Feeding the Soul, #99

Peter Behrens:

I have always seen current events with a sort of historical dimension. I've always been interested in the past behind the now. We're staggering blindly towards what end we know not, and we're dragging this history behind us like gauzy roots of a plant. Half the time we're not even paying attention to what's behind us. We sure don't know where we're going. That's part of being human. Kind of fun and dangerous and spooky. But it's deeply what we are.

Susan Grisanti:

People really want to live in Maine. Maine is the filter that makes my job so rewarding and really, in a guilty way, very easy because I feel oftentimes like the lucky dope that gets to turn the lens on what's happening out there. We have a circle, a community that has risen up around these magazines to support them. We have readers who say it's theirs that means the world to me. It's incredibly gratifying to be doing this work. Absolutely, yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast show number 99, Feeding the Soul, airing for the first time on Sunday, August 4, 2013. Our guests today include Peter Behrens, author of the Law of Dreams and the o' Briens and Susan Grisonti, editor in chief of Maine Magazine and Maine Home, a design magazine. What is it that we are hungering for? My grandmother's parents came to the United States during one of Ireland's great famines. They settled in Boston along with many other immigrants from that country. Their family my family experienced very real poverty associated with very real physical hunger. They journeyed to a new land so that they might feed themselves. Many of us find ourselves journeying for that same reason. We wander purposefully so that we may feed our souls. It could be argued that in the absence of famine, true hunger is obsolete. But the desire for nourishment takes many forms. Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh suggests that Americans are like hungry ghosts seeking spiritual nourishment in a land of relative abundance. Sometimes we don't realize how spiritually starved we are. We seek to feed our bodies rather than our ravenous souls. Once we recognize that our souls are in need of replenishment, we can feed ourselves with that which we actually need. Our life's journey becomes a joyful excursion, celebrating the bounty of our surroundings rather than an attempt to escape the scarcity we once heard knocking at our door, like the scarcity of the Irish famine experienced by my great grandparents and so many others like them before and since. Today on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour, we speak with novelist Peter Behrens, whose books the Law of Dreams and the o' Briens describe the journeys taken by individuals whose families were impacted by the Irish famines of the last century. We also discuss journeys taken by the staff of Maine Magazine over the course of 48 hours with Maine Magazine and Maine Home Design editor in Chief Susan Grison. What is it that you are hungering for? And how can you feed your soul? We hope this show will give you food for thought. Thank you for joining us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's always my great pleasure to meet the people who write the books that I love to read. And last fall I read the books,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

O' Briens and the Law of Dreams, and I said, oh, my goodness, I have to meet this guy.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And I realized he lives in Maine. How fortunate am I?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So today we have in our studio Peter Behrens, who is the author of

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

the the Law of Dream and also of Night Driving. Thank you for coming in and talking to us today.

Peter Behrens:

Thank you for having me, Lisa. It's fun to do something in Maine, not have to travel.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, well, you've been all over the place. Most recently, I think you spent some

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

time in the Netherlands.

Peter Behrens:

Yeah, I had a fellowship at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, which sounds very tedious, but it was actually fabulous. Six months to just work and write, and the whole family lived over there. It was great.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What's your advanced study in?

Peter Behrens:

I, you know, I was kind of the token artiste there. Everyone else was in academic, working on very scholarly projects, but they usually bring in one or two fiction writers to kind of stir things up a little bit, or a poet or a translator, and I just happened to be the fiction writer they invited. It was lucky for me because I'm working on a book right now that's set in Europe, and I really needed to Be breathing European air and looking at European light. And it was very fortuitous. So we all just packed up last August and moved over there. It was great.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

As I was out running this morning and I was thinking about the time I would spend talking with you today. I was thinking of the word peripatetic. You have this very interesting peripatetic sort of air about you and of the books that you write.

Peter Behrens:

Well, it's funny, I've just been kind of having a, you know, a kind of whining, sobbing breakdown week over. Moving around too much, you know, like, just too much. Like, I just can't bear opening another suitcase or, you know, going somewhere else or thinking about going somewhere else. So we've been overloading and it's been piling on a little too much lately, and we're now going to cool down. And I love those periods when I can suddenly think to myself, gosh, you know, I have not been on a main for five months. I love that that's a good time. And it's a good time for work. And I'm hoping, and I'm superstitious enough to knock wood, that we're entering one of those phases right now.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, it's a good time to be entering one of those phases, given the weather.

Peter Behrens:

Exactly. Yeah. You don't want to be doing that in November. But y. Maine is a great place to come home to.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And this is where your wife Basha Burwell is also from.

Peter Behrens:

Yeah. Bosch is deeply from Southern Maine. She grew up in Portland and Yarmouth and Cumberland. Family's from South Freeport. My family are Montrealers. I grew up in Montreal. We all spent our summers in Maine, going back a couple of generations in my family. So Maine within my family always felt like a sort of home, too.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And I think you and I have some sort of familial similarities in that. My family was from Canada. Came down to work in the mills. Not quite as glamorous as spending the summers in Maine because we just came down and they worked in Biddeford. But there is still that interesting.

