Tales of Tragedy & Triumph, #111

[Unidentified voice]:

When it comes to what people are willing, are able or want to hear, I think the storyteller tells the story and people can decide if they want to listen or not. And that's a little bit too what this book is about is me finally taking control of a story that needed to be told and in the end I do take control of it and I tell the story I need to tell whether or not people want to hear it.

[Unidentified voice]:

What our goal is is to reach the parents, educators and other caregivers to of children at risk who are the children with social, emotional and behavioral challenges much earlier in their lives, before they're making decisions, perhaps in their teenage years, that alter their path.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast Show 111 tales of tragedy and Triumph airing for the first time on Sunday, October 27, 2013. Today's guests include Michael Paternitti and Sheila Nee. Michael Paternitti is the author of the Telling A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge and the World's Greatest Piece of Cheese. This best selling book about ancient feuds and how stories evolve gives us a glimpse of the greater world which mirrors our world here in Maine. Sheila Nee comes to us from Lives in the Balance, which is working to help at risk youth change their own tragic stories to ones of triumph. I was asked today what the most interesting aspect of my job as a doctor is. I answered the story. It is the privilege of hearing the stories of others and sometimes playing a small part in their stories that I find most compelling and sometimes most heartbreaking. Because not all stories are easy and not all stories end well. Largely, I am entering the story long after it began. I have no control over what came before. Even worse, I have little control or far less than I might like over what will come next. All I can do is show up and offer my best, which sometimes is good enough and sometimes not, because, of course, I can only play the part that I have been offered. I am not a God. I am not omnipotent nor omniscient. And that is the end life. We expose ourselves to heartbreak or we don't. We show up or choose to hide. We know sadness and joy and frustration and love for our fellow human beings. We decide every day as doctors and as humans whether we will commit to being part of the story. We hope you enjoy our conversations with Michael Paternitti and Sheila Nee. Thank you for being part of our story. As listeners of the show are well aware, I love nothing more than a good book. And I found such a book in the driving Mr. Albert, which was written by Michael Paternitti, a Portland area author. Then I found another such book in the Telling, a tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge and the World's Greatest Piece of Cheese by the same author who also has been the founder, who also is the founder of the Telling Room itself here in Portland. I was very excited to be able to bring this author, Michael Paternitti, into the studio with me and have a conversation about some of these themes that have been woven throughout his books. So thanks for coming in, Michael.

[Unidentified voice]:

Thank you for having me. Lisa.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

These books are very interesting in that one of them is about Einstein's brain and the trip that you took across the country to return it to its, I guess, rightful owner, although really the relative of its rightful owner.

[Unidentified voice]:

Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Another one is about following a piece of cheese that you discovered in the early 90s across the ocean to learn more about its story. These are different subjects than one might encounter. Usually you have I mean, you're a magazine writer in general, Right. You're not usually writing about cheese and brains, are you?

[Unidentified voice]:

That's not my beat exactly when I'm doing magazine stuff. But I mean, I do everything. I'm a generalist. I'm always looking for stories. It doesn't matter whether it's in a war zone or in a small village in Spain. I'm always looking for the elements of a great story. And in the case of at least the books, the first book started as a folio for Harper's Magazine. So it started as a magazine piece, a very long magazine piece. And I was able to and I had so much material from it that I was able to make a book from it. And in the case of the Telling Room, I had, as you say, this encounter in a deli when I was in grad school where I was proofreading their newsletter at Singerman's Deli in Ann Arbor. An incredible food bazaar. And even then in like 1991, it was one of those places where you could find amazing delectables from around the world. And the owner, Ari, flew around the world gathering cool food, great food, and the stories of those products. And so he had mentioned this piece of cheese, Paramo de Guzman, in the newsletter. And I thought the story of it was incredible. And I ripped it out, I saved it. And 10 years later I was in Spain on assignment profiling the great chef Ron Adria. And I took a Sunday off and went over to the village and really wasn't expecting much. I just wanted to try the cheese. And by the time I left the village, after sitting in one of these telling rooms with the cheesemaker Ambrosio, I realized that it had all the elements of an amazing story. And so I started returning. But really it's not so much there's sort of a whimsy or an absurdity to say the cheese or Einstein's brain, but those are for me, sort of portals into these deeper stories.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, we've often spoken about the sort of macrocosm within the microcosm. We talk about that a lot on this show. And I think you talk about it in the telling room in that, you know, you can find a world within some small object or some small story. One thing that I was struck by in driving Mr. Albert. Well, first I. It does feel as if it's. It's a story rather than something that's being reported. I mean, it's more sort of poetic than it is prosaic or maybe it's somewhere in between. So I also thought it was very interesting because you, you almost sort of. I can watch you almost evolve as a young man through these stories. I mean, you're now a father of three. You have a 13 year old and then you have a 11 and, and 8. But when you started driving, Mr. Albert, you're describing this relationship with a woman who would become your wife and the sort of decision to leave her and take out across the country. And it is the mindset of a young man.

