Something said by Suzanne Rouvier, a character from Somerset Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge, haunts me. A painter’s mistress, Suzanne made a living by posing, and when those artisanal springs stopped flowing, she found the next artist. Living in Paris during the early 1900s, her mix of lanky limbs, fair skin, and bright blue eyes were in … Continue reading Newsletter #143: Once Begun, Better Finish
Author: Ryan Fightmaster, MD
Writer. Furniture professional. Former practicing physician.
Newsletter #140: Fighting the Fevers with Fire
I’m shivering under a scalding shower, trying to fight the fever with fire. The pyrexic mind is a toxic place, an environment that should never be trusted. But I only know this when my temperature is below 100 degrees. As water pours onto my head and neck, I ruminate on the prospects of my memoir, … Continue reading Newsletter #140: Fighting the Fevers with Fire
Newsletter #139: Running Hills
To run in Asheville was to run hills. As my neighbor, a cyclist, put it, “I can’t pedal down my driveway without starting a 1000-foot climb.” A plainsmen by birth, I knew the wind, but I knew no incline. Slowly, I adapted, developing a collection of hill-conquering strategies, most of which centered around not looking … Continue reading Newsletter #139: Running Hills
Newsletter #138: Generational Impacts of One Unlived Life
Sunday night, I finished Vivian Gornick’s memoir Fierce Attachments. Reputation warranted. Haven’t been hypnotized like that since the opening credits of The White Lotus. Fear not, there will be no book review, but for our purposes, I will borrow the book’s central question: Can a daughter (Gornick) escape the resentful shadow of her mother’s unlived life? In September of 2022, … Continue reading Newsletter #138: Generational Impacts of One Unlived Life
Newsletter #137: One Fir’s Dance with Chance
Six a.m. My dad’s headlights shine onto my living room’s walls. I down my coffee, lock the doors, and snag my luggage. We’re ski-tripping to Colorado and should be there by late-afternoon, but only if the conditions hold. As the garage door rolls up, I see the driveway’s dusted white. Could get nasty on I-70. … Continue reading Newsletter #137: One Fir’s Dance with Chance
Newsletter #136: High-Stakes Barefoot Poker
For a year in California, I rented a casita in a family’s backyard. Upsides: fifty-foot pine tree right outside my door, listening to the kids practice piano, only five minutes from the hospital. Downsides: minimal privacy, listening to the kids practice piano, only five minutes from the hospital. As a habit, one I still practice … Continue reading Newsletter #136: High-Stakes Barefoot Poker
Newsletter #134: Nothing Left on the Line
Just past 5 p.m., I was in the garage painting a shelf for our bedroom—the last uncompleted “must complete today” task on my list. If successfully finished, this would mark the first day since our move where I got everything I’d wanted done, done. My mental health was on the line. I rolled the dusky … Continue reading Newsletter #134: Nothing Left on the Line
Newsletter #133: No GPS Required
Vision: seeing things for what they can be, not what they are. - Sam Presti We moved to Oklahoma City for intimacy, not just with our friends and family, but with a place we know. The trade-off—there’s always one—was novelty, I thought. No more surprises at the next bend in the Appalachian highway or amazements at the … Continue reading Newsletter #133: No GPS Required
Newsletter #132: My Chance to Be at Home
In May of 2023, when my wife and I left California for North Carolina, I hoped Asheville would mirror all of my desires, like an AI chatbot of a city that told me everything I wanted to hear, liked the same things as me, and drank the same beer as me. After eight desperate years in medicine, … Continue reading Newsletter #132: My Chance to Be at Home
Newsletter #131: Too Happy to Be a Doctor
The smell is clinical and familiar. Latex, Purel, steel. Dermatomal maps hang on the wall, to what end, I’m unsure. Maybe the anatomical charts make patients feel better. Maybe they make the doctors feel better, reminding them of their training. Or, more likely, something has to hang on the wall and the maps were cheaper than Thomas … Continue reading Newsletter #131: Too Happy to Be a Doctor
