Joan Bauer's Journal

Fresh Starts

It's snowing here and I love the snow. I love to ice skate, love to wear big sweaters and boots and eat hearty stews and build fires. When I was little I always felt that snow signaled a fresh start because it changed the way everything looked and took boring, gray streets and made them glisten with promise. It was like heaven opened up and said, here you go, start fresh today. I think of that as Barack Obama is about to become our 44th president, as Martin Luther King's prophetic voice rises in hope and courage across the years, as Bruce Springsteen sings on the steps on the Lincoln Memorial, as the plane is pulled up from the cold waters of the Hudson -- the miracle plane, the miracle pilot, and all the passengers safe.

May it snow a little longer and cover all the places we need to see changed, may the music keep playing, and may hope flow over us and upend our fears and stop the memories of so many bad endings. May we embrace hope like never before in this historic week of fresh starts and bold beginnings.

STOP IT!

There are things I need to stop in 2009. Management consultant, Peter Drucker, always asked top CEOs this disarming question:  What have you stopped doing?  He said when we figure out what no longer works, it opens the door to new opportunities.  One of the first things I need to stop doing is ignoring the fact that I've re-injured my knee, and then to stop telling myself that I don't have time to do my knee exercises. But the problem with the exercises is that they are boring and I get so sick of doing them in front of TV's parade of talking heads, but I decided that what my knee, brain, and heart really needed was a good dose of watching something that oozed into my soul. And so I found my Les Miserables 10th anniversary tape, which always stirs me; I put in on and began exercising, counting the reps. 

Now the issue about exercising to Les Miz is that the music packs such an emotional punch that I tend to lose count. And so when Jean Valjean is arrested for stealing a loaf of bread, it's hard to do leg lifts slowly, especially since this is the moment that my puppy Max decides to join me, jumping up and trying to hang from my leg. "No!" I tell him and lose count again. And now the music is going ever deeper and my heart is beginning to anticipate the great tragedy that is about to befall the mother, Fantine, who has a young child and has been through the mill. Fantine is singing in a way that makes me cry and this disturbs Max who begins to lick my face. I lose count again, but move to the inner thigh strengthening, at which point Fantine the mother is not doing well, and now the phone rings and I am crying and my husband, who is downstairs and not dealing with life and death issues, shouts, up, "Can you get it?" Well, the answer is, I suppose I could, but I'd rather not, because Fantine is dying and I am crying while tensing and releasing my inner thigh, wondering what is going to happen to Fantine's little daughter, Cosette. Of course, I already know because I've read the book and seen the musical any number of times. But you know how it is with a great story -- you just don't let yourself rush ahead, you stay with the agony until the end and let yourself be swept away. 

My husband gets the phone as Fantine sings her final song.  I begin the teeny knee muscle movement when Max crawls into my lap and lays his head across my knees causing all exercising to stop. I weep with these characters as the music rushes over me.  Not everyone can have an emotional catharsis while spending quality time with their dog.  Stopping things isn't always easy, and life is filled with endless interruptions, but just starting the stopping can open the door to a soulful, tender release.  

The Light Show

It had seemed like a good idea. It was New Year's Eve and I was walking behind my husband, sister, and brother-in-law in a very dark forest in New Zealand. They had flashlights, I didn't. It was close to midnight. I was tripping a little because I couldn't see the ground. The deeper we got into the woods, the more nervous I became, even though my sister and brother-in-law lived in New Zealand. 

"There might be snakes," I mentioned.

"There are no snakes in New Zealand," my husband said.  

I doubted this. "They might be lost," I mentioned. "And crabby." I thought about being dragged off by some fierce, reckless creature. "Tell me we're not lost," I pleaded.

"We're not," my husband said.

How do you know? We've never been here before. For all the hiking we've done, we've never once walked in a dark forest close to midnight!

The crunch of our boots was the only sound as we walked. The silence was so deep, I grabbed Evan's hand. Then one by one the flashlights were turned off and my sister said, "There they are." I could barely see her hand pointing. I looked through the darkness and saw little lights up ahead, like dim, white Christmas lights glowing. We'd found the glow worms.

I hadn't expected expected them to look like this. I don't know what I'd expected -- fireflies, maybe? Little worms blinking on and off like Disney insects...certainly not the array of hundreds of tiny lights in the bushes.  It was magical. "Hi kids," I whispered. You don't shout in the presence of glow worms.

