the people in your neighborhood (a freebie!🎉🎉🎉)
a new friend, a generous human, reading in the shower, and chickens!
hey-hey,
Before I introduce you to your new pal, Dr. Amanda Risser, a couple housekeeping things:
If you’re following my diary of trying to care for a complicated and stubborn elder, THE RIGHT TO FOLLY, I’ve a new post up in which Ellen (my mother) takes a spill. Complications ensue….
If you’d like to spend an afternoon with me talking about reading and writing you are in luck! I’m offering a READING LIKE A WRITER session. Please join! It’s free to paid subscribers, and if you’d like to become a paid subscriber and participate, I have a sweet deal for you!
Onward! Welcome friends!
I’m delighted to bring the fourth installation in the PEOPLE IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD series. On a recent ramble through my neighborhood I got to thinking about Sesame Street (as one does), particularly about the song, “The people in your neighborhood.”
We’re all surrounded by interesting and thoughtful people, and since building and nurturing community is my forever goal, I thought I’d pay closer attention to people around me. So far we’ve met
Enter Amanda!
I am so lucky to live down the street from Amanda, her family, and her chickens! She’s an addiction doctor, a ski instructor, she used to be on a roller derby team! She’s smart, funny, and perhaps one of the most open minded and accepting people I’ve ever met. Amanda is passionate about serving people with substance use disorders (her work has been featured in national media stories!) She loves being a doctor and shares a consistent message of kindness and respect—a powerful way to fight the stigma surrounding substance use disorders—with her patients.
Amanda: My job is to always be curious, to strive to understand the people that I take care of so I can serve them better. There are things they may want to change, things they may not want to change, it is my job to support them in their goals and give them good information and advice and the most effective treatment to help support their goals. It’s really important to know that all of our best ideas come from our patients- anything that I’ve done in my practice that's new or innovative or more compassionate and supportive almost always is something that patients discovered on their own.
I love my patients and I love hearing their stories. Just like I'm compelled to read stories all the time (even in the shower!) I want to know about my patients' lives.
Who was their grandfather?
What did they like to do when they were a kid?
What was their favorite/least favorite job?
What was it like when they overdosed in the bathroom at work?
What was their last girlfriend like?
What kind of relationship do they want in the future?
What is it like to get a tattoo in prison?
What is it like to see your daughter in graduate school because they were raised by a kind and stable family member who stepped in when you couldn’t?
What does it feel like when the city drops hundreds of boulders in the place you were camping?
By listening I have a broader, richer understanding of what it's like to live in this community. It makes me a better doctor, advocate, leader, parent, and community member.
Amanda self describes as loving her favorite humans—her two kids—married to a super dude (mensch defined). Every day she exercises vigorously because it keeps her grounded. She loves her chickens and loves the neighborhood kids who visit them every day.
I’m delighted to share Amanda’s book picks, her writing ideas, and a recipe.
…
read:
Amanda: I read a lot. Like a lot a lot. I probably read two books a week. I’ll read almost any fiction though on a scale from ridiculous to sublime I trend towards ridiculous. Romantasy, anything post apocalyptic, space opera, high fantasy, romance- anything.
I fit reading into the interstices of my life: I read in the morning as I’m waking up. I read when I brush my teeth. I read in the shower, I read while I’m getting dressed. I used to read paper books in the shower- I would get the most imperfect second-hand books and call them my “shower books.” A while back my beloved sister-in-law got me a waterproof kindle and I prop it up in the shampoo nook and read while I lather up, rinse, wash my hair.
I just finished THIS IS HAPPINESS, by Niall Williams. It’s about a fictional Irish village in the wet wet wet southwestern coast on the shores of the Shannon. The narrator is a 17 year old who left the seminary because of a crisis of faith and he spends the summer with his beloved grandparents and an older man named Christy who is helping set up the power poles for the electricity coming to the village. This coming of age novel is about joy, love, finding connection, falling in love. A dear Irish friend recommended it to me as one of his favorite books and I read it mainly so that I could talk to him about it. He shared that a commonly uttered phrase in the book “O now!” was something he’d heard growing up in Ireland, usually in response to wild event, such as your grandson staggering home from pub crawl night, taking in the music and a pint or three in each pub! “O now!” you say as you gently wrestle him into bed.
