Joan Bauer's Journal

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.

A New Season

A hydrangea that I thought had died pushes up in my garden.  A vine I thought wasn't going to make it began thriving in the last two weeks.  The age-old lilac tree that we were going to cut down because it never bloomed, flourished this year.  I took a tree class today with my neighbors and we all officially adopted the trees on our street, pledging to care for them.  I do not consider myself a gardener, but I would like to be a real one someday. I wrote a book called Stand Tall where the seasons in a boy's life change as a great white oak in the park near his house changes color, drops its leaves, and fills up lush again in spring.  I was reminded today of the root system of trees and have great guilt that I've not been watering the tree in front of my house.  It seemed so big, you know, and it didn't seem like it needed any help from me, but it does -- twenty gallons of water per week, according to the man who spoke with us.  How I have neglected this tree, but I won't anymore. 

It makes me think of what else I've ignored that's right in front of me.  I've had one of those years when I have focused in tight to a few things and I've not been able really to step back and take in the big picture.  I've had one of those years that sped by and I found myself trying to grab at the things racing past.  I know I missed some of those things -- they were passing by so quickly. 

The black squirrel Zorro runs atop my fence. Zorro doesn't like me; he thinks I killed his brother -- I didn't.  I got home last fall and a black squirrel was lying dead in my garden, but Zorro walks atop my fence glaring at me.  "I'm innocent," I tell this squirrel, but he doesn't buy it.  My dog Max comes out and the squirrel runs off.  Max trots to his place in the garden, in charge.  There is something uniquely joyful about my garden this May.  I'm beginning to understand the soil, beginning to understand what plants won't die, beginning to understand my style.  I will turn a wretched age in July, but I suppose that's really okay.  I feel new dreams coming, old dreams being realized, branches being cut off and pruned, and new life taking hold.  

FOR THOSE IN THE CHICAGO AREA, I was recently awarded the Chicago Tribune's Young Adult Literary Prize.  I will be at the Printers Row Book Festival on Saturday, June 4th.  Please come by and say hi.  

 

 

Vroom

I have a photograph of a baby duck that my daughter took a few years ago.  I was with Jean at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden when she caught the magic moment of a duckling swimming past lily pads, leaving a ripple in the water behind her (I've decided the duck is a girl).  And this is one small, determined duck, clearly on a mission, going where no duck has gone before.  Jean calls the photograph "Vroom" -- an excellent, action word.  Those who vroom do more than move forward or run, they rev their engines and blast off.  And a duck who vrooms is a very special beast.  Ducks speak to me -- metaphorically, that is. Years ago, I ended a book with a duck who entered the last scene and showed what it meant to be a survivor.  

I have put my new book to bed, Close to Famous (available in February 2011), and have begun another novel.  Perhaps that's why I am thinking about the creative path ahead of me.  I keep wanting it to be straight and clear -- it never is.  But, I still must begin with as much power and surety as I can muster. The German poet Goethe wrote, "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.  Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."  Power is released when we start something -- it's less about feeling, less about inspiration, it's about getting in the water, stretching our wings, and taking off across the pond.  We've been made for that, you know.

 

From the Heart

I had one of those moments the other day when past and present morph together.  We live in a house built in 1875, and the man who owned it before we did and restored it himself, was driving down our street.  I didn't recognize him at first. He looked at me and I looked at him and then I remembered.  My husband and I invited him in to see the place, and I wish I could describe his face as he was walking up the steps.  I apologized profusely because the house was cluttered, and I explained why it was cluttered, and that I had big plans to do something about it, but he didn't care about that.  And really, I didn't either.  

He stood in the hall and looked up.  "I almost got rid of that molding," he said.  "We had such trouble making this work."  We love it, I told him.  He walked into the living room, shaking his head and grinning: "You wouldn't believe what this room looked like -- we had so much smoke blowing out the window when we were doing the repairs, the fire department came."  He walked to the fireplace and put his hand on the mantel.  In room after room, he told us the story of fixing up the house -- the parts that were easy, the ones that were hard.  He was honest, too -- "I should have done that better," he said in a few places.  It was an emotional time.  He still loved this house -- he'd put his heart into it.  We got to the guest room and that room is always filled with memories of how my friend came and helped me decorate it -- she had her van filled with wonderful things -- what a lovely, long weekend that was.  We talked about our families and what the last seven years have been like since he sold the house to us.  And when he left, I thought, his heart will always be in this place.  Any time we put our heart into something, I think a part of us is carved into the work.  What a colossal difference that makes.