We stood there in silence looking at the light show. I could have stood there all night. And I kept thinking, there are just some things that need the darkness to show their stuff. I want to remember that going into this new year, a year that's sure to be packed with dark economic challenges. May our eyes be opened in 2009 to see the light glowing in the most amazing places.

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.

On the Couch

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I, like so many, was affixed to the TV watching the horrific terrorism unfold in Mumbai. There were anxious emails going back and forth to see if a friend of my in-laws traveling in India was all right. He was, thankfully. But too many weren't all right, and the interviews and the stories that poured from the news were so hard to bear. My thoughts leaped from those images to remembering the attacks of 9-11 in my backyard; I looked at the leftover apple and pumpkin pies; my mind jumped to my father-in-law's 85th birthday celebration that evening. Terror, thanksgiving, sadness, fear, food, celebration. It didn't seem like all of that could fit in one weekend, much less in my brain.

Years ago when I still lived in Connecticut, I bought a couch that was too big to get through the door. The delivery men tried everything -- upending it, taking the back door off its hinges, shoving -- there was lots of that, but nothing worked. Finally, they told me about a man who could take couches apart and make them fit through any door. "It'll cost you," the delivery man said, "but this guy, he can make anything fit." They left my big, comfy couch in my garage, and with much trepidation, I called the couch guy. He came the next day. When his truck pulled up I reacted like the cavalry had come. He walked around my couch, studied the back door. "You might not want to watch this," he told me. "Some people get a little nervous." He took out a knife and began to rip my couch apart. I closed my eyes and turned away. In thirty minutes my big, comfy couch lay in pieces on the garage floor. There was no way it would ever be the same. He dragged the pieces through the back door and began reassembling them in the TV room. He glued, cut, and taped it back together. I was stunned at the rebuilding. Then he took out a bottle of clear nail polish, brushed it around the jagged parts of the fabric, and my couch was where I'd always envisioned it, looking quite beautiful.

We used that couch for years. It was big enough for me, my husband, my daughter, and our dog. We laughed on that couch, cried on it, spilled hot chocolate on it. And as I ponder the changes in the world -- the new reminders of terror, the heart-breaking stories of the dead, the sagging, challenged world economy, rising unemployment, I wonder, how do we sit with all this? I think we can as long as we let hope plop down on the couch with us -- hope's place in the world is on the couch next to fear, sorrow, and pain. And you never have to dismantle it to get it through the door. Hope always fits. 

Downsizing Monsters

The other day I ate a cookie -- one cookie. Not two, or ten, but one. That might not sound like a big deal, but when I look back over the years and remember how many cookies I always felt compelled to eat at one sitting or standing, I can see that a huge multi-headed monster in my life has gradually been reduced to a dinky dragon with a shrunken head. And let me assure you, this was one excellent cookie with the perfect symmetry of chocolate and pecans, chewy and fresh. Not only did I eat just one, I ate it fairly slowly.

What does this have to do with life as we know it? I'm the kind of person who wants problems to go away quickly, preferably as soon as I see them. I'm also working on patience and reality. I want to take my double-edged sword and march off to do battle with the thing and chop off its head and come back home while it's still daylight. I don't much like the thought of taking teeny little steps toward change -- especially change that could take months or years. I mean, who has time for that? But some monsters in our lives have taken years to grow so large and brutish. We feed them every day; we ignore them, too. I'm not sure which is worse. The doorbell rings and we answer it and let the monster in to sit on our couch and waste our time. And, you know, monsters today -- they have this sense of entitlement. They can be a royal pain because the longer they hang around the more they want. I heard a story about a man who had two fighting dogs (I am opposed to fighting dogs, but it's a good story). This man earned a great deal of money because he always knew which dog to bet on. He always knew which dog would win. Finally someone asked him how he knew. "Simple," the man said. "One I feed, the other I starve." I don't know about your monsters, mine are ravenous. But I'm finding that as I starve them, those buggers really begin to lose their fight. 

Stronger Than We Know

Years ago, I read an article in Fortune Magazine where a successful businessman talked about the best lesson he'd ever learned. He was in India, I believe, walking by a large elephant tied to a small stake. He asked the elephant trainer why the elephant didn't pull the stake out since the animal had more than enough strength to do it. The trainer explained that to keep baby elephants from walking off, they are tethered to stakes. They try to break away, but can't. By the time they're full grown they've stopped trying. This full-size elephant didn't know his own strength. It's one of those ah ha stories that makes me grab my heart and wonder, where is that true in my life? Where am I stronger than I know? I can get obsessive about this and say, well, Joan, if you were more organized in your life -- if you hadn't flunked ballet when you were three -- if you hadn't let your mind close up one day in honors geometry...