Peter Behrens:

Oh, that's such a. I'm so fascinated with that world. I was just speaking of that when I was up in the Brunswick at the Spoke Festival last week. How Maine is really ethnically a Canadian state. So largely, I mean, and I think if we joined Canada, we would no longer be in the same country as New Hampshire. We'd get an hour extra daylight and we'd have health care. Right. So it's like. Sounds like a plan. As far as I'M concerned. You know, Maine is ethnically deeply Canadian. I mean, many people came down from Quebec and from Lacadie to work in the textile mill. So the river valleys are very largely French Canadian. In Maine and in the coast, when you talk to anybody in the fishing industry, if you're a Canadian, you will always be told right away that, oh, my grandmother's from Prince Edward island or Newfoundland or Nova Scotia. You know, the Maritime's influence on the coast is really, really strong. So it always feels pretty homey in that way. So we got that ethnic thing going.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You're right, yes. And the publisher of Maine Magazine, Kevin Thomas, is from Presque Isle and his family actually had a farm in New Brunswick.

Peter Behrens:

Yeah, there you go.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So we've got the sort of border crossers.

Peter Behrens:

Yeah, Maine. One of the reasons I moved back to Maine was I wanted to be near Montreal, my hometown, which I kind of write about and has a kind of radiance for me. But I also wanted to be the experience of borders and the meaning of borders is something powerful to me. So it was useful to be in Maine, close, but not there.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

In your book, the Law of Dreams, this idea of borders.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Actually, in both of your books, the

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Law of Dreams and the o', Briens, the idea of borders being somewhat fluid is very present. You start out the book talking about a child who becomes part of the bog boys in the Law of Dreams. Talk to me about that character. And why did you start with this, with a child, essentially the boy?

Peter Behrens:

Well, I not only started with him, I kind of stayed with him. I mean, he is that story. The whole book is, other than the prologue, which is a couple of pages at the beginning. That whole story is told from the point of view, sort of from behind the eyes and inside the head of a 15 year old boy who doesn't know a lot about the world. I mean, he hardly knows he lives in a country called Ireland until he leaves it. When he's going to America, he's not entirely sure what or where America is. The things. He's not stupid. He's just grown up in a very remote set of circumstances in county clare in the 1840s. And he doesn't know a lot. What he does know, he knows deeply. He knows all about animals, he knows all about horses, he knows all about how ground and light work. He's very sensually inclined. I mean, he can really smell a landscape. But I wanted to try to see that world of Ireland's catastrophe through the eyes of someone who didn't know they were Living in history, you know, and who wasn't tugging you through and giving you little history lessons along the way, but was just living through it. I mean, he had no idea he was living in the Irish famine capital I, capital F. He was just living through his life, and I wanted to stay within that point of view, and I think I pretty much did most of the way.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you have a family that lived in Montreal, that came to Montreal, but at least a large part of your family is Irish.

Peter Behrens:

That's right. My family are the. My Montreal family are the o'. Briens. My mom was Frankie o'. Brien. I've actually used a lot of their names in the novel. The o'. Brien's. The Story of the Law of Dreams. The first novel is essentially the story of this boy, Fergus o', Brien, coming out of the famine and ending up in Montreal. He's really my great, great grandfather, of whom I know very little other than that he was an o' Brien and came out of County Clare during the famine era. I basically had to invent his story because none of it survived. Like, hardly anyone has famine family stories. I mean, I think that was an experience of such poverty and struggle and shame and horror that. And those people were so poor that no things came down and few stories came down. I invented it. The second book, the o', Briens, is a fiction deeply, but it's also, to a considerable degree, based on my own family, the o'. Briens. They're the inspiration for some of the characters, and there are events in kind of family lore, family mythology, that become significant events within the book, which I have to repeat, is also a novel. I made a lot of it up,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

which you told me on the phone, became easier to write once the people that were kind of connected really intimately to the story of passed away.

Peter Behrens:

Yeah, you know, my mother's generation, you know, particularly in Canada, but I think in the United States as well. You know, they're private people, you know, and there were things within the family that, you know, to them needed to stay within the family. It's tough having a writer, you know, a novelist in your family, because you seize onto those events of which you. You only know from one perspective or one dimension. And, you know, you turn them into scenes, you turn them into chapters, you turn them into stories. I think that's a difficult process if you were part of the real thing. You know, no one else is ever going to get it right. No one else is ever going to know it the way you knew it. So it wasn't a Conscious thing. But I realized I began writing these books as my mother and that generation began dying out. I began digging in, doing the research, not knowing where I was going. But in a way, I suppose it just freed me in some kind of way that just was natural. I suppose I didn't have to. I wasn't writing for them. And I'm certainly not ashamed of anything I've written, and I don't think I've done anything bad. But I also respected their, you know, desire, you know, to keep things within the family.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

My grandmother was Pearl Mary o'. Brien.

