Words of Wisdom, #105

Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

Even though the focus for me right now is more on the writing, I can't not teach. It's really important to me and it's important for me to feel connected to my community and to feel like I'm giving something back to kids who, you know, might be interested in the arts in their lives in some way or who just need to see directly what the arts can bring to their own experiences.

Rohan Henry:

As soon as I just settle on one definition of myself or role to play, I feel empty in that sort of just trying to be. This is what I am. But if I can be and exist in in more of a non linear way and and just try to draw when I can and hold someone's hand when I can, and be a teacher, be present when I can, be patient when I can, I I feel more alive. I feel more alive that way. I feel like I'm part of the universe, that I'm I'm here the Dr.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast show number 105, airing for the first time on Sunday, September 15, 2013. Today's show theme is Words of Wisdom with guests Gibson Fay LeBlanc, writer and teacher and Rowan Henry, author of the Perfect Gift. Words are an important means of self expression, perhaps even more so when used sparingly. Poet Gibson Faye LeBlanc and author illustrator Rowan Henry share their passion for words and how this has challenged them to help others communicate in unique ways. Words have become an increasingly important means of communication. In the year 1450, German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg invented our first modern printing press. This allowed the spread of ideas through mass duplication of text. The written word, its usage once limited to scholars, religious and individuals of means, went mainstream. Fast forward to the 20th century, computers and the creation of the Internet enabled the written word to go digital, thus further breaking down barriers to its utilization Simultaneously, the spoken word has gained ground through use of recording devices and new media such as podcasts. We love our words any way we can get them. But what happens when the overuse of words desensitizes us to the unspoken, unwritten message? What happens when individuals for whom words do not come easily, such as children with autism spectrum disorder, are asked to participate in society at large? And what happens when an overabundance of words instantly available in an online format causes us to use less care when crafting a poem or a love letter, thus diminishing its impact? As with most things, too much of a good thing can indeed have its consequences. Fortunately, there are among us individuals who maintain a dedication to the art of communication. Gibson Fay LeBlanc is a poet, education advocate and past director of the Telling Room who delights in helping children and adults understand the pleasure of of an artfully crafted sentence. Author and illustrator Rowan Henry helps us to see that words are often all the more powerful when absent. Modern man has known great benefit from access to words written and spoken. Now we must be reminded of the communication that takes place in the spaces in between. I hope you enjoy our show Words of Wisdom. As a relatively new radio show, it hasn't been often that I've had the chance to sit across the microphone from someone who has previously been a guest, but I am doing that today. This is Gibson Faye LeBlanc, who was one of, I believe our guests on the very first Dr. Lisa Radio Hour in September of 2011.

Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

Sounds right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah. Talking about the Telling Room, which was your life at the time. I believe you are exiting out of the Telling Room and unfortunately I think we didn't get to spend as much time talking with you as we wanted, and you've been doing a lot of very interesting things since then. So thanks for coming back and having another conversation with me.

Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

My pleasure, my pleasure. It's great to be here.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Now, Gibson, at the time you were with the Telling Room, and I do want to talk about that, but I subsequently went and listened to you read from your book, your collection of poems, Death of a Ventriloquist, which went on to win the Vassar Miller Prize and received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, also spent several weeks on the Poetry Foundation's list of contemporary bestsellers and was featured by poets and writers as one of a dozen debut collections to watch. You've really sort of manifested in a kind of completely different and unique way.

Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

Yeah, well, you know, I've always been a writer, but it's usually been sort of back burner for me, you know, teaching is really important to me as well. And I love to work with kids and adults. I've kind of taught at every level there is to teach at. And working at the Telling Room, it was a tremendously gratifying place to work. And I still am involved there and I still teach there. But a couple years ago, I had a chance to put the writing on the front burner. And so that's been exciting for me to do that. And interestingly, I've been working on this collection of poems for a long time or several years. That counts as a long time, I think. And I had been very close to publishing it in many different small presses and contests. I was finalists. I got notes from editors, effusive notes, saying how much they loved it and why yet, but. And it wasn't until I decided to leave the Telling Room that it was actually won this prize and was published. And so it seemed almost like one of those things that, you know, I had finally committed to my writing. And that's when it finally broke through and was published. So it was kind of a nice. The universe telling me maybe that I had made a good decision.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, that is what is always said is that once you finally focus your energies in the direction of your passion, then that sort of can, I don't know, start that fire. It's like the magnifying glass in the sunlight. So it is interesting that you were then subsequently rewarded with that happening.

Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

Exactly, exactly.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have your book with you right here. I heard you do this at. I think it was Space Gallery. When your book first came out. I was struck by the sort of range of poems. One of them was. I think it was describing your child's. Well, he was describing fatherhood. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You also did a poem about hockey, which is a passion of yours. I'm interested to see which one you're going to read for us now.

Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

Yeah, well, I thought I might read one of my fatherhood poems because those many people can connect to that. Whether you're a father or parent or just an uncle or an aunt or, you know, people can connect to that part. And there's a strain of poems in the book that are. That come out of fatherhood and really trying to figure out how to be a father. And so this is one that I wrote while I was living in New York City and I just finished grad school where, you know, really focused on writing and teaching. And then all of a sudden I was. I was home with this baby and my wife was back at work, finishing her residency at NYU. And we were in a 400 square foot apartment, New York City, third floor, walk up. You can picture the thing here and this baby who cried all the time. So it was a test. It was a test. And so it really became a one of my subjects over the last several years. It's become something I write about a lot, is fatherhood and my kids and thinking about that. And so this is how to make fatherhood lyrical. How to make fatherhood lyrical. I could describe the arc of piss as sanctifying the changing table. Or argue that his wailing resembles a certain style of opera. One develops a taste for its peaks as evidence of proper training, the cultivation of a gift. I might tell you that when the dog tugs the leash in one direction and the stroller rolls in the other, it's similar to the push and pull of family and vocation and each in turn alters its course. Surely I'd research and touch on why gerbils eat their young and moose will charge if you dare step between mother and calf. But none of this is the truth I tell myself or don't, depending on the morning. It's not a set of lyrics, it's prose, as in pedestrian. A man on foot, not some freak stallion, not a Clydesdale, not even a draft. And every day I have to choose whether to write myself in.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How old are your kids now?

Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

They're now 8 and 5, so they're much further along.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This really is something that I can relate to. And actually it's funny because I was going to refer to the Ark because I had remembered that you had read that poem, I believe, at Space Gallery. And this is something that I think a lot of people in the creative field struggle with, that when you're raising a child, all of your creativity kind of gets sucked over there for sure. The growth that you would like to do in your own writing or music or whatever it is, ends up being channeled towards these progeny of yours. And you never realize that it was going to be quite as challenging.

Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

Definitely.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And you're right, it can be so physically exhausting that you just. You wake up in the morning and you're just lucky to get the diaper on the kid and the kid on the school bus.

Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

Yeah, I went through several. I would. Not sure exactly how much time, but there were a few years in there where I was not writing a lot or I was just taking notes, or I was just. In any 30 second break that I had, I was. I was trying to get something down. But you're right. The energy goes toward the kid as it. As it has to, you know, and you're trying to survive that early period and make sure that the kid survives that early period. You know, it's a lot of. It's a lot of work and it's a lesson and it not being about you, being about this other being that you help create. So. But it's also. I found it important and great to, as they've gotten older, to make sure I make my writing a priority. And for them to see that and to see that it's part of my life. And this creative side is something that is, you know, that I really need to do and that I've got to find the, you know, the spaces of time to do so. But it's a constant juggling act. Even at this point with 8 and 5, I still feel like I. I can't quite imagine. I have writer friends who go and do the two week or the month away at a. At a colony, and I. I can't quite wrap my mind around that yet. Maybe I think I could get up to a week at this point. I've done some, Some. Some stuff like that, but it just seems like a long time to be away at this stage of their development.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

In the time that you were writing this poem, you were talking about it as being prose.

Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

Right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And really not poetry at all.

Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

Right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

On the other side of having a very small child who cries all the time, are you able to find any lyricism in it?

Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

For sure. I mean, there are those moments, you know, even in the middle of the night or, you know, when things just when, you know, you're about to cry and you laugh instead, you know, there are those moments or just, you know, you're, you know, one of my sons looks at me a certain way or cocks their head in the same way as my wife or, you know, you just have those moments of clarity in the whole process. And I think that's what poetry is really about for me. And those, Those moments, good or bad, you know, or in between, but just, you know, trying to unpack those moments and all the emotion that can. That can be surging through you at those times.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

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Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think you embody or represent this sort of new man. You're like the man of our generation. I mean, you are a poet and a writer, an educator and a father, and you have a professional wife. You're also a hockey player and a musician, I believe.

Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

No, not so much with the music,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

but not so much with the music.

Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

The other stuff I'll claim.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

The other stuff you'll claim. Okay. And I think this is what we have all thought that we would aspire to. You know, after the women, the equal rights movement, we all thought, well, men and women are equal and we could all go out and we could all have everything. But there's certain challenges.

Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

For sure. For sure, for sure. I mean, there are some things that I feel like. There are some things that I. There are a lot of things that come much more naturally to me as a dad and other things that I really have to work at. And I don't know how much of it is related to me specifically being a man or it's always hard to track what that stuff is. But certainly some. Some pieces of parenthood or fatherhood come a lot less easily to me, especially as I'm doing work that is at least traditionally was or was thought as being woman's work in our house or with the kids or going to PTO meetings or things like that that aren't traditionally seen as being man stuff. But I mean, I feel lucky to be able to do it. And I feel like a lot of fathers still in our culture miss out on a lot of stuff in their kids lives and aren't able to see a lot. And so I feel privileged to be able to be a part of their lives and to see what's going on. But there are definitely times when I'm also saying to my sons, you know, you better, we better wait till mom comes home to deal with that one. You know, and there are certain things that they just aren't gonna want to. They're just not as quick to open up to me about or you know, they still really, you know, there are times when they really. The comfort of their mom is, you know, I can give them comfort, but it's a different kind of comfort. And I'm a little bit more willing to sort of let them do things that I think Renee would say, well, what are you doing? You know, diving off the couch or I don't know, something. There's some things that I sort of let things go a little farther often. And you know, I think that there are times when that's good and times when maybe it's not, but.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But you're making it work.

Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You also spend a considerable amount of time with other people's children.

Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

Right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You were involved in, I believe, a year long project with a local school here in Portland which was very much invested in bringing arts to the children in this school.

Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

Yeah, tell me about that. Yeah. Well, my oldest son goes to Ocean Avenue Elementary School here in Portland. And as I. He's just finished the second grade and so he's just been there for three years. And as I've gotten more involved with the school, I just wanted, I wanted to see more of a focus on arts. Having been involved with the arts community in Portland through the Telling Room, I know how great it is and how many great teaching artists there are and people who are really working on their particular craft, whatever it is, and are really also gifted at bringing that to kids in a way that, you know, even a great teacher is still a teacher in a different way than an artist who's coming into a classroom. It's just two different things. And so I really wanted to see more artists in the school. And I noticed over time working,

Rohan Henry:

being

Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

involved with the PTO and being at the school that there are also this. Just in our school community, this. There are these great artists who are parents who are sort of this resource that the school wasn't drawing on. We have one parent who's a dancer and a longtime teacher of dance at the paths at the high school, the Portland Arts and Technology High School, and another parent who runs a local music program for kids where they do rock and roll. So there's some things that we decided, okay, let's see if we can get some of this stuff into the school. So. So I was able to write a grant to the arts commission, and we were able to get some funding to help support those programs. And we're hoping to do it again next year. But it's a great way to get these artists in front of kids to open up school a little bit more. I think whenever you do the arts, it does a couple things. One is it brings more kids into school, into being interested in school in a way that often doesn't happen. So there's, you know, those kids who are already figuring out, even at first or second grade, that school is not for them and doing, you know, dance or a performance project or songwriting or, you know, writing comics for a school magazine. You know, those are things that aren't often valued in school. And so to value them in the school community is huge for those kids. And then the other thing is, I just. I also really wanted to see that great community moment where you've got kids and artists and parents who all come together and celebrate the arts and say, this is something that's important to us. And so we had a night at the end of May where we were able to do that. We had four or five hundred people packed into this cafeteria at the school, and we had kids up there singing songs they wrote, dancing, reading things that they wrote. And it was just a great, great community moment. You know, we often do that for sports or other things, but we don't do it as much for the arts as we. As we should, especially at the younger ages. So it was really a really good, good way to value, you know, to show how our community can be. Can value the arts and be changed by the arts.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've had a broad variety of experiences in your life. What's next for you?

Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

I'm trying to finish the novel that I've been working on for a few years pretty intensely, which is, you know, one of the writing project that's taken the most of my attention since I left the telling room. And hopefully I'm getting closer. I have a new draft that I'm just about to. Just finishing up here that I'm going to put in front of some. Some friends who are writers who can give me some thoughts on, you know, where it is, and then we'll see. You know, I'm going to still, I'm going to continue to be teaching at the Telling Room and doing things at Ocean Avenue and probably other schools because that, to me, I can't do. I can't. Even though the focus for me right now is more on the writing, I can't not teach. It's really important to me. And it's important for me to feel connected to my community and to feel like I'm giving something back to kids who, you know, might be interested in the arts in their lives in some way, or who just need to see directly what the arts can bring to their own experiences.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's almost two years since you left the Telling Room.

Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And the Telling Room has been around

Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

for, let's see, five years before that. So they're going on seven, eight years.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah. What has the Telling Room brought to Portland and the surrounding community?

Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

I think it's really filled a really important niche. There's a great arts community in Portland and Southern Maine, and there's pockets all over Maine. But there was nobody focused on writing and storytelling and kids in the way that the Telling Room has. And so I think that's the reason why the growth curve of the Telling Room has just been kind of crazy and ridiculous. You know, it's just been straight up pretty much since I started there. When we first started, when I first started at the Telling Room, they were just getting off the ground and I was working out of my living room. And, you know, it was very part time, but we knew we had something this great idea and people were already starting to get really interested in it. And as we started working with kids, it just, you know, the more and more people that saw what we could do with storytelling in kids and writing, the more it's grown. And so, yeah, it's really been. It was a tremendous thing to be a part of. And it's also tremendous now to sit back and, you know, be involved, but from more of a distance and to sort of watch it continue to grow and develop and push into new arenas. So. And I think the Tiling Room has become like some other arts nonprofits, like Space Gallery or some other places has become now at this point, kind of like a vital cog in the arts scene. Something that people can't imagine doing without, which is, I think a testament to all the folks and all the many folks who were involved there.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So Gibson, your book Death of a Ventriloquist is available at Longfellow Books here in Portland. How can people find out more about you and your writing?

Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

I have a website, gibsonveilablanc.com and they can check out poems and hear about things. I have something on there called the Sentence Project, which is a little pet project where I pick out favorite sentences from prose and poems that I'm reading and just talk a little bit about why I think they are interesting or why they work. And they can also see more information about my book on there and order it through Amazon or different or the independent booksellers, et cetera.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Thank you for bringing the arts to the children of the City of Portland and surrounding communities through the Telling Room. Thank you for bringing your poetry to the airwaves with us this morning. I really appreciate taking the time to or you taking the time to talk with us. We've been talking with Gibson Fay LeBlanc, poet and educator and father.

Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

Thanks for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast hope that our listeners enjoy their own work lives to the same extent we do and fully embrace every day. 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. Words are powerful things. They inspire us and teach us. They help us make sense of the world around us. And sometimes they move us to tears. It all depends on how what we read is written, how the author intended to move us. The same thought can be translated to numbers and accounting. How does what you're looking at make you feel about the strength of your business? Are you on the right track? Is your business running as smoothly as possible and what can you do to change the course if you need to? It's interesting how so many people don't keep as close an eye on their business and bottom line as they should. The numbers don't lie. Ever. So look at them, learn from them and move yourself and your vision forward. I'm Marcie Booth. Let's talk about the changes you need. Boothmain.com

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's always said that Maine is really no bigger than a small town, and that certainly has proven to be true when it comes to this radio show. One of my children's favorite teachers and in fact one of my favorite people, Charlotte Age, who has been on this show, said to us, you know, you really need to have this person Rowan Henry on your show. And no sooner had we decided to have him on the show than we realized that, oh, his work is being seen over at the Museum of African History. And of course we've already interviewed Oscar Mokameh, so we have connections upon connections upon connections. And here we are today with Rowan Henry, who is an author, illustrator and also a teacher who happens to come from Jamaica but has made his home here in Maine with his two children and his wife. And we're really glad that you're here.