[Unidentified voice]:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do you mind if I read this passage?

[Unidentified voice]:

Not at all.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is from driving Mr. Albert. The garden of Eden. The road is gold and mystical, running smack dab along the geological middle of America. The seam where the west untethers from the east so that nothing, nothing will look like the east again. We're at the place where the light begins to hit the cross country freight Trains differently in longer brilliant rays, incandescent orange. And then the shadows lay purple over everything, fall in wondrous warm rain plagues over the small town. Bankers and waitresses leaving their cafes bundled in polar fleece. Everyone seems equal in this light and shadow, this rich, penniless air. We're at the place, too, where the sky gets large and wild with big wisping castles of clouds, where things become more of an improvisation. Trailer homes haphazardly laid out on wide plateaus surrounded by payloads and jubilees of junk, old rusted gas refrigerators from dust bowl times, Bed springs on which generations have been conceived and born, eaten through cars, the ravaged sites of so many first dates and first kisses and funeral processions. All these ghosts come alive as we pass some invisible Maginot line, as the American mind moves from the imprisoning whimsy of cities through some harder boiled practicality to the eagle flight of the West. Now, this makes me want to jump in a car and take off and

[Unidentified voice]:

I'll come with you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah. And it's such an interesting sense of freedom and sense of sort of just being simultaneously completely present where you are as you pass through. What happens when you go from that place to the place where you have three children and a wife and a reporting career and a book that needs to get finished? How do you sort of maintain the sense of freedom and adventure?

[Unidentified voice]:

That's the question we ask every day, I think, in our house. Or it's one of them. I mean, we do have these professions, both Sarah, my wife, and I, as magazine journalists, that enable us to go out and travel and have these conversations with people and these intimacies with people that we wouldn't otherwise have. And that being part of the job description means that we get to do some of this. And in order to do some of this, we both have to cover for each other when the other one's on the road. So we have, over time here, built a sort of a flexible machine in our house that allows for one of us to be on the road when one of us needs to be. And then the beauty of writing, too is when you come back, you're very present for your kids, so you can be there in the middle of the day if someone needs you, if someone's sick, if someone needs a pickup. So the time away often feels like a partial escape, but it's. But it's work related. And we always tell each other when one of us heads out the door, like, bring back some good stories and take a lot of pictures like, we want to see it, we want to hear it. And in some ways, I hope that informs our family life. The kids have gotten used to some of these rhythms, and we bring them when we can. And there are also those reporting trips where you have extra frequent flyer miles and, you know, you could actually stretch it out and be gone for a while. And what would that look like if the kids came? Could we get the work done? And so we've been able to take them on some bigger trips, which have been great. But, yeah, I agree with you. How do you keep that person who was driving cross country in the sunset where he or she felt so completely alive and free a part of who you are today when you have all these other obligations? And part of it, too, for both of us is that we write to find out things about ourselves. And we're constantly teaching ourselves in this exercise, by this exercise of writing. So I think it's an ongoing conversation, but it's a very full one. And I think the. The key to it is that we always feel this sense of possibility. So however outlandish the idea, one of us will often say, that sounds cool. Why don't you do it? Why don't we do it?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Both of these books have in them older male characters. I call them characters, except they're real. They're real people. One of them is a pathologist, a retired pathologist named Thomas Harvey, who performed the autopsy on Einstein and then kept his brain. So that's one individual that you describe as sort of having a past, possibly littered with the metaphorical bodies of ex wives and, you know, children left behind. And then we have Ambrosio on the other side in the telling room, who is very much tied to his past and yet has tried to kind of reinvent it around himself. How does this change the way that you view your own self and your own life and your own personage as a man in this world, as a person in this world?

