In this Story... with Joanne Greene

By: Joanne Greene
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  • Summary

  • Joanne Greene shares her flash nonfiction, each essay with custom music, showcasing tales and observations from her animated life. Her book, "By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go" is now available as a paperback, e-book, and audiobook from Amazon, Audible, Barnes & Noble, and your local independent book seller.
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Biographies & Memoirs Social Sciences
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Episodes
  • Things That Fascinate Me

    Things That Fascinate Me
    Oct 11 2024
    Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

    In this story I zoom in on things that fascinate me. I’m Joanne Greene.
    Walking slowly, or standing still, in a forest allows me to see, hear and feel things I miss when hiking, chatting with a friend, focusing on where I’m going rather than where I am. There’s movement, even in the absence of wind. Leaves drifting and silently falling from branches; insects building, feeding, mating; birds planning for their future, hiding acorns in tree trunks.
    Dried leaves remind me of the aging process. Like aging leaves, human skin and hair dry out, skin wrinkles and sags, joints stiffen, and then we fall to the ground. I feel for the leaves; we are all alive and in some phase of deterioration. Nothing living lasts forever. Even the Redwoods.
    Yet we can connect with the living through invisible dotted lines, by absorbing chemicals from the trees, gazing into the eyes of any animal, communicating more deeply over time with our pets. When my dog does exactly what I ask her to do is she learning English words or is she learning to read me? Is our growing codependence and interspecies love a good thing? Is this even a question worth asking?
    She loves cheese and bread like every dog, and so do I. My childhood featured cream cheese (for shmearing on bagels), cottage cheese (that only my mother liked) and American cheese, individually wrapped, for cutting in fourths and placing on Ritz crackers for an afternoon snack with tomato, or possibly, V8 juice. The smell of Kraft Parmesan cheese made me gag, yet today I inhale the fragrance of Parmesano Reggiano and my mouth waters. I discovered the seeming endless world of cheese while working at Papillon, a wine and cheese café one summer during college - Port Salut, Camembert, Burrata, Emmentaler. In Amsterdam, I learned that Gouda is pronounced Gouda (Chouda.) And my education is just beginning.
    Some of us love the cuisine with which we were raised- comfort food, a taste of home. Others of us moved on, in my case from iceberg lettuce, canned vegetables, London Broil, and chopped liver. I’m fascinated by Ethnic foods of all varieties and even though the grandfather for whom I’m named was a kosher butcher, I can live without meat. Give me spices like zaatar, garam masala, curry and ramen and pho. I’m always game to try a new place, eat with my hands, sit on the floor.
    And while on the floor, I might turn upside down or sit in a lotus position. Yoga has been my savior since 1974 when I sang “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine” at the Theosophical Society in Boston and calmed the f down. Slowing down my breathing is at the center of the miracle. Over the years I’ve learned to count my inhalations and exhalations, to focus on one Drishti or point at which to stare, to send blessings to my loved ones, my neighbors, the guy who annoyingly beeped his horn at me when I didn’t leave the intersection fast enough for him. I’m captivated by the ancient knowledge that stretching and strengthening our bodies in certain ways would improve our health – both physical and mental. And they weren’t necessarily overstimulated by cell phones and social media, traffic and multiple competing demands on their time and thoughts. Technology has so many answers, making our lives easier and more efficient, but ancient wisdom, like mother, often knows best. It’s the emphasis on balance, on interconnectedness, that I need, now more than ever, that I believe our world needs now. We have so much to learn from simply observing nature.
    Take the spider, for instance. Can you even imagine what it takes to design and create a web that is not only magnificent in its structure but durable, flexible, and can trap live prey? It’s an engineering feat beyond comprehension. As a young girl I knew that I was supposed to fear spiders but, after reading Charlotte’s Web, I simply saw these inventive, delicate, yet dogged creatures as my friends. I’ll coax an indoor spider onto a piece of paper and gently place her outside, rather than squish her like a bug as, admittedly, I’ll do to flies, ants, and other uninvited guests. To me spiders are royalty…and I will remain in awe of their artistry and practicality, the way a lack of light hides their webbing and a beam of sunshine reveals their glistening, symmetrical creativity.
    I am endlessly fascinated by the worlds I’ve yet to uncover….
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    6 mins
  • October 7. One Year Later.

