Joan Bauer's Journal

The Grind

Years ago my daughter had a rock polishing set. We put the rocks in a canister, plugged it in, and it would turn them over and over, endlessly and loudly. The worst part was that the process took two weeks (not mentioned in the ad campaign) -- two weeks of incessant grinding.  After a few days of this, I was becoming a desperate person. We put the machine in the basement, but I could still hear the grind. We finally put it in the garage, covered it with something large to dull the noise, and let it go to it's heart's content. At the end of two weeks the rocks were smooth. 

It makes me think about tough times -- the kind that grind on and on. Frustration builds, the pain gets louder, it seems like nothing is happening -- surely, the process is just there to make us crazy. But there is smoothing going on, too; there is change happening, if we are patient enough to wait out the process. And all of that makes me think about love -- not the Valentine variety with hearts and chocolate. But the kind of love that grows between people in hard times. True love takes time to get polished. I don't think Hallmark wants us to think about that this week, although there's something to be said for a Valentine that reads:  THIS HAS BEEN A LONG, LOUSY MONTH, BUT I STILL LOVE YOU. And so, I wish you much love this year -- the kind that's made more beautiful by the ever-present grind.  

Making New

I don't have a to do list for the new year, I have a want to list. 

For 2010 I want to learn to make things new.  I want a freshness in this year that I've not had for a while.  I want to look at old things in new ways.  I want to believe in new ways, write in new ways.  Be a friend in new ways, and be smart enough to know what needs to be thrown away.  I keep shoving stuff in my closet, telling myself I need it.  I'm not sure I do.  Things, at least some of them, feel like a leash to me.  I remembered this particularly today when I took my dog Max to the park, unclasped his leash, and watched him roll and play with the other dogs.  I want to give myself some off leash time in 2010.  

It's snowing in Brooklyn -- the right way to end a year and begin a new one. Let it snow over 2009 and into 2010.  Let the freshness fall, let it all be made new.  Amid the sorrows and joys of this year -- and both of them have been deep -- I want to make a new way and travel it.  

Here's to 2010.  May our hearts be refreshed and our dreams renewed.  Happy New Year! 

Come Closer

Put down your load.  If it's anything like mine,

It's all the gifts you need to buy,

all the cards you should have written,  

all the cookies you've consumed,

all the things you meant to do.  

Put them down.  It's okay.  

Come closer to Christmas.

Put down your guilt about not being perfect

and getting sucked into the hype 

that siphons out the joy.  

The more you buy the more you save.

Not exactly -- the more you buy the more you buy.

Just for a minute let that go.  

Come closer to Christmas.

Pull down your walls.  If they're like mine

they keep you locked inside.

Open the doors, let the fresh wind come.

In light and joy a babe was born.  

It's so simple that we miss it.

May we stop today and listen to the whisper.

Come closer to Christmas.

The Shower Curtain

Philadelphia. Spring, 2007. I stood in the bath center of a large department store -- I don't remember which one. I'd been given an important shopping task. My mission was to buy a shower curtain and towels for my father-in-law's new bathroom. This might not sound like a big deal, but you have to understand, my father-in-law, E. Steven Bauer, was a very big deal. He was a retired pharmaceutical executive, a pharmacist, a man who led the team that brought the first local production of antibiotics to India and Pakistan in the early 1950's. He built the factories, rode in a a Jeep wearing a pith helmet, and oversaw the inoculation of thousands of people, thereby saving countless lives. He could converse in seven languages and was a gourmet chef -- witty, urbane, intelligent, and charming. And I am telling you, none of the shower curtains I was looking at was suitable. Not one.

I went to another large department store that looked exactly like the department store I had just been in. I marched to their bath section, picturing Steven flying around the globe, making a difference. I looked at their shower curtains, nixed the Tweety and Sylvester, pushed past the one covered by large yellow fish, stood stunned before the one with "Peek-a-boo" written across it. I looked for someone to help me, but large department stores never have actual people working in them.  Tweed, I thought. Steven loves tweed.  here were no tweed shower curtains. You'd think tweed would have occurred, at the very least, to Ralph Lauren.  