Peter Behrens:

Oh, really?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes.

Peter Behrens:

She came over a lot of Mary o'. Brien. So my aunts were Mary Far. My mom was Mary Frances, Mary Patricia, Mary Athea, Mary Margaret. You know, Mary is very popular. Not too many Marys around these days.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, my mom is Mary Patricia, and she was Mary Patricia Emory, so that's true. You know, it's. I think this is the kind of. It's the kind of thing that we hear a lot in Maine, actually, and a lot. My family came through Ireland during the second big famine to Boston. Boston up to Maine. So, you know, I felt as if I was reading possibly about my own family. And I think that's the beauty of these books, is they're novels, and yet they belong to all of us.

Peter Behrens:

Well, that's what I'd hoped. I mean, I don't think my family, as my family, should be of interest to anyone other than me and my family to me. And that's why I didn't really write a memoir or a piece of history. I used their experience and investigated their experience and kind of know more about their experience than maybe they did, because I know about the context and stuff like that now. But I want, you know. You know, it's a story that I think rings a lot of bells for a lot of people, particularly in our part of the world.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

In the Law of Dreams, you talked about pain as being a kind of food. And your main character, Fergus, talked about eating pain. It was a kind of food made you dizzy. And this is. This is the theme that runs throughout, is pain, hunger. You know, it's so fundamental and foundational to what we know as human beings.

Peter Behrens:

Yeah, I think it really becomes part of the larger theme, which is survival. And he develops this notion of eating pain, which is really just absorbing pain and punishment and difficulty consuming it and moving beyond it, you know. And I don't know where he got that kind of analogy or where I got it, I guess, but, like, it was all he had in his life. He's going to chew his way through it and still stay alive and keep going. And it was going to make him stronger, not weaker. All that he had to do to survive, and he's not quite right about that because it does in some ways make him stronger. I think, too, though, that some of the harrowing experiences that he goes through damage him and damage him permanently in some ways, that he will never be able to be really open or trusting that he will. You know, he'll have a. He'll survive, but maybe at some cost.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Trust is a big issue when it comes to the famines. As you were talking to me the other day, you were reminding me that there was food present in Ireland during the famines. It just was being sent off in boats to other places. And so the idea that people were living often on farms, that their families had essentially sharecropped for generations, but this food was being taken away from them and sent to other people, they weren't even valued enough, that must have created this tremendous sense of inability to trust those who had always been there as their farm owners.

Peter Behrens:

Yeah. It also created a sustaining kind of rage that really fed into the forces of Irish nationalism through the 19th century, the sense of that basic inequality. The fundamental fact of what happened in the famine was, okay, the potatoes went down. The potatoes went down in lots of parts of the world, lots of parts of Northwest Europe in those years in Belgium and Scotland, people didn't starve to death. In Ireland, they did. And there's a complicated set of reasons why, but they all finally come back to the notion of Ireland really being a captive nation. And decisions on the Irish economy and the structure of land holding in Ireland were made not in Ireland, but elsewhere, you know, by people who really fundamentally did not have the interests of the Irish people closest to their hearts. You know, colonialism and, you know, it had these disastrous, you know, unintended but disastrous, you know, results in Ireland.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You were recently asked to be on a panel that was discussing the Irish famine. So this is something that is still very much alive in the culture.

Peter Behrens:

It's very alive in Irish culture. I was made aware of that when I was in Ireland doing some research a long time ago, mid-90s, and I woke up in my hotel room in Dublin. Clock radio went on and there was a story that had just come out in the Western media about a famine that had been happening in Ethiopia. The famine had been going on for quite a while, but I think the situation was that some big news media people had just gotten in there and suddenly, and some of our listeners may remember that particular famine, it was everywhere, horrifying images in magazines and on television and a lot of stories in Ireland. I mean, in Dublin the next morning, there were kids on every corner with cans collecting money for the famine victims. The president of Ireland flew to the United Nations a few weeks later to address the United nations on behalf of the famine victims. The whole country, you could just see famine touched a raw nerve still in Ireland, you know, and the whole country was this nervous in this nervous Twitter about this famine. So you could see that memory is scored pretty deep in Irish ways of being. And the Irish, to their credit, you Know, a large part of their foreign policy has to do with, you know, alleviating famine in other parts of the world, you know, and alleviating the direst effects of poverty. I mean, they're a small country, but they more than pull their weight in some of those global forums like that. It's impressive and it's, I think, because of their own experience.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Famine as a notion is not new. It's been around for, well, as long as we've had people on the earth and the need to eat, which is always. And it continues. I mean, we are still having problems with famine in various parts of the world. Because you've written this story, has this impacted the way that you have move forward in your life and viewed current events?