    October 7. One Year Later.
    Sep 20 2024
    Early the morning of October 7th, 2023, I took a call from my daughter in law Marie who, unbeknownst to me, was in the process of becoming Jewish.She said, “My mom called to tell me how upset she was about the attack on Israel.” I held my breath. Her mom lives in France. I’d been awake for all of 20 minutes, blissfully unaware. When we hung up, I turned on CNN and began to grasp the magnitude of the still unfolding catastrophe. In the moments and weeks that followed, I understood that Hamas had unleashed the worst assault against the Jewish people that had taken place in my lifetime. The pain and confusion were just beginning.I felt personally attacked – the first time I’d questioned my safety as a proud Jewish American. From the start, people on the left, my people, or so I’d always thought, were justifying Hamas’s actions, couching the unbelievably gruesome assault in the larger context of the occupation, as though there was any way to justify the slaughter of peace loving concert goers, as if there could be an excuse for attacking the very Israelis who lived close to Gaza in hopes of building bridges, of helping people whose own government put them in danger.I read a post that my young Muslim friend posted - the friend who, on behalf of her mosque, sent flowers to the JCC after a bomb threat forced our evacuation. She’s the partner with whom I planned interfaith activities to bring Muslims and Jews together – an Iftar, an art exhibit – as part of the Salaam, Shalom, Speaking of Peace initiative. Her post, like so many, condemned the actions of the Israeli military, the killing of innocent Palestinians. Her tone stung and I reached out, asking if we could meet to discuss our collective pain. She responded with an emoji – a tiny symbol that may have meant we were okay, the two of us, but that was it. Our people, I feared, were no longer okay with one another.I felt betrayed by the left, by the very people with whom I’d spend decades marching for justice, reproductive rights, voting rights, affordable housing, against racism and Islamophobia. I watched what was happening on college campuses, wondering where I would have stood as an eighteen-year-old. Would I, too, have seen Israel as the all-powerful occupier, the military giant, a puppet of the United States? Would my sympathies have gone to the thousands of Palestinians abandoned by their leaders yet killed by Jewish bombs? Why is no one on the left talking about the Israeli women who were raped, whose bodies were mutilated?During the first intifada, as a radio talk show host, I felt pressure from the Jewish community to speak out publicly. “You have a platform,” they said. But I was a journalist. I hosted debates giving both sides a chance to make their case. I asked questions, like my people have done for centuries. We learn by asking questions. With age comes perspective and, knowing so much more now about the history, it’s hard to listen to people who haven’t taken the time to learn. “From the river to sea,” they’re chanting but, when asked, too few knew which river and which sea were being referenced, not to mention the fact that their chant was calling for the end of Israel. Too few of those sacrificing sleep in encampments, feeling solidarity with the oppressed, had knowledge of all the attempts that have been made to make peace with Palestinians while ensuring the security of Israelis. As Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir famously said, “You cannot negotiate peace with somebody who has come to kill you.” On October 7th, 2023, Hamas came to kill, rape, torture, and kidnap Jews, as many as they possibly could. Hamas denies Israel’s right to exist, therefore a peace treaty with Hamas will never be attainable.It’s human nature to try to fix things, to come up with solutions, to reduce conflict to good and evil, us and them, the occupiers and the occupied. But most conflict is filled with complexity and nuance and, as such, demands empathy. We are meant to struggle. We make a grave mistake when we tell ourselves that we are totally in the right and not at fault at all. Our tradition offers us an opportunity to make teshuvah, to accept our human frailty, to look, to see, to acknowledge, to turn, and to try harder next time.My heart feels the pain of the hostages and their families, the displacement of families from Israel’s northern border, the trauma of Israeli soldiers who put themselves at risk every day, and the worry that plagues all Israelis and all people who fear for their safety. And my heart cannot grow cold to the suffering of innocent Palestinians, people displaced from their homes time and again, people used as human shields by their terrorist government. They didn’t ask for this and the hatred they’ve come to feel for Israelis, for Jews, for me, is understandable. May this war end. May something good come from all this horror and loss. May there be answers.
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    6 mins
  • I Board A Cruise Ship