[Unidentified voice]:

One of the things that attracted me to Dr. Harvey was the mystery of his life. He had performed the autopsy on Albert Einstein. He cut his head open and taken his brain and decided that this was a good thing and that he should keep the brain. And the U.S. government thought this was a bad thing, and the family thought it was a bad thing, and they wanted this brain. And then Dr. Harvey sort of vanished. He left Princeton and moved from town to town and really kept this incredibly low profile, all the while harboring the brain and trying to send parts of it out to different neuroanatomists. Really Trying to take control of. Of some study that would lead to our understanding of Einstein's genius. But I was really intrigued by the mystery of him and sort of the rambling life that he'd led. And maybe because of having had children and because we're so settled here in Portland, When Ambrosio. When I first Met Ambrosio In 2000, I was completely drawn in and intrigued, not just by this huge character that he is. Because he is like a hurricane. And when he tells a story, they last four to eight hours long. And you were with him all the way. You're not allowed to be diverted in any way. But I was really, really compelled by his commitment to this one place and to this one history. And history was alive in everything that he talked about. The characters from the town were always alive in these stories, and a lot of them had died, and they were still characters in the stories that he told. He had this way of honoring and keeping memory alive through narrative, and I loved that. I resonated to that. And also, knowing that it was one village in one region of Spain, I thought this was maybe the perfect place to settle in and try to understand the competing impulse inside of me to stay and to go, to travel and to grow roots in a place.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Was there also possibly the competing impulse to find reality or whatever that means, versus kind of create a reality around yourself?

[Unidentified voice]:

Yeah. His connectedness was so complete. And as this American visitor, I felt the jumpy, you know, sort of speedy sense of dislocation that is part of a little bit a part of American life unless you control it, you know, with like, just the digital speed of American life alone can be overwhelming. And so to meet a guy who didn't have a phone and sat for hours in the telling room drinking red wine and eating chorizo and telling stories with nothing but time to tell them and to get lost in that, in the timeless moment of listening to a story and sort of the timeless, eternal moment of storytelling was fantastic. And it also put me in touch with a deeper connectedness. And it was through this place, Guzman, this little village, that I found myself more connected in my own life when I came home. And maybe that's partly too what travel is. I mean, you return to yourself eventually. You make all these promises about how you're going to change when you're out there, but the facts of your life remain the same when you return home, though the spirit of your life might have changed and hopefully has. And in some ways, you return to yourself, knowing yourself better for it. And so that was very much a part of the journey and part of the book.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Here on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast, we've long recognized the link between health and and wealth. Here to speak more on the topic is Tom Shepard of Shepherd Financial in

[Unidentified voice]:

2013, there's a story playing out about triumph and tragedy. For some, the return of the stock market to all time highs is a triumph born out of patience, endurance and faith. For others, it is a tragedy made worse by the low yields and significant declines in safer investments. Stocks seem to be winning and bonds losing. How the year ends is anyone's guess. Two weeks ago you had a choice. Stay till the end of the Patriots and Red Sox games or bail out early. Those of you watching for the excitement that comes with victory may have left with the taste of defeat. If you hung in for the enjoyment of the game, you were treated to a glorious New England sports day. Tom Brady and Big Papi brought both teams to victory by never giving up and playing through to the end. Celebrate the wins. It's good for the soul, but remember that the triumph is fleeting and the tragedy means more work. New Orleans and Detroit have seen a lot of tragedy recently, but they both have tomorrow and the next game. I guess the point in all this is that if you want to triumph in your financial life, you really do have to see things through to the end. You have to play your game patiently, endure the ups and downs of the markets and keep the faith that setbacks are just another opportunity to triumph in the end. If there's time left on the clock or strikes left on the batter, never give up on your team. To learn more like Shepherd Financial on Facebook, we believe in you and want to help your team evolve with your money.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And yet the connectedness that he felt with his situation was really proved in the end to be a bit of a disconnect that. I don't want to give away anything in the story. But you found his story to be one thing, and then when you went back after trying to finish the book for many, many years. And I love the part of the book where you put in a letter from the publisher saying, pretty much finish this book or give us back our money, that's sort of the advance on the book. When you finally went back to sort of push through and become a journalist again and sort of extract yourself from being part of the story, as your wife Sarah said you needed to do, it turned out that the story that sort of other people really knew to be more real was very different from what Ambrosio had told you.