Peter Behrens:

I have always, you know, seen current events with this sort of historical dimension. I've always been interested in the past behind the now, you know, and yes, knowing what I know about Ireland, you know, here's the way it really worked was that I, when I was looking at contemporary events and contemporary famines in parts of the world like East Africa or West Africa and Sierra Leone, I saw what was going on in those cultures and societies and cities and towns and countrysides was probably very similar to things in Ireland that would have been happening in the 1840s that weren't really noticed or written about. What was happening to the kids who were. There was no social net in Ireland in the 1840s in rural western Ireland, what was happening to the kids of these families that were. The parents were starving to death or dying of dysentery or dying or just leaving everything, leaving their homes. That stuff never got written about. I began to get a sense of what was happening when I looked into the famine experiences in other parts of the world. Particularly one morning when I saw a picture of a kid in Sierra Leone walking down Main street In a town, 11 year old boy, African boy, wearing camo fatigues and carrying an automatic rifle over shoulder. And I thought, oh, that's what happens when societies break down because of famine. You know, kids are abandoned, kids do what they need to do to survive. Kids form gangs, kids join armies. And I thought, I know that was happening in Ireland. I know that was happening in Ireland. And I happened to read A. Sargent's report from west cork in the 1840s. One line of it, he was writing to his superiors in Dublin Castle. One line of his report stuck out. It was, lawless children are infesting the highways. And that suggested a whole hidden, unwritten about world to me that I brought Back to life. I think with the bog boys. In Law of Dreams, in the Law

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

of Dreams, there is this sense that Fergus is living through history, but he doesn't know that he's living through history. So is this something that could be happening to us right now that we don't know the outcome? We're living through something and we don't know what the other side is going to look like.

Peter Behrens:

I'd say that about wraps up the essence of the human condition, right? It is, yeah. We're staggering blindly towards what end we know not, you know, and we're dragging this history behind us like, you know, kind of gauzy roots of a plant, you know, and half the time we're not even paying attention to what's behind us. We sure don't know where we're going. Yeah, that's who we are. That's who we are. I think sometimes by paying a little more attention to our history, we can get more of a sense of, you know, place ourselves a little more carefully, place our time in history a little more carefully, maybe perhaps sometimes even make as a country, as a nation, as a power in the world, make wiser judgments. But yeah, it's unavoidable. It's the essence of history. We're all on this blind stagger to who knows where. That's kind of part of being human. Kind of fun and dangerous and spooky, but it's deeply what we are.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have a seven year old son. You've explored your own family history. Is there something that you are hoping you'll be leaving as a legacy for your son?

Peter Behrens:

Well, you know, when I think about it, I think really in some ways the person I wrote those books for was Henry. You know, I am an older father. My father was an older father. He doesn't have a lot of any cousins. He's got extended family considerably, which is really lucky. And he's got great grandparents here in Maine. But he's not that close to my family, my family tradition. And I think partly I wrote those books to tell him who he was, not who he's going to be or really who he was, but at least tell him where he came from. You know, I wasn't really conscious of that because I began the books before I began the idea of Henry. But he was fortuitously born the same year that Law of Dreams, my first novel came out. And that is a big part of them. And I hope I'd like to think of him reading those books and understanding that they're fiction and all that. But also, you know, these are the legends, this is the lore, this is the humus soil that you come out of. Here it is, you know, good or bad, here it is. You got it, kid. You know, I'm not maybe around to tell you or I'm this grumpy 85 year old, but the books are there.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's been a pleasure to speak with you today. There is nothing I like better than reading a good book and specifically fiction. I must say that this is one of my greatest pleasures. I mean, there are other things, of course, eating is good, eating is good, eating is good. But I find myself so impacted by particularly good works of fiction. So it's really, I thank you for the work that you're doing putting this out there into the world and also enabling people to think, think about things from the point of view of story, but also more globally from the point of view of history. We've been speaking with Peter Behrens, who is the author of the the Law of Dreams and Night Driving and who lives with his wife Basha Burwell and his son Henry here in Maine.

Peter Behrens:

Well, thank you Lisa. Pleasure to be here. Always a pleasure to do things in Maine particularly. It always feels like it is being home. So that just feels wonderful.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast hope that our listeners enjoy

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

their own work lives to the same

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

extent we do and fully embrace every day.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, it's taken about two years to get this person to sit with me

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

in the studio and have a conversation

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

about something that we both hold very

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

dear and that is the state of Maine. This individual is the editor in chief of Maine Magazine and Maine Home Design and one of the co founders of the Maine Media Collect. So I'm glad that you're here to talk to me today about feeding the soul because I think you and I have many shared views on the subject. Thanks for coming in, Susan.

Susan Grisanti:

Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And if I didn't mention, this is Susan Grisanti, that's the editor in chief.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've been here for 14 years now.

Susan Grisanti:

Coming up on my 14th year, right? That's right. I moved here in 2000.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you're a Mainer, but a Mainer by choice.