    I Board A Cruise Ship
    Sep 13 2024
    Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at joannergreene@gmail.com or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!

    In this story, I board a cruise ship.
    For decades, my image of a cruise featured loud, gluttonous fressers (that’s Yiddish for people who stuff their faces with abandon at the all-you-can-eat buffet.) I envisioned tiny airless rooms with, at best, a porthole; smoke-filled casinos with spilled drinks due to sea turbulence; and long lines of parents with screaming children waiting to board and disembark at every port. Unappealing? Ya think?….
    But then, in the 1990’s, we bought a timeshare that came with a free Royal Caribbean cruise for two. The inside passage of ALASKA, we agreed, would be our destination. Hoping an Alaskan cruise would attract nature lovers and not be the cruise of choice for dedicated party animals, we signed up for a weeklong adventure, starting and ending in Vancouver, British Columbia, that would include stops in Juno, Sitka, and Ketchikan.
    Ever the optimist, I focused on not having to unpack and repack every couple of days – a big plus – and on the fact that the ship we’d chosen featured a spa area with healthy food choices and numerous exercise opportunities and options for pampering. We reserved an upgraded cabin with a door leading out to a small private deck. Our bases were covered.
    Eyeing our fellow travelers as we boarded the floating city that would be our home for a week, our minds began to settle. There were people who looked enough like us, smiling, chatting, anticipating a good time. When asked on the guest form if we were celebrating anything that week, we shared that it was our wedding anniversary, figuring telling them might mean a bottle of champagne or some chocolate covered strawberries. What we didn’t anticipate was that it would peg us for participation in the Very Wed and Newlywed Game two nights later.
    What the heck? we thought when invited to be on stage to compete against other couples. Then they plied us with margaritas. Oh boy. Joined at the hip and hardly shy in front of a crowd, we answered their outrageous questions, winning nearly every round. The competition wasn’t stiff, of course, and we were letting loose. And then they asked the final question: “What is something your spouse continues to do that you find REALLY annoying?”
    Hmmmm…how should I answer this, I wondered? The first thing that popped into my mind is how Fred disappears, quite suddenly. When I say he gets lost, he tells me that he knew exactly where he was the whole time. We’ll be walking down a street together, for instance, and I turn to say something to him and he’s not there. Could have been a store that wooed him in. More likely, he stopped to take a photograph and either forgot to tell me or mentioned that he was doing so in a voice that I couldn’t hear.
    “I have a pet peeve,” I said to the game show host, convinced that none of the other spouses would share my answer. “My husband sometimes disappears. We’ll be together at an event or walking somewhere and ……
    At that precise moment, Fred left the stage. The audience went wild. I had to admit that he stole the show.
    But that wasn’t the end of the game.
    Two days later, people all over the ship were recognizing us. “Weren’t you the couple from the Newlywed game? You were so funny!” We nodded and smiled awkwardly.
    Back in our room, we turned on the television and there we were, a bit tipsy, sharing oddly compromising secrets on the television show no one mentioned they were producing of our Very Wed and Newlywed game. They were running it over and over again, 24 hours a day, in every room on the ship.
    We tried to be incognito…eating our meals in the spa section….keeping to ourselves as best we could, but it was not to be. Unwittingly, we’d gained our ten minutes of fame on a cruise ship named what was it…. Lengend of the Seas? Splendor of the Sea? Splendor in the Grass? Chicken of the Sea?
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    5 mins

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