Blue, I thought. He likes blue. There was baby blue, metallic blue, sky blue, no Steven blue. I went to another store, finally found a employee, and blurted, "I need a very significant shower curtain." I found it -- non-fussy with vertical brown, blue, and cream stripes. I picked out brown towels -- lush, though purposeful. Steven nodded when he saw what I'd chosen. I put them in his bathroom. "Very nice," he said, and that was that.  

I was remembering this last week as I sat in his bathroom, crying. Steven passed away on Saturday, November 14th, after a wretched parade of injuries and illnesses took their final toll. I knew him for twenty-eight years. He never made small talk; he was ethical to his core; he possessed deep wells of courage; and he loved my apple pie. This Thanksgiving, as our family gathers in Philadelphia, the joy of knowing him and the pain of losing him will be deep.  Dear God, how he will be missed.

In the Company of Children

I was walking through the playground near my house when it beckoned to me. The swing, that is. I was never a climbing across monkey bars kind of kid, but a swing was one of life's great inventions. I looked around -- I was alone. I walked to the swing, plopped down and pushed off, slowly at first. But it didn't take long before I was stretching my legs to get maximum height and throwing back my head to feel the freedom of it all. I felt ageless, weightless, fully energized, and so happy. A woman with a toddler walked past toward the baby swing. She was smiling at me, but I felt awkward now. The toddler was eyeing me strangely.  I did a hard foot stop, got off the swing, feeling silly. That's when I saw the sign:

ONLY ADULTS  IN THE COMPANY OF CHILDREN ARE PERMITTED ON THE PLAYGROUND

It went on to mention that adults weren't to use the equipment either. I slumped off, all my glee gone, a rejected, misunderstood middle-aged swinger. I wanted to say to someone, look, I write for children. Well, not little children, exactly, but lots of my readers can't drive yet.  I'm always in the company of kids, metaphorically speaking.

And then I thought about what Jesus said: "Unless you become as a little child you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." What distinguishes childhood anyway? Things like trust and love and not being so worried about what other people think. Kids have the capacity to fully embrace mystery; the sweet forgetfulness to make up instantly after a fight; the ferocious focus to catch fireflies.

I thought about my inner child and how I needed to listen to her more. She was talking deep: "Joan, do something fun. Get a cupcake." I obeyed instantly and when I got home holding my moist red velvet cupcake, another thought came to me -- put out your Easter egg collection.  I wasn't going to do it this year-- I've been traveling so much, I had so much work to do, but I got the eggs out that I've collected for thirty-some years -- the ones from Africa, Sweden, Croatia. I put them in a clear bowl on my table and stepped back so satisfied as new life surged through me. I've got to listen more.  

My Valentine 4 U

I have a complicated relationship with Valentine's Day (see my novel, Thwonk). But it's time to celebrate chocolate without boundaries, to run to the store at the last minute and realize that only the bad cards are left, the ones that read, To my husband and forever friend/I pledge my love to never end/but grow more sweet and ever strong/For you, my dear, alone I long. It's the time to remember Valentines past, and this can be very grim indeed. My memories are of my grammar school where the popular kids got big valentines and the lowest of the low, like me, got ones with "Occupant" printed on the envelope. It's the time for some to be celebrated and some to be lonely. But it is the time to send a card, so here's mine to you:

I wish you dreams that are worth waiting for.

I wish you friends who won't just tell you what you want to hear.

I wish you the thrill of being paid to do something that you love.

I wish you an alarm to buzz when you're about to say the wrong thing.

I wish you wonderful comebacks for the bullies in your life.

I wish you confidence to not second-guess your supreme moments of courage.

I wish you energy on rainy days.

I wish you a joke that only you can tell that leaves people in hysterics.

I wish you moments of pure joy when you feel like a little kid.

I wish you memories that won't bruise you, and enough forgetfulness to let the small stuff slide.