Rohan Henry:

Thank you very much. And I'm so honored to be on the show. I've listened to the show many times and have just been glued to it and intrigued by the guests. And to think that I'm here is,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

yeah, everybody's always exactly where they're supposed to be. So you're supposed to be here with us. And we're very glad that that all came to be. In fact, it's interesting because I went with my daughter Sophie, who's 12. We walked along fellow books and we picked up your book, the Perfect Gift. And I opened it up and I read it and I said, wow, this really is a guy we need to have on the show. And not just because Charlotte Agel said so. Even though I trust Charlotte and of course anytime she says you should do this, I will jump to do it. But tell me about your book, the Perfect Gift, which is a choice children's book.

Rohan Henry:

It is a children's book, but that's where it starts. It's also a parable. And when I was writing it, I had children in mind, but I also had adults or big children like me in mine also because as I think you would agree, books are very powerful. And even though we're moving on to, like, a more digital format. I think if I could, you know, see into the future, I'm almost sure, even though I might not recognize the book that I'm holding, I'm almost sure that books are going to be with us forever and ever. I believe that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I believe that, too.

Rohan Henry:

And so the specific question.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, tell me about your book. I mean, this is a book about Leo and Lisa, and they are rabbit friends. Very simple line drawings with just a little bit of color and a very simple but profound message.

Rohan Henry:

That's where to start. This book has changed my life profoundly. I started writing the book when my mom passed away. And she passed away when I was 16 in high school. I'm the oldest of four. And it wasn't until about 10 years later that I seriously thought about writing the book. When I say that I started writing the book, I just write for fun. I love writing. And it doesn't matter what I'm writing. I'll write a recipe down, I'll write a poem. It doesn't matter. I just write. And it's just a part of me. It's an extension of me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So is it the tactile piece that you like the act of writing, or

Rohan Henry:

is it tactile piece?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Okay. Or the words.

Rohan Henry:

I love the words.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So all of the above.

Rohan Henry:

I love the words. You can see me lighting up as I'm just talking and just. Just imagining myself sitting in my dark studio with a light just on the paper itself. And I need to do that because I'm a little bit ADD and I easily become distracted. And so the room is usually dark and there's usually one light that's just beaming straight down on the paper. And so even if I look the left or the right, I usually just see shadows. And then my gaze goes quickly back to whatever I'm working on. But I do, I. I absolutely love it. And I. I remember vividly. And I'm not going to go into too much details about my mom passing. It was an accident until we were all shocked. And I remember my dad coming home and. And I knew something was wrong because he didn't come home a lot. He worked a lot. And it was. It was the end of the school year, and so I think it was a shortened day. And I was home at around 11 or something like that because we had exams. And then my brother started coming home and my dad didn't say anything. I think he just wanted everyone to be together before he told us about the car accident. And I didn't know what to Do I just sort of. Kind of just looked at him and tuned out everything. Because people were saying all kinds of things. And my aunts and uncles and everybody's running around and what are we gonna do? And I just kind of tuned out everything. And I went into my mom's favorite place, which was the dining room, and it was her favorite place because she had copper and crystal things, everything, copper and crystal, elephants, cups, plates, figurines. And I sat there and I pulled out a piece of paper, because I always have a piece of paper. I have a piece of paper right now. Proof. I always have something to write on.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And I can attest to the fact that you have a piece of paper right on your person. Yes. I love it.

Rohan Henry:

Yes. This is radio. So I have to say that I reached into my pocket and pulled out a piece of paper and I just started writing. And I wrote something about a gift. And I couldn't figure out at the time because I was just overwhelmed with shock and grief. And I couldn't figure. It wasn't a story like how it is in this form, but I remember it being about a gift and wondering where the gift is and wondering if the gift was still with me. And that was kind of like the genesis of it. And so, you know, there's different levels to talk about the book. There's the meeting of Charlotte, who's my fairy godmother. She took that upon herself to be my fairy godmother, and meeting Edith Kroll, my publisher. And my publisher sending me all over the country to see, to read and signed books and things like that. So there's that aspect of it. But then there's also, as I was talking about, just the fact that the book came out of, I wouldn't say a tragic situation. It just came out of a question. Like a lot of things. Do a lot of things start with a question kind of like, why? What's going on? What's happening? So it came out of that. And so years, years, years later, I found it. Well, at least found the piece of paper that I was writing on. And I looked at it, and I can't explain why, but it made me happy. It made me smile. I don't know why. I just remember thinking, oh, yeah, there's this thing about a gift. What's a gift? Where is the gift? A gift? Do I have a gift? Will I have a gift? Have I ever had a gift? It was just. It was just questions and questions. And so it started with that, and as I sat down and started to think of it with the writers training, because I've taken too many writers seminars and where they try to take the. I guess, the raw passion. And they want you to use craft to kind of put it together, you know, with characters and a beginning and a middle and climax and conclusion, that kind of stuff. So then I just put the feelings that I had together with the craft that I learned through writing and just put them together, and there they were. I talked about the drawings again. One of the reasons why I wanted the drawings to be black and white and just a little bit of pink is because I think adults feel more comfortable with having something that's not. That doesn't look like a children's book. And so I had that in mind, too. I thought, you know, should I color the rabbits? And I tried them in pink, and I tried them black with pink noses. And I said, you know, I'm just going to make them lines. And then as I started to draw them, draw the lines, they. They felt. It felt right, like I did. The ears. And the ears aren't really connected, and it just. It just. They just started to flow. It was like a. Just like a visual haiku almost. Just smooth lines, just simple lines, lines that aren't connected. And so you have to kind of look at it before you realize it, because I think you could easily just look at them and think, oh, it's a rabbit. But then when you look really closer, the head isn't connected to the body. The ears aren't connected to the head. And I think the book is like that, too. So the illustrations of the books go together, because when you look at the book, it's like, oh, this is a simple book. But if you think about the book and think about what is the gift that he's trying to give her, why is the gift so difficult for him to find? Because in the book, he searches through the seasons, and for example, in the wintertime, he brings her a snowflake. And as he's trying to hand her the snowflake, the snowflake melts. And so if you think about that, I think, like the illustrations, I think there's a lot more than you initially would see.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, one of the pages. Lisa and I have known each other for a long time, but I wanted to let her know somehow that she was my best friend. So there's that importance of really knowing that somebody is so valued that you want to do something beautiful and amazing for them. And one of the things that he does is to find the most radiant butterfly of spring, which, of Course is beautiful and wonderful, and he hands it to her and it's. It's ephemeral and it is the most beautiful thing he can find, and yet that is fleeting. This butterfly is truly beautiful, said Lisa. My, how kind you are. But the glow of the sun attracted the butterfly and it flew away. The most radiant butterfly of spring was forever lost. Wait, Leo. I have something important to tell you, said Lisa. But I was too busy to listen. Which, again, is so interesting that he's so focused on her value and what he can do for her that he's not really tuning into the relationship.

Rohan Henry:

Yeah, the relationship and who she is and what she might.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What she might. Really? Yeah.

Rohan Henry:

Or want.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Or want. And at the end. Well, no, I said, I searched through the seasons. I searched high, low, far and near, and I still haven't found the perfect gift for you. She puts her hand out and says, leo, I don't want the perfect gift. All I want is to hold the hand of my best friend. And as you're telling me the story of your mother and your mother passing and sitting amongst all of the things, the possessions, and not that those weren't valued, the crystal and the copper, but isn't that what you want when you're a 16 year old and your mother has died, is you just want. You just want her hand? There's nothing else that you would want?

Rohan Henry:

Yeah, no. I'm trying to keep it together. Trying to keep it together for my first interview with the Doctor and Lisa Show.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, but it's very interesting, too, because one of the things that you and I talked about yesterday when we spoke on the phone was your daughter, Ruby.

Rohan Henry:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And she's seven.