Susan Grisanti:

Let's say I'm a Mainer by choice. Yeah. Am I a Mainer? There's a whole question to that, whether I'm a Mainer or not. I feel more at home in Maine than I have in any other place that I've lived. I grew up on the west coast my whole life in California. I went to school at usc, but I honestly feel more at home here than I have and I lived in Seattle for a couple of years. I attribute that me feeling so at home here. I was raised by by easterners. Both of my parents are from upstate New York and something about that I think being raised, even though we were in Los Angeles, we were really a little bit more of an island, all girls, Catholic schools and things like that, and really instilled with some values that I think feel much more at home here in Maine.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I was struck, I think you and I were both at a wedding

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

last summer and I was Struck by.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

By the fact that you're a West Coaster, I'm an East Coaster.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And we're both at heart, these two Catholic girls.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You know, we both go up for communion. We're both, you know, just. There's something really interesting and kind of spiritual, I think, in both of our backgrounds. And I think that that feeds into the love that we both have of place and of Maine. And I've seen this in some of the journeying that I know that you've written about for 48 hours. So talk to me about what is 48 hours and what does that mean to Maine Magazine? What has that brought to the Maine media collective?

Susan Grisanti:

Oh, 48 hours. I mean, that is a big question, multifaceted question there. I think the first reaction that I have to what you say is about this whole spirituality and kind of getting out in nature. And so the whole idea of us, I think what we've discussed many times is kind of this need to be outside, to kind of unplug and disconnect from computers and phones and things and just create a little space, a little time, a little quiet for ourselves. So the first part of my answer would have to be that I always do work in very naturally into my life and into my weekends away, that we do officially and unofficially, some time outside. You know, whether it's winter and hiking and, you know, summer, there's all kinds of things to do. And so there's a lot of time in, I think all of our trips to 48 hours, that our staff is pretty connected to the outdoors on a larger scale, just getting away for the weekend, that we really live these lives, that if we can move out of this regular routine in order to. You and I talked about jump in the car and from Portland in 45 minutes or last year in Brunswick, and to sit, stay for the weekend. And some of the really great restaurants that are there, amazing art scene that's there at the mill. And then Bowdoin and I talked about that town being bookended by the mill on one end and the university on the other, and how lovely to be kind of in all the culture on that main street in between. The idea of really just enjoying the weekend and kind of not having a schedule and following your nose. And it's been super gratifying to me to have the question which was, I always used to joke, the number one question was, where do I go and eat? From friends and from different readers. Now the question is, where do I go for the weekend? I'm getting that quite a bit. And this idea of kind of giving people this inspiration to get out and jump in their car and have a really easy weekend away right within the state. And all the different personalities we talked about, the really luxurious inns down to the kind of rickety little hole in the wall places, and each of them kind of having their own gift that they can give us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Now, 48 hours began from something very different, where one person who I don't believe was on staff went out and did a very. Did an admirable job spending 48 hours in a town. Came back, said, this is what I did.

Susan Grisanti:

Right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But it really progressed from there.

Susan Grisanti:

It really did. Yeah. Well, I think it was inspired in our 48 hours guide that we have on. On the newsstands right now, we have a compilation of many of the staff. 48 hours are written. You and Kevin write the opening note to that. And it was inspired on a trip. I mean, you could probably actually. Would you answer that question?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What we were noticing is that everybody on your staff has such a visual sense. Obviously, you have two magazines that you create, and some people really gravitate more towards photography than others. Some people have more professional background than others, but everybody really likes to sort of see what's out there and really experience and really sort of be part of wherever it is that they go. So it seemed as though it was almost inspired by Instagram in an interesting way, that you have the ability to sort of take not only a snapshot, a written snapshot, but also a visual snapshot and sort of string these all together and create something that is a little bit more inspiring. Inspiring, I think, in a way.

Susan Grisanti:

Absolutely right. We're talking about feeding our souls. And when you think about how gratifying it is for our staff to kind of go out and have the freedom to express themselves and to share what's going on and share what they're discovering with readers and to creatively express themselves through something like Instagram. So much fun for us. Again, it's a real complement to the gorgeous professional photography that we have throughout the magazine. These are snapshots, and these are more of a storytelling in a different way. And I think the two really complement each other nicely.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And it's also, what I notice is just a sense of pride. And I know that Maine magazine, Maine Home design brand company, art collector Maine. Everybody has a real sense of passion and pride working on. People really do believe that Maine is a wonderful place to be. And the things that we do, we mean it. We go to events, we mean it. When you put together, the 48 Hours issue. And it came together within how much time?

Susan Grisanti:

Are you talking about the first time that we did it?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

No, I'm talking about this issue that's sitting on my lap right now.

