‘Life at the Dumpling’
How a family newsletter became a guidebook on good living
By SAMANTHA DUNN
The Orange County Register (TNS) T here was nothing quite so joyful during the darkest days of the pandemic as going to my mailbox and _nding the latest installment of “Life at the Dumpling,” my friend Trisha Cole’s hand-drawn and written newsletter waiting for me.
“The Dumpling” refers to the little Los Angeles home she shares with her husband Bruce Walrath and their two kids. The newsletter was always a potpourri of many things – part recipes, part travelogue, part inspiring quotes, part family news, part book recs, part helpful hints – but it all combined to create a sense of happiness and hope in the reader.
Now Trisha, a longtime marketing executive in Los Angeles, has assembled those letters into a book for all, a “how-to” that de_es easy categorization.
There are so many useful tips, stuff you didn’t know you wanted to know until you see it. What’s the secret to a good how-to?
“Dumpling living” is about a certain lifestyle so any Dumpling “howto’s” need to support that. Whether it is how to cook something, how to travel or experience a place, how to live well – it is about doing things that aren’t complicated and within your means; using what you have on hand or improvising if you don’t; it’s about simple instructions; and above all else, it is about doing something that brings joy to both the doer and the recipient, even if they are one and the same.
You started the newsletters as a way to stay connected during the pandemic, right?
In March of 2020, like the rest of the world, we found ourselves suddenly homebound. I initially wanted to write a letter to a former neighbor, who had been our “built-in grandma” and I thought that maybe other people would like to receive mail, too. I decided to make it more of a newsletter because it would be more fun to read and include all kinds of things that would serve as a distraction and be something joyful to receive.
Why did you decide to make it an actual paper letter that friends got in the mail?
The pandemic lockdown had just started and only a few days in I was already exhausted by looking at a screen all day. I have always been more analog, and I thought about what I would like to read. I always save mail and magazines and catalogs for any time I can read away from my screen. To me it’s like candy for the eyes. I wanted to give other people this gift that I would want to receive – something you could read anywhere, the garden, the bathtub, in your car, at bedtime, etc.
How many hours did each one take you?
I have never gone into writing a newsletter with a goal in mind. I like to let the ideas come to me, and sooner or later I gather enough material to create the next one. During COVID, the ideas felt like they were everywhere because I was so much more present with my own thoughts and focused on where I was. I _nd I am more attuned to listening now before ideas and a theme emerge, and thus the newsletters are less frequent.
I call the newsletters my “mitzvah to the universe,” and I send them out for free to anyone who wants to get their snail mail address on the list.
Once I have what feels right in terms of amount of content, I reformat the material and then print it all out and start the layout process. I literally go old school with my scissors and glue stick and Wite-Out. Once I get to that stage, I get a little manic because it becomes the really fun part. It takes me probably four to six hours to pull it together.
By this time, I’ve most likely got the envelopes and stamps in hand. I choose the envelope color and stamps based on the themes that emerge and the season. I hand the original off to my husband in a brown paper bag we’ve been using since we started, and a fresh ream of 11×17 paper.
He always knows I’m ready to go when he sees it by the door. He’s my of_cial printer.
Then I get going on hand-addressing each envelope, using a stamp I had made for the return address and stamping them all. That’s probably the most time-consuming part, but I like thinking about each person as I write their name. Sometimes my kids will help with the folding and stamping, but they refuse to lick envelopes!
When did you decide to make it a book?
I was having a great time writing the newsletter and kept trying to _gure out what to do with all the material, but it wasn’t coming to me. A book shaped like a house with info in each room? A cookbook? A memoir? Selfishly, I wanted an index and an actual place where they all could live and I wanted something that feels good in your hands. I wanted Ram Dass’ “Be Here Now” or “Living on the Earth” by Alicia Bay Laurel.
After many attempts at proposals and outlines, I realized that Volumes 1-20 ran exactly three years, March 2020 to March 2023, and that during that time so much had changed in my own life – COVID; leaving my job of 20-plus years; a 45-day, 9,000mile road trip with my daughters and husband during some parts; and then settling into the “new” now. There was a story there, and an arc, and it felt natural to bring it all together with those _rst 20.
I decided to just self-publish it so that it could be the book I wanted it to be and could be out in the world before the sentiment became lost along the way. Luckily, I have a friend who is a wonderful graphic designer and adept on a computer in all the ways I am not. She and I broke down each newsletter into anywhere between four to six pages and laid the whole thing out on my living room oor on an extra-long piece of butcher paper.
And then we went away for two nights and, basically, I re-drew every line, and we formatted every page and uploaded it as we went. We added photos that I had taken during the same time and after a couple of revisions, we were ready to publish it.
What did creating “Life at The Dumpling” teach you about yourself, and others?
At _rst, I shared things I thought might be helpful or of interest to others. I have always been a curious person and love sharing “good things with good people,” so the newsletter became an extension of that.
Every time I sent out a newsletter I didn’t know if I would do it again.
There was never a time frame, or a commitment and no money had been exchanged so nothing was expected of me. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it allowed me to be completely myself, and the organic nature of it is what is at the core of what has resonated with all of us, myself and the recipients. This project has taught me that we all crave that, something that feels free and joyful and without ulterior motives.
Finally, what’s one thing you’d still like to know how to do?
I want to keep learning how to live a Dumpling life – the beauty of this way of living is that it is always a work in progress, like the Dumpling itself. I want to know how to parent kids who are nearly adults; how to comfort my own parents; be a present partner; and how to keep life interesting to me. Dumpling “how-to’s” happen during the process of all of this.
Of course, I would love to know how to make vinegar, perfect working with natural dyes, and _gure out how to retain Spanish, but I am not married to these things. If they happen organically while I am living the Dumpling way, great, and if not, I’m sure other things will come my way that hopefully will be of value to me, and to you.
Courtesy of Trisha Cole / TNS
Trisha Cole, author of “Life at the Dumpling.”
Faye Walrath / Courtesy of Trisha Cole / TNS