Rohan Henry:

Yep. She's gonna be seven on the 11th, which she reminded me this morning as I was leaving.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Okay. Two more days, Dash. Yeah. So she's going to be seven. And you were talking about her found objects and how she has now her own first show, which is also the Museum of African Culture, and that she actually kind of. She's like Leo the rabbit, running around picking up stones and sticks and robin's eggs and the tactile things. But what really struck me is that the gift that she gives you is more than the gift of found objects. It's sort of the gift of insight back into yourself and this artistic sense that you said. It's so interesting. She's, you know, six going to be seven, and she already has her own show. And as an artist, you didn't have your own show until

Rohan Henry:

the first show that I did was a show called the Pet Project, and it was a show of children's book illustrators. And it was at the Zero Gallery right here in Portland. And I was. It was 06, 2006, and I was just. My. I was kind of, you know how you think you would react if you were at the Oscars or something like that, and some of your favorite stars or whatever, movie stars walked by you. I just remembered seeing Kathryn Falwell, who's become a friend of mine, and, of course, Charlotte and many others, just, you know, just thinking, what am I doing here? Why. Why are my illustrations here with. With all, you know, all these great artists? And at the time, I had just the one book. I have three that are published right now. A fourth one which was bought, but I'm just not comfortable with it, so it hasn't been released. But, yeah, and, you know, that was a long time ago, and things have developed from that point from where I had my first book, and now four that have been purchased by publishers, major publishers, back to my daughter. They're not really words to describe what I feel when I see her, when I'm around her, when I hold her. So I'm not going to try to use adjectives. I know that I'm alive, and I know that I'm here, and I know that I'm always continually working to be a better dad and a better person. And when I see her, she challenges me in that way because she's much more headstrong than I am, and I never really enjoyed classes, but I think she's gonna have a harder time than that with me because she knows how she wants something to look. And when I look at her illustrations or her found art, she makes sculpture out of found art, I can tell that she knows exactly what it is that she wants to do. And if you went over to the museum and looked at her piece, you could tell that there's a narrative there. She chose an egg, and it's a blue egg, and she put little pebbles inside the egg. And so from far away, it looks like there's something going on in the egg. And then when you. When you get up really close and you notice that it's pebbles, and some of them, the light hits off of it in a certain way, and it's. I could just tell that it wasn't something that she just decided to put there because they were. They asked her to do it, that she put a lot of thought into it. And so she's. You know, she's. She's a lot more driven, direct than I am at this point, even that even at 7, she really is. She. She will draw every single day. And if she doesn't draw, she gets upset and she gets cranky. And I want her to do more than just draw. I don't want her to just draw and paint and. But, you know, I don't have much say in that. You know, she. She's her own person, and that's what she loves doing. But, you know, sometimes I'll see her draw for two, three hours straight, and my wife and I will say, okay, what can we do to kind of get her away from her easel or wherever she's working and get her to go outside and kick a soccer ball or do something like that?

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]:

One of the things I've often learned through working with nature and landscape for the past 30 years is how abundant nature is, how much abundance there is out there in the natural world, and it's really limitless. And I think that one of the things I'm going to refer to the Spell of the Sensuous again from David Abram, a wonderful book. And if you have a chance to get it, or perhaps he's on a cd, I would strongly recommend picking him up. The breathing, sensing body draws its sustenance and its very substance from the soils, plants, and elements that surround it. It continually contributes itself in turn to the air, to the composting earth, to the nourishment of insects and oak trees and squirrels, ceaselessly spreading out of itself, as well as breathing the world into itself, so that it is very difficult to discern at any moment precisely where this living body begins and where it ends. I think that what this is trying to tell us is that it's limitless, that our connection with nature and our energy is out there and in the ethos. And it's expansive, and it's as expansive as we let it be. And if we think of life that way, we will move with the. With the current of life. The ebbs and the flows and abundance will flow into our life almost effortlessly. But we have to allow that to happen. I'm Ted Carter, and if you'd like to contact me, I can be reached@tedcarterdesign.com

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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Dr. Lisa Belisle:

i think it's interesting that people don't always realize the gifts that they have to offer other people. And even at age 7, she's giving you a gift by sort of reflecting back this artistic nature that she has and you've enabled this to happen because you've put her in a place where there is art and you've also given her the room and the space to create this art herself. And you've been respectful of that. And you know, it can be as simple as holding a hand or it can be as simple as or not even simple, but it can be as complicated as trying to be the best parent that you can forget for whatever your child needs at any given time. And I think that that for me is why when we talk about the perfect Gift, it really is ever shifting.