SAM, by Allegra Goodman, is another coming of age novel I loved. It’s about a girl growing up with a stressed out single mom, a bad boyfriend, a hyperactive and angry half brother, and an absent though loving dad with a substance use disorder. Like life, right? The book is from Sam’s POV and Goodman is so nuanced with the ways she matures from a young child to a young woman, gaining understanding of her mother, her father, and those who love her. I discussed the novel with three generations of my family. The way the world opens up for Sam learns to drive hit us all. My mama shared a story about driving home from college in a friend’s karmann-ghia, she couldn’t reach the clutch without dipping below the dash!. That’s a thing about a great novel shared with family, right? It can bring you all closer together with stories.
Natalie: I too loved SAM. Allegra Goodman is a beautiful writer. Here's a catalogue of her New Yorker stories to peruse as well!
We have zoom r.w.e. book group! Our July selection is BUG HOLLOW, by Michelle Huneven. Family, travel, joy, and a sidecar of prickly women, what’s not to love! We meet on 13 July @ 9:30a PDT.
The book group is a perk for paid subscribers and let me tell you we are a lively bunch!
Go ahead, upgrade to paid and claim your spot. I hope to get to know you better!
Check my read.write.eat. Bookshop Store, where you will find many of the books I've recommended in the newsletter. Buying books from my shop is a way you can be a friend to the newsletter. Also, you know I quit Amazon. But/and I’m a huge lover of audiobooks and it was hard to say goodbye to my Audible library as one must when they sever ties with Bezos. But I found LIBRO, which has a great selection, and which supports your fav independent bookstore!
write:
Amanda: I’m a very imperfect and infrequent journaler. When I’m in the groove with it I like to do entries inspired by one of my favorite authors and artists: Lynda Barry. She encourages drawing spirals, listening to weird and amazing music, and using a template of “did, saw (written), heard, saw (drawn)” to get access to the mystery of creativity. I sometimes watercolor and like to draw and paint anatomical things, especially hearts but sometimes wounds or cells or receptors on the nervous system. Once I drew a picture of my coffee maker that I had to re-calibrate to make coffee for just me after my son (the only other family coffee drinker) left home for college.
Natalie: For those of you who don’t know Lynda Barry, I highly recommend her book, WHAT IT IS. Full up of inspiring ideas and prompts to help you bring your writing more to life.
Here are two pages from the book. It’s a terrific exercise I often share with my students. First think about other people’s mothers. List as many as you can. Choose the one that seems the most full of possibility, the one who had the most impact upon you. Was there something that happened? Something that stayed with you? Write it down, just a few swift notes. Then complete the exercise with the PDF below:
***Also, double check that list of questions Amanda poses to her patients at the top of this post. What terrific prompts!
eat:
Amanda: I am obsessed with fiber. Did you know that pasta and chilled pasta have different types of fiber that feed different gut bugs? Bacteria consume fiber and make weird and wonderful molecules of all different kinds in the process. These molecules interact with our BRAINS and nervous systems and mostly serve to make us feel better and happier. Every week I make a pot of beans. I use Sohla El-Waylly’s legume master recipe from her amazing book START HERE.
Legumes:
One pound of beans rinsed and picked and sorted (I like Rancho Gordo naturally- I call them my “bougey beans”)
¼ c olive oil
An allium addition- a quartered onion or shallot or a leek
Aromatics- bay leaf is my favorite
Spices- I almost always add cumin and a little smokey mild chili like guajillo
2 T kosher salt
2-3 peeled whole cloves of garlic
Something fancy and flavorful like a parmesan rind or some smoked meat (a turkey leg will do- I used to put in pigs feet but the little tiny foot bones would sometimes escape and look like another bean but become very alarming in the mouth, especially to young children)
Add all of the above to a pot- preferably a dutch oven.
Add 2 quarts water
Bring to boil
Simmer till they’re the perfect firmness for you- expect to burn your beans 40% of the time, expect to perhaps stress out your partner who is working from home when you ask them to watch the beans for you
Eat some/Store some to incorporate into meals the rest of the week
Thank you, Amanda! We love you. And, here’s Stanley, in a Prince and the Pea moment!:
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Tell your people you love them, take care of your skin!
big love,