelly mush?  

Please open immediately: the gift of this day, the moment by moment opportunities, even the things we don't want to do, sometimes doing them opens another door and it frees us up.  So much is perishable, a look at the news reminds us that.  So, open to the end of the year and bring into the new year all that is required.  May we forget and forgive, count our blessings and name them one by one.  May we open the box of 2013 with all the hope we can muster, the gift of a new year, a new beginning.  May we hug a child, rub a puppy's tummy, and look for the moments fleeing by, grab them like the string of a wonderful kite and let them catch the wind.  I've never once gotten a kite into the air, but in my mind, it's up there, flying.  Happy New Year!

Our Kids

The school shooting in Newtown CT happened to our kids, to our teachers.  The loss is too deep, it can’t be understood, but what we must do in their memory and in the name of rightness and reason is to draw a line in the sand and say, No More.  Everyone can do something.  People can adopt a school and work to make it secure.  People can look no further than their own families, their own children, and honestly ask, are we watching, reading, playing games with too many violent images?  We’re going to stop.  Colossal tragedy enlarges the heart, we must step out, everybody, and look for ways to help others.  What do we want to leave for our kids?  What do we want to leave for the world? What happened on Friday morning was evil.  Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”  May we be deliberate about this and insist that this impossible attack make us better, deeper, truer people.  May we act now in small and big ways, may we show our kids we’re serious about entering into the enormity of this crisis.   

 

 

Honk If You Love Stories

When I was trying to break in as a new writer, sometimes I would drag myself to my desk,  asking the wrong question —Does the world really need another story?  

Early in my career, I posed a similar question to a rowdy group of high school freshman who were not listening to much of what I had to say.  Everyone knows you're not supposed to ask a surly crowd a question, especially a surly crowd of teenagers.  But I did.

"Why are stories important?" I shouted.  A boy in the back yelled, "They're not!"  I was ready to crawl out the door and find another profession, but when you love something, you defend it.  I hollered back, "Why not?"

A girl raised her hand: "Because stories teach us about life."  I almost gave her money for that answer.  It was the first time I ever led a group of students in an exercise developing a character from thin air. Who was this person?  What kind of a family was he from?  What kind of a heart did he have?  What were his dreams, his fears?  What kept him going...and on and on...

By the end of the assembly, we'd formed a living, breathing fictional character (that is not a contradiction in terms), and a boy in the back shouted, "You're okay, lady."  I wrote that down and slept with it under my pillow.

Does the world need another story?  I don't ask that question anymore, no matter how tired I feel. I know the answer—not just for my work, but for the millions of writers (published and yet-to-be published) out there.  Absolutely, positively, and undeniably YES!