[Unidentified voice]:

Yeah. And as a journalist going to the village, somewhere inside of me, I should have known or would have known that that when someone tells you a story, that there's always a second story, a counter story. But I didn't want to believe that there was one. I wanted to be suspended in this spell that he cast and to be allowed to live in a place where I wasn't asking nosy questions all the time, that I could just actually sort of make a life in. And when it came to the ending, or trying to put an end to it, I realized that I did have to go speak to some people, some very key people in the book who did have another version of it. What's interesting, though, is this friendship that I had with Ambrosio was very deep. And we became like part of a family. Their family, I feel like, is part of my family. My family feels like part of their family. So there was this internal struggle, really, between what I had to do for my job. The journalist part of me was aware that I had to have these conversations and I was going to have to write some truth that was going to be my truth, but something maybe more objective than his truth, and that that was going to change that relationship somehow. And so right now, as this book comes out, I'm in the middle of. We're in the middle of redefining that relationship. And I was just there three weeks ago. But he hasn't read the book, he doesn't read English, and his daughter's probably going to translate it for him, and we'll see. I mean, I think the book itself is a huge love letter to a way of life and a philosophy and to this. These ideals that he holds dear. But, yeah, there was a murder plot, and those things resolved in a way that maybe in the book, at least, he didn't intend.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I'M going to have you read a few paragraphs because I think that it's really. They're very interesting to me.

[Unidentified voice]:

Not everyone believed that Ambrosio intended to kill Julian. And of those who did, few were in favor of the idea. Relatives from the north called one evening for a hushed conversation with Ambrosio Sr. Does something need taken care of? It would be nice to settle this the old way, said Ambrosio's father. But no, that's a sure course to insanity. He reiterated to his son that a life in jail was hardly an even trade for having something, even the family cheese, stolen from you, it would be double captivity. Others in the extended family urged Ambrosio to take refuge for a while at a nearby monastery to cleanse himself of his anger, which was an idea he gave serious thought to. But the deeper Ambrosio fell into the meaningless of his life without Paramo de Guzman, the more he lost a grip on his equanimity, the more vehement he became. If other people doubted his intentions, he felt all the more resolved. This kind of sudden disorder, this upending of happiness, this complex of futility, loss and violent fantasy, gives rise to many strange bedfellows. Drink, depression, self loathing. Having seen Julian so completely as a doppelganger, Ambrosio lost his bearings. Yes, revenge was paramount. But was there something more to this wish to kill Julian? Was it a wish to kill some part of himself, too, to silence his mind? And was it possibly more useful to keep an enemy, thereby keeping yourself intact, than to eliminate him? On the Meseda, you might drive 30, 40, 50 miles to nowhere, a bunch of ramshackle buildings and bump into the very person you're hoping to avoid. There was a story about the time Ambrosio had taken his place in an out of the way bar in Haza, a virtual ghost town. Ambrosio sat with his back to the door. Julian had allegedly entered in the shadows, seen Ambrosio from behind and instantly retreated. While Ambrosio's poker faced friends betrayed nothing until much later when they were sure Julian was gone. Two years passed in this way, and who knows how many near misses there might have been? Julian entering a bar for five minutes after Ambrosio exited, Ambrosio stopping for gas where Julian had just bought cigarettes. Ambrosio went on living his life, stalking Julian in his mind, ready for him when the moment arose.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So it seems as though what Ambrosio is feeling is that he somehow needs to create this other life so that he can keep living the life that he wants. To live. He wants his family to look a certain way. He wants to look at him a certain way. He wants the story to be a certain thing. And. And so in order to sort of reconcile himself with the realities that other people are trying to get him to understand, he projects everything onto this, what we'll call brother from another mother. Julian, you never. You wanted them, I think, in the story, Julian and Ambrosio to get together. You wanted there to be some resolution. You wanted them to. And Julian wanted it, too. But Ambrosio never agreed to this.

[Unidentified voice]:

Yeah, I think it's part of one of the bigger themes of the book, which is this idea of storytelling and what storytelling is in our lives and the stories we tell about ourselves and what we need to project about ourselves. And I think Ambrosio had clearly suffered this great loss when the cheese had been stolen or taken from him or he was somehow outmaneuvered and lost. The cheese that came from an old family recipe. It was basically a family heirloom. And it was this magical thing to a lot of people in that village and beyond, actually, because when people ate it, it gave them these memories of being in the kitchen with their mother, who used to make the same house cheese. So for Ambrosio to have lost this, he needed to construct a narrative. And that impulse goes all the way back to, like, cave walls. We need a reason. We need to understand why we don't get the orange Popsicle. There has to be a conspiracy. There has to be a larger narrative that explains this, because we can't be anything but good and pure in our own minds in order to sometimes carry on. And in this case, I think Ambrosio, as such a great storyteller and so adept at reading people and so completely knowledgeable about how stories work in the most sort of Shakespearean sense of story, was able to create a narrative in which he was betrayed, and that could only end in violence. And I think that's what allowed him to save partial face in this village and with his family. And he's also, you know, he's part of a family that's started as a farming family, but his two brothers are very successful and sort of have lived in different places of the world and run their. Have had very successful lives. And this was his greatest success, obviously, it became this massive, momentary sensation. You know, Fidel Castro wanted to buy all of this cheese, and Ronald Reagan was given it as a gift. And the British royal family was served the cheese, and the Spanish king and queen loved it. So this was really something that meant a lot to him, and to have it taken and perhaps taken by some of his own missteps along the way required an explanation, and that's what he came up with, in part. So I think it's But I think for me listening to the story, I kept asking myself as I went along and as I wrote the book, so what are my delusions? Like what are the stories I tell myself? And why do I need to hear those stories? Why do I need to hear this story so badly? The story of the righteous man who was undone by the evil one and who stood for goodness and purity and was betrayed for it? Because that's what a lot of literature is full of. And for some reason I needed to hold onto that one.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

As a physician and small business owner, I rely on Marcy Booth from Booth, Maine to help me with my own business and to help me live my own life fully. Here are a few thoughts from Marcy As I was thinking about the theme of today's show, I couldn't help but fixate on the word tragedy. Because in my business, clients look to me to make certain that financial tragedies don't happen through proper planning, forecasting and day to day operational management. It's an interesting juxtaposition for me because when you keep your eyes focused and plan for the pitfalls, your business can not only thrive, but it can triumph by being financially sound. I'm Marcie Booth. Let's talk about the changes you need. Boothmain.com

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I enjoyed this description of sort of your life versus here. His he was webbed to the here and now sunk into it while I seemed to spend a great deal of time racing through airports, a processed cream cheese bagel in hand, trying to reach the future. Now I sat noticing everything infused with mindfulness, the pallor of light, the still life of the smooth glass Peron on the wood grove table, the oversized man sitting in his shadow, occasionally revealed at angles or by the rumble or raggedness of his voice, or the various ways he simply lit a cigarette between big fingers. Now with show, now as an afterthought, now with the slinky, fumbling desperation of an addict. Outside, the light oozed over the fields. There's such a contrast between his life and your life. And you wanted to believe that this life that he put forth was good and true and honest. And I don't think that that's. That sensation is certainly one that I think a lot of people can relate to. This wanting, this thing to exist and

[Unidentified voice]:

this desire for authenticity. I mean, even the way we eat now, or think to eat now, is that we'll eat local products that will go to the butcher who slaughtered the animal at the shop, or that there's this authenticity. We'll grow our own vegetables in the garden. This authenticity that we're seeking in American life, I think. And to go to a place like Castile and to step back in time and to touch that and to see it, and it's real. It's not that he's making up this life. It's not that he's just showing up in the telling room when I show up and putting on a show. For me, this is the way life has been for hundreds of years. The part of it that. That I wonder about is how one carries some of these ideas forward into the modern world and how Ambrosio was undone by the modern world when it came to his cheese. As they tried to expand the operation, he wasn't equipped to handle any of the big business decisions and was just signing contracts without reading them and eventually, according to him, signed away this. This cheese of his. But there is something in the speed of American life that requires this counter idea of slow food, slow thinking. And for me, it became slow reporting, it became slow epiphanies, it became slow living. So I saw this as a slow food tale gone completely awry. But I love the idea of the slow. And I thought that would be a great antidote to the way I was living. And so the person who was sitting in the telling room was projecting a lot, too, on this Ambrosio. And I wanted it and I needed it. There's something, some part of me needed to have that taste of life that was completely different from being at home and on deadlines and get the recycling out and everything of your everyday life.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, it seems we all need this to some extent, and in some cases, we even need it as a culture. You described the reclamation project that was taking place where people were sent out into Spain to try to find the bodies of people who had been killed during their civil war. And the older generation that was saying, don't. Don't go digging, you know, because in the end, nobody's innocent. You know, innocents were killed and innocents killed innocents, and brother against brother, right?