Susan Grisanti:

It literally. This is going to be hard to believe, but between the two issues that we were working on, it came together in one week. Some very long hours and very dedicated staff that we have, but we pulled this one together in very short amount of time.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So your 48 hours issue was created over the course of maybe three 48 hour periods, really. But it's just as beautiful as any of the other magazines and people were so proud of it. Yes, people really love to be able to open it up and say, this is my picture, these are my pictures, these are my words, these are the connections that I've made. In the state of Maine, we have

Susan Grisanti:

21 of the most exceptional people on the staff. And you alluded to it that this wide eyed curiosity, I think this is a common trait that makes people successful here that want to work here. They really do have an open heart and an open mind and are curious and open to what's going on and love to hit the streets. I mean, we have competition for who's going to go on what 48 hours trip instead of would you spend your weekend working? We've got a long list of people saying, can I please go? Can I go and experience these things? And I'm more than willing to take photos and document what I'm doing and come back and write it and edit it and work with it. In order to put that out there and share that, that is something that absolutely does feed our soul. It's not something just like putting this issue together in such a short period of time. There was a real energy about that. Like, let's just do this, let's put this guide together and let's get it out there before the summer's over. Let's get it out there so that people can do it in a timely way, so that people can really enjoy this during their summer vacations.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I remember reading one of the editor's notes, I guess, and it was by Sophie Nelson and it talked about her desire to sort of go out there and say, look at this, look at this, look at this. And I know that this is a way that I've often, often felt in my life that I want to say, look at the clouds, look at the flowers, look at all of these beautiful things that are around us. And when I pick up this issue, this is really the sense that I have that everybody who's writing for this issue is saying, look at these things that I've found. And I want people to know about it because I want them to be there, too. I want them to experience it, and I want them to be fed themselves.

Susan Grisanti:

True. By the way, one of my, if not my very favorite editor's notes ever been written for either of the magazines. That note is really special and we got a lot of feedback. And people can genuinely feel Sophie's desire to share these things. It's such an addition to what we have in Maine Magazine. I love that note. I think it was from our July issue. I'll have to double check that. But it's such a great end note that wanting to share is absolutely prevalent. And I think what. What it reflects also is people really want to live in Maine. When you choose. I always say that the stories that we create in Maine Home and Design and Maine Magazine, Maine is the filter that makes my job so rewarding and really kind of in a guilty way, very easy. Because I feel oftentimes like the lucky dope that gets to turn the lens on what's happening out there. It is. It is a place that is hard enough in certain ways to make it really interesting. Like, why would you. Why do you want to build that house here when there's climates that are easier and nicer to deal with than here? And a number of other reasons that it really makes it an interesting choice for people. There is a passion, not just in the staff of this magazine that wants to share these stories with people, but with the audience that is tied to Maine. There's something thing there. There's this interesting thing that makes all that we do just that much more interesting.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

The other thing that I noticed is exactly what you've said, that because you're

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

out there connecting with other people who choose to live in Maine, there's just

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

this sort of heightened enthusiasm often. And there's such creative people that live here and the connections that are made. I mean, I'm constantly amazed and I go to many events with you and see all of the people that you connect with. And that's another thing that feeds your soul is these relationships that you've built up with the people in Maine. It's almost hard for me to believe that you've only lived here 14 years.

Susan Grisanti:

Yeah, it's a very good thing. I couldn't agree more. It is incredibly gratifying to meet the folks that we work with. I'm thinking also of the people that we meet on Our travels, short connections, long connections. We have a circle, a community that has kind of risen up around these magazines to support them. We have people that really take pride, readers who say it's theirs that means the world to me. I think that that has so much to do with the kind of energy and success that we've had with the publications is the people that kind of rise up around it, our readers in our community. It's incredibly gratifying to be doing this work. Absolutely, yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

The goal of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour is to help make connections between

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

the health of the individual and the health of the community.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

The goal of Ted Carter Inspired Landscapes

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

is to deepen our appreciation for the natural world. Here to speak with us today is Ted Carter.

[Unidentified voice]:

One of the things that we all think about as we get older and we age is we want to make a difference in the world. We want to. We reach the calling part of our life. We start with a job and we go into a career, and then we move into our calling years. And one of the biggest things we can do is be a good steward, a good steward of the land, a good steward with your estate and your family, just be a good steward. And stewardship is something that many of my clients over the years have taught me and I've learned by example through them. I have a friend who I've worked with for a number of years, and we've sort of rebuilt her childhood village together slowly, piece by piece, starting with the community center and then the park in front of the town and the church. And her husband who died several years ago, talked about stewardship and discussed stewardship and was very passionate about that. And I go through that town now and see the trees maturing and the plantings mature, and I say, wow, this is what Dave meant. This is exactly what Dave meant. This is stewardship. And through their generosity, they've improved the lives of many people. I'm Ted Carter, and if you'd like to contact me, I can be reached@tedcarterdesign.com

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

and podcast we believe we are helping to build a better world with the help of many. We'd like to bring to you people who are examples of those building a better world in the areas of wellness, health and fitness.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

To talk to you today about one of these fitness is Jim Greaterix, the president of Premier Sports Health, a division of Black Bear Medical.