There are greater, deeper stakes in my life that need yanking, to be sure. And I try to imagine what would happen if just for a moment I threw back my head, roared through my trunk, took a big step away and the stake popped up from the ground. I don't normally think of myself as an elephant person, although I have an earlier blog (Toys in My Office) where I discuss the symbolism of a balancing elephant toy. But there's something stirring about freedom being one yank away -- not a hundred yanks, or years of yanks, but one proud, boundary breaking yank of power. I love that. May we summon our strength and yank up the old stakes that can no longer hold us bound.

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. 

Toys in My Office

I have a small elephant toy from India that always reminds me of what it's like to have a balanced life. The bigger elephant (the mother) is on a pedestal and two smaller elephants (the children) are attached to each side of her with sticks. Because the balance is perfect, I can twirl them around and the mother never falls off the pedestal. It's always been a kind of symbol to me of how I'd like to live my life. But symbols can turn on you. I dropped the toy the other day and now the mother has a broken leg and one of the children lost half a trunk. This has changed the weight and the balance; when I try to twirl it, the mother teeters perilously close to the edge, which feels too much like the kind of life I'm trying to avoid. So I leave that toy and go to my lady-with-red hair-flying-a-kite mobile, the ultimate symbol of freedom. The problem with my mobile is that it hangs too low so that if I don't remember to duck, I crash into it, which kills any sense of freedom. I could hang it higher, but I don't have a hook and to get one I have to go to the store, or God forbid, the basement where I have dozens of plastic bins on shelves all marked "miscellaneous". So I go to my kaleidoscope, which is always a big moment for me, but unfortunately, a few of the little glass pieces dislodged and that makes the patterns they form seem dysfunctional. I grab my never-fail Slinky. I play with it in my hands for a bit and then head to the stairs leading down to my husband's office. But the Slinky doesn't go down the way it's supposed to because we had the stairs rebuilt earlier this year. I am about to give up on joy until I discover that the Slinky works on the front steps if I give it a little help. God knows, we all need a little help these days.  

Fierce Soup

I've just learned from a William Safire column that it is no longer cool to say that someone is hot -- as in, Wow, that guy/girl is hot. The new word now is fierce.  It's a lot of pressure to be cool and I'm not sure I'll ever get used to fierce as the new hot. I was thinking about this while making soup -- vegetable beef (easily adapted to veggie) -- that requires a certain fierceness to put together. It also needs to be served hot, as in temperature. I've been looking for something to keep my mind off the tumbling financial markets...

I don't know about you, but when times get unendingly tough I feel like I should be doing great, wise, and noble things all day to make up for the world's messes. So putting beef shank into a pot and covering it with water to begin the stock doesn't seem like a good use of my time when there are perfectly good canned soups I can buy. But the simple fact that homemade stock is being created on my back burner soon becomes a gentle comfort in a coarse world.

A few hours later, I take out the meat and bones and pour the liquid through cheesecloth to get rid of the (I'll use the technical kitchen term here) muck. And as I do this I think how nice it would be if life came with cheesecloth so we could strain the muck out when needed. I am beginning to feel a fierce contentment rise as I do this homey, wondrous thing. Not once have I thought about Wall Street greed or banks failing or political blame. But as I begin the great chopping of vegetables, I begin to wonder. Should I have begun this soup? It's taking more time than I remembered.  I'm thinking now about all the things I should be doing and feeling bitter about people like Oprah Winfrey who have personal chefs. My kitchen is a mess, I smell like stock, and I haven't showered. But I add salt and pepper to the pot, plunk the vegetables in, wondering if I added too many. Too late now. I shower as the aroma of My Homemade Soup wafts through the house. Max, my puppy, sniffs the air excitedly. I return to the kitchen, toss Max a little piece of beef -- he's overcome. I taste my soup -- oh, it's good. I actually shout to my husband, "Oh, darling, soup is ready!" I serve it up in big blue bowls; realize all the spoons are dirty; wash two; sit down with Evan, and for a few precious minutes the crazy world seems really not to matter.