[Unidentified voice]:

The truth was much uglier than one would want to imagine. So the feeling, at least among the older generation, is like, let's not tell this story. And for those people in Spain who are trying to tell this story, they've met with a lot of resistance. But I had the honor and privilege to go to one of these mass graves with a forensic archaeologist. And he was a storyteller, just like Ambrosio. It was just. He was piecing together the evidence of these last moments of a life of these people who were taken in the middle of the night and shot and buried in shallow graves for their political beliefs or just in revenge killings. And that story is the story of Spain as much as Ferdinand and Isabel and Columbus going to America is a story of Spain. So I think this idea of trying to tell the stories honestly and openly gave me some energy to try to tell Ambrosio's the same way. And when it comes to what people are willing, are able, or want to hear, I think the storyteller tells the story, and people can decide if they want to listen or not. So that's a little bit too. What this book is about is me finally taking control of a story that needed to be told. And as much as it's a book that is like my own telling room, I tried to create a telling room from the book. And there's all these different voices telling stories. Eventually, in the end, I do take control of it, and I tell the story I need to tell. Whether or not people want to hear

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

is interesting that this is probably the most footnoted, internally footnoted book that I have ever read. And it's almost as if the sort of closer you got to the place where you needed to make that turn, the more internal footnotes there were, the more digressions you wanted to make, the more you didn't want to kind of own up to whatever new reality you needed to own up to. And then things kind of became clear again when you finally started talking to Julian and Ambrosio's lawyer and achieving that clarity. And yet you talked about the reclamation anthropologist. I believe that he was the one that you were talking to, who said this was actually causing difficulties within his own family, because I think it was his wife, that there was some family history and they were concerned about what truths would be revealed even then.

[Unidentified voice]:

Yeah, every family. I mean, this is not exactly hyperbole. Every family. If you start tracking back, you do find that people inside a family stood on both sides. And you find, too, that the violence was everywhere in every little village and touched every family. So whether you lost somebody or whether someone in your family did the killing, those truths are hard for people to accept. And so, yeah, he was very open and honest with me about his marriage and just saying the strain that this had put on his marriage because his wife knew him well enough to know that he wasn't going to stop until he had identified these bodies, who they were, how they were killed and who they were killed by. And throughout these villages in the countryside of Spirit, these are small towns, and there are people who pass each other in the street belonging to families that lost people or were, on the other hand, killed by members of the opposite family. So it gets very complicated. And there's this real sort of censorship about talking too much about these things. So their group is remarkable for that. It's just that they're out there at these sites uncovering bodies and trying to tell the story and trying to give people some sense of how their relatives may have died. And also why, in addition to writing

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

the book the Telling Room, you founded an organization called the Telling Room here in Portland, Maine. People who listen to this show are familiar with the Telling Room. We've had Gibson, Faye LeBlanc, who was the past director of the Telling Room.

[Unidentified voice]:

Yeah, the executive director.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Executive director. Why was it important for you to provide a space for children and other people to share their stories?

[Unidentified voice]:

I think it was in 2003, when we came back as a family from Spain. We were talking, Sarah and I were talking about this job that takes you out to these places and you hear these amazing stories, but that we felt dislocated from Portland, that there were all these incredible stories here, stories being told every day, people living these incredible stories. And we thought it would be interesting to try to create a space that was like an actual telling room, or like the telling room that belongs to Ambrosio, where you would go to tell your histories and your dreams and the stories of your life, and that you would feel safe and secure in these places and that you would be helped in the telling of that story if you needed help. So that was the initial idea, and we really wanted it to be for kids. And we teamed up with Susan Connolly, who was moving back, I think, from Boston, and we were able to flesh out the idea. And we had a little bit of conversation with Dave Eggers and the people who do 826. And I was able to stop in in San Francisco and spend some time there and spend some time with Dave. And it just seemed to feel like the right thing here. And we wanted to tailor it to the community. So it wasn't going to be part of the 826 network. It was going to be a very Portland local thing that we tried to make. And we were going to hopefully bring in a lot of working writers and artists and people who also are storytellers to work with the younger generation. So we really wanted this generational exchange also. And yeah, it started very modestly and has grown. And it's been a real pleasure to see the work that's come out of there. The stories have been amazing and humbling. We started early on, we worked with the immigrant population pretty closely. And that's been a big part to this day of what we do. And some of those stories are incredible stories. And I think as a journalist and as a human being, you go to places like the Sudan to cover a famine and you hear the stories and you can go to the telling room this afternoon and someone will tell you the same story of having survived those things and how they did. And to me, that's incredible that the whole world is here in Portland like that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Mike, what would you like people to feel after they've finished reading your latest book?