[Unidentified voice]:

Here's Jim during the summer months we all want to get out and enjoy the outdoors and all that Maine offers at Black Bear Medical's Premier Sports Health division where we want you to be able to take full advantage of a great Maine summer. I recently hiked Mount Katardin and wore some of the new compression hiking socks. Anyone who has made this climb knows that it's an exhilarating but grueling climb. I was amazed that by wearing the socks and then the recovery compression socks the next day I had little to no soreness and my legs felt fresh. My 22 year old son, on the other hand, didn't wear the goofy looking socks and he was sore. These products really work and I invite you to check them out for yourselves. I'm Jim Greatorex, President of Black Bear Medical. Come on in and see our trained staff down at 275 Marginal Way and at www.blackbearmedical.com.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

so I know that in 48 hours it's the places that people can see day that's discussed, the places that people can eat and what people can eat. We also have people who have done rock climbing and running and biking and hiking places for people to shop. Also the things that come up for me are things for people to look at art. Art becomes this really interesting and important part of 48 hours Maine, but also in everything that is done in these magazines. Why is art such an important piece of the Maine Media Collective?

Susan Grisanti:

Well, I think that like so much of what I've already said since we've started talking what's happening in Maine and when in my answer to the question of why is art so important? The art that's happening, the contemporary people working in the contemporary art world, let alone the history and the legacy of of what's happened in Maine art, we just from the beginning I honestly knew very, very little about art before we started Maine Home and Design in late 2006 and it was something that I just caught the bug. I stayed up till two in the morning just searching websites and on the different galleries and learning about the artists and it's a passion and passions are what keep life interesting for us. And the main art scene has really Added so much to my life. When I go to openings, I get to talk to these artists. We have the ability in Maine to go to openings and stand with these artists that are of such an extreme talent that we can discuss their work with them one on one. I do it nearly every opening. I try to go nearly every first Friday and wander around Portland or in different towns. They're great first Fridays. That is such a wonderful thing that I would invite all of your listeners to go and do, to just kind of get curious and ask a little bit and then. Or just go and stand in front of the art and look at it. If you take. I find myself like calming down when I first run into some of these openings or different shows at the museums and I have to kind of just give myself a minute in front of a piece of art and I watch it transform and have an effect on me. That's one of those connections for me spiritually. I really feel like these artists kind of are messengers for us. They challenge us, they get us to think in a really non linear way, how to feel channel some kind of higher meaning, whatever that is for you. And I really think that artists are among the leaders on kind of telling us where we are politically and where we are. And this is just through the air, this feeling when you look through time, what's happening in the world, you can really document that through art. And that's really what art history is about. Something that I would love to learn more and more about. But we have unbelievable access here. The Colby Museum of Art is just opening up the largest physical art space with the largest collection in the state that is free seven days a week, open to the public in this beautifully designed and newly constructed edition that the Lunders so generously donated. 500 million dollar collection, I believe. 500 pieces. Just absolute amazing transformation you can have talk about unplugging in a short period of time. And just walking through and seeing these masterworks is one of the very enriching things in Maine to do.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's easy for us to talk about

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

places like Kennebunk, Kennebunkport, Camden Midcoast. And those places do have great people, great restaurants, great places to. To stay, but other parts of Maine do as well. And you spent time. I know, I mean, you mentioned Brunswick. That's another one that kind of already comes to mind.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But you spent time also in Bangor

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

and you spent time in Aristic County.

Susan Grisanti:

Yes, you've.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've kind of broadened your circle. What kinds of things did you bring

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

back from those other trips, I love

Susan Grisanti:

to get in the car and drive. I think that my life runs at a certain pace. That there's something really meditative to me about literally separating and kind of giving that time. So I absolutely love a road trip. I took that trip to Aroostook county with my son Jack. And that drive, just, you know, going and watching the state change. Just the topography of the state up there is so different than it is here. Just wide open spaces, such natural beauty all around us. All those different personalities, all those different places are again, I'm going to go to like these really posh. Some of these beds you sink into. But some of the more interesting experiences come from these more unexpected places that really get us to kind of feel differently and think differently and come back to maybe the comforts of home in a renewed way.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What do you remember most about Aroostook County?

Susan Grisanti:

The thing I remember the most were the people. Without question, there is a sense of interdependence among them. There's a sense of community. I talk about in the story going out with the groomers that go out and groom the snowmobiling trails. This is, you know, huge volunteer base of organization. And then those few that really do this work to create, they know that they're bringing in people, they're bringing in tourists that come and really sustain these businesses, sustain the restaurants and the inns and the different places. And hearing. And I was riding around in the snow cat as they're grooming them and they brought a second groomer because they didn't want Jack left behind in the. There's only this little jump seat. So I'm holding onto this little jump seat and my then 11 year old is holding onto his little jump seat going through these private property that people kind of out of the goodness of their heart say, yes, we'll support this trail system. That was really striking to me. That's something that I think I'll always remember.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

The COVID of your 48 Hours issue, which I believe is out now, is a antique automobile.

