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.

How to Read a Book (based on a true story)

Among the throng of readers devouring books out there, and we writers just want to say, thank you, there is a little realized approach to reading that can bring unique fulfillment:  Imagine what the writer was going through when she or he wrote what you have in your hands. For as much drama as the book you are now reading might possess, as much wonder as it might stir within you, trust me, the drama of actually getting that thing to print is a story in itself.  

Picture the writer huddled in a chair, fighting against writers block, finally getting the inspiration and hope to push through, editing that section on the magic turtle showing up with a message for the family, realizing that magical realism doesn't quite fit in a historical novel, but now the new thoughts come like a water tap turned on, and the writer is remembering why she does this, it's for these moments when the path in the story clears and the characters are alive and real.  She can hear their voices.  She can't believe in ever stopping. The exhilaration is beyond anything that --  

"Mommy."  

No.  Not now. 

 "Half the gerbil's tail came off."

And this poor writer is swept into another human drama as she looks in the cage and yes, one gerbil has half a tail and the other one is looking guilty. 

"Mommy, did they have a fight?"

"Possibly."

"They'll make up.  They're best friends."  

Maybe not.

And now this writer must keep her brain focused between her glorious story and this drama of life and possibly death, certainly dismemberment, in the animal kingdom, and having only one cage, she takes the gerbil with half a tail, who does seem to be handling it quite well, puts that animal in a plastic bin with food and toilet paper rolls, and calls the vet whose assistant says, yes, he examines gerbils, but they're exotic animals, so we have to charge you more.  And the writer, who knows, as we all do, there is nothing exotic about a rodent, has a third part now opening up in her brain that says, I will need to use this in a story, but not my historical novel about love and loss during the black plague.  The vet can't see her for three hours, so she goes back to her story, but it's strangely not  connected anymore, she's lost that moment of creative abandon, her characters have scattered and she is trying to rope them back, she tries to remember the voices and the rhythms and the progression -- 

"Mommy..."

"What...?"

"Will she die?"  Sobbing.

The writer, of course, gets up and tends to this deep moment and comforts the child.  They have hot cocoa, they talk about the great moments in this gerbil's life, all six weeks of them, they laugh, and they cry together.

It's time to go to the vet, the gerbil seems nonplussed, and the vet confirms this.  "Looks like he's going to be fine."

"It's a girl," the child says.

"Sometimes gerbils go at each other," the vet offers.  "It's best to separate them."  He puts a little ointment on the tail and charges an exorbitant fee for this consultation, far more money than the gerbil cost, although the writer does notice that the gerbil has perked up at the thought of being an exotic animal.  The writer then goes to the pet store and buys another cage, the writer sets this up in the TV room, the child says, "Okay, you guys, make up."  The gerbils glare at each other from across the room.  It''s close to dinnertime, but the writer needs to finish this chapter, so she sits at her desk, and digs deep within until the phone rings and a snarky woman from Mastercard wants to know when she might be sending in that overdue payment.  Now the gas company decides that this is the moment to begin excavating the street and an an army of men with jackhammers appear out of nowhere, but the writer puts on her noise cancelling headphones and finishes the chapter.  It is not a great chapter, it hovers just above okay, but hope is the writer's warm blankie, for surely tomorrow there will be no interruptions, the story will pour out, and the book will be drop-dead brilliant.   

And so it goes in the backrooms of literature.  I can assure you that everything you read will have some of this human drama tucked inside the folds.  May this enhance your reading pleasure knowing the struggle writers go through to bring you our stories.

 

Thanks, Mom

I can remember a cupcake materializing in the midst of a rotten day. A candle being lit despite the darkness. A birthday party planned even though it had been too tough a season to really think about that. My mother, sister, and I made Pilgrim dolls and decorated the house one Thanksgiving, even though our father hadn't been seen or heard from for weeks. 

My mother's great gift was knowing how to celebrate life no matter what the circumstances. In my new novel, Close to Famous, I gave that gift to my 12 year-old protagonist, Foster McFee. When I began writing this story, I had, like a good baker, all the ingredients out on the counter:  Fear; danger; humor; celebration; change; resilience; denial; over-coming; vanilla cupcakes; secrets; loss; learning challenges; chocolate chip muffins; raw courage; brown sugar brownies; moist chocolate cupcakes; chocolate malt cupcakes; milk chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting; all out despair; and banana cupcakes with fudge frosting. And I thought, OK, Joan, this time, you've done yourself in. This stuff doesn't go together. But of course it did. That's how I grew up. 