[Unidentified voice]:

I would hope that they would feel something of what I felt last November when I brought my family back and we went to Guzman at Thanksgiving. And it was one of those beautiful star filled nights that you get in Castel. And we were headed back up into the village. We had gone to have dinner with Ambrosio at his house out in the fields. And he was driving our family back to the palace where we were staying. They have some rooms in the palace there. And he pulled over to the side of the road. This was just at midnight under a very bright moon. And he jumped out of the car and he's like, come on, come on, come on, everybody come into the vineyard. And he said, this vineyard was planted by my son Josue. And this is. You're standing in these vines and they all contain his love. And the kids were running around and sort of being rowdy. And then he's like, shh. Like, look at the Moon. Look at the moon. Look at the stars. He's like, listen to the silence. And we're like, on the top of the world, on the Meseda of Spain. And it was completely silent and somewhere very far away. So a church bell rang and he said, yeah, listen to this silence. The silence will tell you everything. The silence has a lot to say. And I just felt like I always felt there, I always feel there just this incredible awe, really, and the privilege of being with this guy who sees the world this way in a world that doesn't take time for that kind of silence. So I hope people will walk away feeling a little bit of that awe.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Mike, how can people find out about driving Mr. Albert or the Telling A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge and the World's Greatest Piece of Cheese? Or where can people buy these books?

[Unidentified voice]:

They can buy these books at Longfellow Books, my favorite bookstore, and also check the Random House website for readings. I think there's a reading schedule up there.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, we appreciate your taking the time to, well, write your story in these books and also the work you do as an award winning magazine journalist and writer. And thank you for founding the Telling Room and bringing children's stories here to Portland. And thank you for spending time with us today.

[Unidentified voice]:

Oh, well, thank you, Lisa. It's been fun.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

The goal of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour is to help make connections between the health of the individual and the health of the community. The goal of Ted Carter Inspired Landscapes is to deepen our appreciation for the natural world. Here to speak with us today is Ted Carter.

[Unidentified voice]:

I have a beautiful biodynamic garden and it was quite abundant this year. My biodynamic landscaper Bennett Steele, told me about Max Gerson. He died, I think in the late 50s, but he spoke about a plant based diet and how the enzymes in raw fruits and vegetables really worked to heal us. And Max Gerson really worked on cancer therapies with using a new diet, I guess you might say, with vegetables and fruits. And it actually was quite successful. Interestingly, nature does nothing but really reach out to us and heal us. And when we consume these plants, they really work in concert with us, bringing us balance and bringing us a sense of peace. When I go down to the garden, I pick all my fresh vegetables and I squeeze them through a juicer that I have. They're incredible. And you can just tell your body is resounding in great happiness. So I think it's important that we understand just how much plant life is here to really work with us and give us balance and stasis in our lives. I'm Ted Carter and if you'd like to contact me, I can be reached@tedcarterdesign.com

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast understands the importance of the health of the body, mind and spirit. Here to talk about the health of the body is Jim Greatrick's of Premier Sports Health, a division of Black Bear Medical.

[Unidentified voice]:

Let's talk about the can do attitude for a moment. Story's about triumph. For some, it's about getting out of bed every morning. For others, it's about taking on the challenges of daily living with a disability or other medical condition. What we all take for granted each day can be someone else's entire world. At Black Bear Medical, we empower people to be independent and take on their daily challenges. Our home, medical equipment, medical supplies and other products not only help get people out of bed, but help them lead productive and active lives. Whether your goal is to get from one end of the house to the other with ease or to climb Mount Katahdin, we have the customers of all abilities that do extraordinary things because of the things we provide them every day. Visit us@blackbearmedical.com like us on Facebook and see how we can change your life or the life of someone you care about. Black Bear Medical it's your life. Define it your way.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This week's show is about tales of tragedy and triumph. We thought it would be good to link back up with Sheila Nee, who is the Associate director of Lives in the Balance, to talk about something that we think is really important and that is making tales or bringing tales from the area of tragedy into triumph. Sheila is going to talk to us about a really exciting new event, something that she and Dr. Ross Green have been working on for the past little while. Something that's really important to have here in Maine. So thanks for coming in.

[Unidentified voice]:

Thank you for having me. Dr. Lisa and lives in the Balance. I'm happy to represent our nonprofit from just across the way on Exchange Street. I have been fortunate to work with Dr. Green for the last Year when I was hired last autumn was we were easing into the second annual International Summit. So this past year, I've been much more immersed in the planning and the logistics of this year's event, which does have a long name because we're covering a lot of topics that day. And it's going to be a very exciting, innovative event for Portland, Maine.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And so what is the name?