I wish you the ability to laugh long and deep.

I wish you a bathroom to be there whenever you need one.  

I wish you a heart of good cheer and a soul filled with hope.   

Happy V Day,

Joan

And for my husband and true Valentine of twenty-seven years, who cooks and manages my website and does umpteen things to enhance my life each and every day, no card could say how I feel. Even if I got to the store a week early, there just wouldn't be one good enough.  

Christmas Past

I remember the church that year; the stinging pain in my back was so strong that I was trying to concentrate on the flowers on the altar, the candles by the stained glass window. I remember seeing my daughter, then six, singing with the choir of children. I remember it as close to my worst Christmas ever because a week before I'd been in a car accident and the pain in my back and neck was terrible. A few months later I would have neurosurgery, but on that Christmas Eve twenty years ago, I was feeling bleak and lost and afraid. I hadn't been able to do much since the accident, I was hurting all the time, here it was Christmas and I didn't care. I just wanted to go home and get in bed.

That's when the kids dressed as shepherds began walking down the aisle, followed by kids dressed as animals -- the usual pageant parade. The woman playing Mary started down the aisle -- her face was glowing, my back was in spasms. My husband put his hand on my shoulder, "Are you okay?" No. Not close to it. Here I was, a new, struggling writer and I'd had this car accident and ever since then I couldn't focus too well and I didn't know what was going to happen. "Are you okay?" No.

The woman playing Mary was carrying a real baby in her arms as the man who was Joseph walked beside her. Every year the pastor asked a couple from the church with a new baby to play Mary and Joseph in the pageant. And then I remembered. I watched the woman, Mary, carrying the baby down the aisle. She was radiant. But that was impossible because a few months ago her baby had been born with a serious birth defect. And now that baby was the Baby Jesus, and now his mother was laying him in the manger in front of the church as her real husband, playing Joseph, watched. And it was then that I began to cry. I thought, how can she do this? How can she look so happy after everything that's happened? But she did. I don't remember anything else about that service. When I got home I went upstairs, got in bed, and wept, and somehow in the weeping I lay down the burden of my accident, the chronic pain that I could hardly handle, the fear of the future, and the unnamed fears I didn't even understand. And I just let Christmas come into my room and into my heart.

Boo

As Halloween draws near, I am reminded of a most memorable October 31st. It was years ago; I was living in an apartment complex in LA with my family, trying to get the ears right on my daughter's bunny costume. It was the afternoon of Halloween and this was when a young Japanese couple from Tokyo moved in down the hall from us. The wife did not speak English, I did not speak Japanese. We smiled and waved as they brought moving boxes up the stairs and into their new apartment. And then at 6PM the trick or treaters came. Now, I was ready for this because I happen to believe that Halloween is one holiday when I can buy as many bags of miniature Snickers bars as I can carry and feel no guilt. I ask myself, What if hundreds of children come to my door? I wouldn't want them to be disappointed. I think this while I tear open candy bar after candy bar with my teeth and fade into glossy-eyed sugar shock. But on this particular evening, the fact that I had too much candy was significant. Because at 6:30 a very distraught and frightened Japanese woman was knocking at my door, looking as though America was not at all what she'd expected. She was surrounded by costumed children holding out bags. "Throw chocolate at them," I hollered and gave her a bag. Unfortunately, she was too generous and dispensed handfuls of candy, not the usual one to two pieces per kid. I got another bag, and another. Finally I found myself doing something one would never do today since all treats need to be wrapped -- I cut pound cake into bite sized pieces and gave them to my new neighbor who put them on napkins and handed them, with shaking hands, to ghouls, goblins, and assorted fairy princesses. When the kids stopped coming she leaned against the wall.  I said, "Welcome to America. It's not always like this."

We became very good friends over the next months, our kids played wonderfully together, but whenever the doorbell rang, she always looked nervous. We lost touch when my family and I moved to the east coast, but I can't look at a Snickers bag without thinking of her. I bought a few extra at the store in her honor...and, you know, just in case.