My mom died a year ago.  I have many of her belongings, but the ones I cherish most are her casserole dishes. When I use one, as I did recently to make baked apples, the warmth of her in the kitchen is so real to me. My mother knew that cooking unleashes a special power. She would have loved Foster's great dream to be a famous kid cook on television. 

Close to Famous is the first book I've written that my mother never read. But, the lessons she taught me are baked into the pages. Thanks, Mom. This one's for you.

Close to Famous is available in stores February 3rd.  To learn more, visit joanbauer.com.

A Touch of Red

Today is my mother's birthday and my mind is filled with memories of frosted angel food cakes and flowers and books -- so many of those -- and prayers and courage and kindness.  My mother, Marjorie Good, died this year on January 2nd.  Her two battles with cancer were the most intimate I have witnessed. People ask me, "Are any of the characters in your books real people?" And I say, "If you've read Hope Was Here, then you've met my mom a bit."  I packed her courage and kindness into G.T. Stoop, the owner of the Welcome Stairways, who ran for mayor of his small town while battling leukemia.  And why did he do that?  He was sick of the corruption and the cancer made him tougher.  

"Be kind," Mom always told me.  I must admit, I found that boring advice when I was younger.  What's the point in this crass, mean world?  Be kind when people misunderstand you.  Be kind when you're tired.  Be kind when the guy passing you on the highway gives you the ultimate gesture.  We're so used to the argument, the caustic debate, the mean spiritedness, but kindness comes to us like a warm cookie on a cold day.   

My mother was a painter.  My husband always said that he learned more about art going through a museum with her than he learned in art history at college.  "Look for the touch of red," she always said.  "That's the artist's exclamation mark."  And in painting after painting, we'd often see it -- some reds were bold, others just a little dab in a corner, but the red drew the eye and gave the work such depth.  My mother's touch of red was her kindness, and with it I watched her quietly conquer trials and tragedy and leave her exclamation mark on all who knew her.

Here Comes the Bride

"If you stop sucking your thumb..." I said to my daughter twenty-five years ago.  She sucked her thumb harder and held onto her koala puppet Qantas and another toy koala named Laurie.  Jean said they were engaged.  She looked at me knowingly.  I had to come up with a serious offer to get her to release that thumb.  "Then," I said, "I will make Laurie a bride's dress and she and Qantas can get married."  "He needs a tuxedo," Jean said.  "Deal."  Out came the thumb.  Permanently.  Now came the dilemma.  I am so not a sewer.  It took me an entire year to finish my apron in 7th grade Home Ec.  I got a fan letter from a reader who said her grandmother thought she'd been my home ec teacher.  I wrote back and said, please tell your grandma I'm sorry.

I struggled with that bridal gown because Laurie was a mechanical koala who sang when you pressed her stomach, and had a big head.  "She needs a veil," Jean said.  I tried to point out that lots of brides didn't have veils, but Jean was resolute.  "And flowers."  It was either my greatest moment as a mother, or one of my most desperate.  I found little dried flowers and wrapped them into a bouquet, I hand-sewed the white dress and put lace around the sleeves.  I made Qantas a very dapper snap-on tuxedo tie while Jean began gathering all her stuffed animals for the ceremony.  And you know these guest lists always get out of control.  Then there was the reception to think about.  Finally, all the arrangements were as good as they were going to get. Qantas and Laurie stood in front of either a kangaroo, moose, or rabbit stuffie (I can't remember which was the minister), who I had say, "I now pronounce you man and wife.  You may kiss the bride."  Jean made a face and had them hug instead.  It was a very moving ceremony.  We had punch and cookies and after all the guests had left, I lay down on the couch, closed my eyes, and  Jean said, "Let's do it again."  "Believe me," I told her, "it took."  

Qantas and Laurie are in a Zip-loc bag in the back of our closet still in their wedding attire.  I came upon them the other day.  The years haven't been easy on them, but they were great and noble toys, worked hard at their relationship, and were, above all, awfully good sports.