[Unidentified voice]:

Lives in the balance. 3rd Annual International Summit on Non Adversarial, Non Punitive Interventions for At Risk Kids. There's a Better way.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We are very interested in education. As you know. We've had Dr. Ross Green in Maine magazine profile Dr. Ross Green, we've had people recently talk with us about charter schools and education and health. And I'm also personally interested in the prison system because I did work as a medical director in the jail. Why is it so important that you try to help kids understand the, you know, ways to change their lives so they don't need to keep going back into that system?

[Unidentified voice]:

It is critical work. And what our goal is is to reach the parents, educators and other caregivers of children at risk who are the children with social, emotional and behavioral challenges much earlier in their lives, before they're making decisions, perhaps in their teenage years, that alter their path. So ideally, when parents are struggling with a child who has challenges beyond their toolbox, let's say that's an ideal time to know there are resources out there to help guide them in their parenting and perhaps introduce some ideas to that child's school system. So that also becomes a comfortable community because the pipeline begins early on. And if the child is given a place of comfort in that school system, a sense of belonging, feels like they are on the right path and really a part of that community, they will likely stay in school. So earlier resources is key, or when that child is veering off a path, knowing where to turn for help for those caregivers.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So it sounds like you're trying to help not only the child, the student, but the parents, the teachers, the people who work with that student to help sort of change the story, to help change the direction of where they might be going.

[Unidentified voice]:

Absolutely. And I believe the role of a teacher is one of the hardest jobs there is. And when you have this community where each child is different and you're trying to meet all these needs, it can be difficult. So there are tools to help create a setting in the classroom where the children who formerly would have been placed out of the room or sometimes leading to a placement outside that school community with certain interventions in place, the teacher finds a way to keep that child comfortable in the classroom, continuing his or her education of the whole population.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And I know that there are some good statistics out there that show that the work that you're doing is important.

[Unidentified voice]:

There are. And what's exciting for me, when I joined Dr. Green about a year ago and just really began learning more about the impact of his work in Maine. I've been familiar with his work for years through his first book, the Explosive Child. The statistic that stays with me, I think, is a critical one for our state and one that we're proud of within our juvenile correctional facilities. About eight years ago, the number of children leaving Long Creek and Mountain View and returning was at our nation's worst. We were the highest in the nation, and it was at 65%. With the support of the main juvenile justice advisory group, the jjag, and led by Barry Studley, who is our board member and the former Associate Commissioner for Corrections. With the work of Dr. Ross Greene and a whole change within the system, you know, this whole line staff had to embrace this model and a new way of thinking about the children and treatment of the children. The statistics are now at 15%.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you've gone from 65 to 15%.

[Unidentified voice]:

Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Sheila, this summit is coming up on November 8th. Who are you hoping is going to attend?

[Unidentified voice]:

We are inviting parents, educators, and all caregivers of children with behavioral challenges. And we are open to people within the school systems who are from superintendents and principals, educators, school nurses, school psychologists. We've heard from a great deal of parents in the community who are very excited about this event. And we are continuing to hear from people throughout, mostly New England. I know Dr. Green speaks around the world, and there are people from Canada and Sweden also hoping to attend our summit.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Sheila, what's the goal of the summit?

[Unidentified voice]:

The goal of the summit, as dedicated as Lives in the balance, is to Dr. Ross Greene's model. We believe that coming together with other interventions and working as a collective voice on behalf of children at risk will help move this work further along. And we also are encouraging participants to advocate on behalf of these children in their own home communities.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Sheila, how can people find out about this summit and about Lives in the Balance?

[Unidentified voice]:

Lives in the Balance has a website that is full of resources for parents and caregivers. Livesinthebalance.org Sheila, thank you for the work

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

that you're doing putting this Summit together on November 8th. And we encourage all of our listeners who have an interest in this area to look you up on your website. We've been speaking with Sheila Nee, the Associate Director of Lives in the Balance and we hope everybody gets a chance to meet you at your upcoming event.

[Unidentified voice]:

Thank you very much Dr. Lisa. Thanks for your time.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast show number 111, tales of tragedy and Triumph. Our guests have included Michael Paternitti and Sheila Nee. For more information on our guests and extended interviews, visit Dr. Lisa.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, follow me on Twitter and Pinterest and read my take on health and well being on the Bountiful Blog. We 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 enable us to bring the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our tales of tragedy and triumph. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

SA.