Rohan Henry:

Yeah, it is. And the title the Perfect Gift, when I at one point it was the Gift the Gift of All Seasons or From All Seasons. There was all these different titles and I was just skirting around the issue. You know when you try to put a title to a work, you want to take the essence of what it is and use that as the title. And the perfect gift came my mind, I pushed it out and I tried to think of other things. The rabbit who loves giving. And I'm just like, what should I call this thing? And the perfect gift came back in my mind. I'm like this dialogue, inner dialogue with myself. Why are you calling this the perfect gift when there is no perfect gift? Why would that be a title? And then I said, that's it. That is the title.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Because there is always a perfect gift. It just isn't always the same perfect gift.

Rohan Henry:

And it's always changing.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Exactly.

Rohan Henry:

It's always changing. So if you try to hold it and say, okay, I've got it, then you're gonna have a hard time. But if you say, like, for example, today my gift to my wife is going to be to be patient. I'm not always going to be patient, but in that particular conversation or in that day when, you know, we're talking, I can do it. I can be patient. I can listen. You know, I can handle that. If the gift was, Rowan is going to be patient for the rest of our marriage or even the rest of the week or for more than four

Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

or five hours,

Rohan Henry:

that's where it all falls apart. It's kind of like, I don't think

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

you've got the drawing that you do. You've got the writing that you do and your drama and the teaching and just it's very interesting that you are able to kind of be present, hold someone's hand wherever they're coming from, whatever that looks like, whether you're Ruby's father or whether you're a student's teacher, it's interesting because in our current society, we like to be very linear. I am this, I am that. I am a whatever it is I am. And you're not really trying to put yourself in any one role. You're saying, I just am.

Rohan Henry:

Wow. No, as you're talking, I'm thinking, yeah,

Gibson Fay-Leblanc:

that's what I'm doing.

Rohan Henry:

I do. I guess as soon as I just settle on one definition of myself or role to play for me personally, can't speak for anyone else. I feel empty in that sort of just trying to be, this is what I am. But if I can be and exist in more of a non linear way and just try to draw when I can and hold someone's hand when I can and, you know, be a teacher, be present when I can, be patient, When I can, I feel more alive. I feel more alive that way. I feel like I'm part of the universe, that I'm here.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, Rowan, I'm glad you are here. Part of the universe. Part of our conversation. I encourage people who have not read your book, the Perfect Gift, to either go right up to Longfellow Books in Portland if they live here, or somehow otherwise find at a local bookstore. If you have to go to Amazon, that's fine. But we like our local booksellers. Also look into your other three books.

Rohan Henry:

Yeah. Two of them that have already been published. The Goodnight Baby Ruby. Which is. That's a kid's book. It's a kid's book because it's about my daughter Ruby and her bedtime, or lack thereof, routine. And so it's a kind of a funny book in the sense that the parents want a routine, but there's. There's no routine. It's. It's. If they can catch her, then they can, you know, get part of her pajamas on. And if they can catch her, they can brush her teeth with her, but they have to catch her to do that. So that. That is a very kids book.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you have two other. So two other books. You have this one, Goodnight Ruby and then the third.

Rohan Henry:

And the Gift Box. And the Gift box. The Gift Box is about an elephant who, who is kind of like either. I'm not sure if he's 2 or 14, but he thinks about himself and he thinks he's the cat's meow. And you know, he just thinks that he is it the center of the universe. And so he dresses up like a gift, you know, kind of like how you see those people outside sometimes outside of a store, and they'll dress up like a. Whatever it is they're selling inside the store. So he gets up, get up in a box and he tells everyone he is the gift and he is the most important thing. So that's the gift box.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And how can people find out?

Rohan Henry:

Egotistical elephant.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I like it. I'm sure we all know someone like that. How can people find out more about the work that you're doing?

Rohan Henry:

You can go to rowanhenry.com that's my website. But also you can go to the Museum of African American Culture. They have a website. And where else can you find.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, and maybe they'll just see you walking down the street. Yeah. Or hanging out at the Aquascau School. Being a teacher, I appreciate your coming in and talking to us today. We've been talking with Rowan Henry a Jamaican born, author, illustrator, teacher, father and husband who now lives here in Maine. We're really glad that you're here with us.

Rohan Henry:

Thank you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast show number 105 words of wisdom. Our guests have included Gibson, Faye LeBlanc and Rowan Henry. For more information on our guests and extended interview, visit drlisabelisle.com 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 Words of Wisdom show and that our guests have inspired you in some way. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.

Rohan Henry:

Sam. Sa.