Susan Grisanti:

Right?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Antique automobile, yeah. With. It looks like either a surfboard or possibly a paddle board on the top.

Susan Grisanti:

Right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But it all just screams adventure.

Susan Grisanti:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And yet. And it says your adventure awaits. And yet Maine is also simultaneously the place where we adventure and where we lay our heads down. It's an interesting thing. I mean, we have Maine's. Everybody has family camps or they have these places that they've become sacred spaces almost. And somehow that comes across in the magazines. How is it that you manage to do that, to simultaneously put across this notion that, yes, you can adventure, but you can also go somewhere and find a sacred space.

Susan Grisanti:

Well, I think even in our adventures, there's a very genuine spirit throughout the state that I think that there's this kind of win me over main attitude among real Mainers. There isn't this, you know, phony, glitzy, really, you know, I'm from Los Angeles, which is the entertainment, you know, world. And there's this all this big smile and the hug at the front. And maybe, like I always joke about the stab in the back at the back. I would say it's really the polar opposite in Maine. I think there's just a very genuine feeling about even adventuring here. And so I think that really the two go hand in hand, that we can be at home and really feel like there's a genuine experience and there's adventure and fun and then there's work. I mean, work is maybe the best way that I have found to happiness is through a little bit of discomfort. And I think that that's okay. I like that. I like the way that you draw that parallel. And I think that we could just keep going with that. It really could be a very spiritual thing about how it isn't always about being peaceful and happy all the time. Sometimes you have to go through the birth canal to get there.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Susan, I'm going to end our conversation

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

with this quote from the Law of Dreams, written by Peter Behrens. Is courage just the awareness that gestures,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

journeys, leave lives have intrinsic shape and

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

must one way or another be completed? That there is a path to be followed literally to the death. Awareness is harsh, but better than being unaware, never sensing a path. Better than a life of stunts, false starts, dead ends. Better than the irredeemable ugliness of the half hearted. Better than feeling. There is no shape to anything.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

There is. The world knows itself. It strikes me that really what we're talking about in feeding the soul is courage. It's the courage to follow something, whatever that looks like, even if it doesn't feel that comfortable to us. And that's how we are fed.

Susan Grisanti:

Thank you for sharing that, Lisa. You gave me the chills when you read that. I think it's courage and sometimes it's faith.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I would absolutely agree. And I suspect people who are going

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

to pick up not only this mean

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

magazine 48 hours issue, but all of the copies of Maine Magazine that I know, people still keep them. It's funny. You go, Maine Magazine is beloved. People keep it around forever.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I have a sense that they're going

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

to feel that they're going to feel that there's a little bit of faith, there's a little bit of courage, a little bit of adventure. It's a very unique place we live in and I think that you represent it well.

Susan Grisanti:

Thank you so much. Thank you. I really appreciate it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So I hope that people will take the time to go to your website, which is themainmag.com and also find your publications Maine Magazine, Maine Home Design and all of the Eat Maine Art Main. Also go to the Art Collector Main website and really learn more about Feeding the Soul in the way that you and everybody at the Maine Media Collective is putting forth. I've been speaking with the Editor in Chief of Maine Magazine and Maine Home Design, Susan Grisanti. Thanks so much for coming in.

Susan Grisanti:

Thank you Lisa.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast show number 99, Feeding the Soul. Our guests have included Peter Behrens and Susan Grison. For more information on our guests as well as their extended interviews, visit Dr. Lisa.org we'd like you to join us for a few special events. The first is Lobsters on the Sound taking place in Southwest harbor on August 2nd 6th. Lobsters on the Sound benefits Harbour House, which serves all the people of Mount Desert Island. Every Harbor House program and activity springs from common ideas and individual contributions. With six key program areas and a roster of more than 45 health, fitness, educational, sports, community based and youth focused classes and activities, Harbour House serves every age group and every economic level. For more information visit harborhousemdi.org the next event is the 29th annual Bike Ms. Great Maine Getaway out of the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine. During this two day ride, cyclists will experience the beauty of Maine's southern coastline, including an up close look at Walker's Point, the summer home of George H.W. bush. This will take place on August 10 and 11, 2013. For more information go to nationalmssociety.org the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is downloadable for free on itunes. For a preview of each week's show, sign up for our e. Newsletter and like our Dr. Lisa Facebook page. You can also follow me on Twitter and Pinterest and read my take on health and well being on the bountiful blog bountifulpath.com we do love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they they enable us to bring the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle hoping that you have enjoyed our Feeding the Soul show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.

Peter Behrens:

Org.