January 2013 - dream into change

Wrapping up my trip … and the letter to Amtrak

4 Comments / Travel, Veganism / By Maren / January 17, 2013 January 18, 2013

Hey, all! My travels in California are, sadly, drawing to a close. I have had a wonderful trip so far, and I still have two more days to look forward to: tomorrow here in the Bay area, and Saturday on the train back to Portland. I have met some wonderful people through Airbnb, the San Diego Vegans Meetup group, the Dance Jam folks in San Diego and Encinitas, and on the train itself. I look forward to many more such trips in the future, traveling all over the country, and probably into Canada as well.

One mild downside to the trip has been the lack of readily available vegan options on the train. I posted here a few days ago that I would be writing a letter to Amtrak to request more options, and I have just emailed them that letter (at www.amtrak.com/contact-us) so I thought I would post it here in case it inspires any of you to write as well. I know I’m not the only one who cares about this!

Dear Amtrak,

I am just finishing up my first-ever 15-day-pass vacation, from my native Portland through California, on the Coast Starlight and Pacific Surfliner. It has been wonderful so far! I have always loved rail travel, and I’m choosing to make it a bigger part of my life. (I’m even blogging about it, at www.dreamintochange.com, if you’d like to take a look.)

I’ve been happy with the experience overall, but I do have a request. I would love to see some vegan entrée option on the regular dining car menu. I very much appreciate that you offer a vegan burger in the café, and I enjoyed one last night. I’m also aware that you offer vegan options in the dining car by pre-order. However, I didn’t realize the 72-hour cutoff for ordering them until about 68 hours before my trip began, so it was tricky for me to find adequately filling meals when I got on board. I know I am not the only traveler who would value having vegan items to choose from on the main menu for each meal.

I see that you do offer at least one vegetarian option at each meal. If these options were vegan (no animal products at all, including dairy, eggs, or honey) vegetarians and vegans alike could enjoy it, and there would be no administrative and logistical hurdles for Amtrak nor passengers, such as there are now with the pre-ordering procedure. You might even consider making the vegan options gluten free, as well, to appeal to another growing segment of the population and address two issues simultaneously. (I’m guessing that your vegan chili and dolmas are gluten free, and that the vegan pasta is not.) Options for breakfast might include a tofu scramble with vegetables, or a vegetable hash with home fries. Lunch and dinner could be chili or dolmas, or perhaps a vegetable stir-fry (with or without tofu and/or rice) or a hearty Southwestern salad with tomatoes, corn, beans, and other vegetables. Or any number of other options, of course – these are just a few suggestions.

I plan to do more train travel, and more blogging about it, in the coming years and decades. I would love to let my friends and readers know that their dietary choices will be easily accommodated if they should choose to join me in “riding the rails.”

Thank you for your consideration. I appreciate all that you do.

Sincerely,

Maren Souders

OK! Now to head out with some friends to an all-vegan Japanese restaurant (http://cha-ya.blogspot.com), which will be a first for me. I love traveling!

The power of place

4 Comments / Ecstatic dance, Travel / By Maren / January 13, 2013 January 13, 2013

In my junior year of high school, when I was living in my home state of Virginia and looking at colleges, my aunt Susy (who is also my webmaster – hi, Susy!) gave me a very good piece of advice. She said something to the effect of, “As you look at schools, think about where you’d like to end up as an adult. Most people end up settling wherever they go to college. So ask yourself, ‘Do I really want to live in [X city/state/region] for the foreseeable future?’” What she said made sense to me, and I started thinking about where I would most like to live.

It should be urban. The weather should be mild. The attitude should be progressive. I didn’t want to live right near family, but I liked the idea of having them nearby.

These criteria pointed me in the direction of Portland, Oregon. I did a little more research, and everything I read about Portland made it sound like the right place for me. So, I applied to one college (Lewis & Clark), took one visit to Portland to interview there and take a look the town … and when I was accepted, I moved there virtually sight unseen. That was 22 years ago, and it was one of the best decisions of my life. Portland really does fit me, for all the above reasons and more.

At the moment, as you know, I’m vacationing in San Diego, and my intention is to begin living here during the winters – starting next winter – because I want to be surrounded by warm sunshine, rather than bleak rain. (Portland’s singular failing, from my perspective.) This past spring, as I began brainstorming possible new cities, I considered various locales that would be warmer. Once again, I made myself a list of the criteria that were most important to me. This time around, they were: 1) Warm but not too hot, 2) English speaking (I was open to southern-hemisphere destinations), 3) Within an hour of the ocean, 4) Plenty of vegan-friendly restaurants, 5) A thriving ecstatic dance scene, and 6) Good bicycle and transit infrastructure, so that I could continue living car-free.

On paper, San Diego seemed to fit the bill best, but I had never seen it. So, I hopped on a plane at the end of April to spend a few days surveying the scene. I loved what I saw! In addition to meeting all of my criteria, the city got bonus points for having the incredible Balboa Park right in the middle of town, and having friendly, laid-back people everywhere I went. When I arrived here again on the train yesterday, I was filled with joy, knowing I would be spending the next four days in my soon-to-be seasonal home city.

I don’t think it’s possible to overstate the power of place, when it comes to determining our happiness and satisfaction with life. When we live somewhere that doesn’t feel “right” to us, for whatever reason, it clouds our mood much of the time, and leaves us feeling unhappy on a regular basis. By contrast, living in a place that is aligned with our values and preferences leaves us feeling happy and energized much of the time.

I’m curious about readers’ experiences with this. Does your current town or city feel “right” to you? If so, what was your path to arriving there? If not, what criteria does your town not satisfy for you? What would your ideal location look like? What, if anything, is holding you back from moving to that place?

California so far

4 Comments / Nonviolent Communication, Sustainable Transportation, Veganism / By Maren / January 10, 2013 January 13, 2013

My California journey is under way! It is turning out to be less of a working trip, and more of a vacation, than I had envisioned, but I’m finding that I’m OK with that. There will be plenty of time to work when I return to the winter drear of the Northwest … now is my time to bask in the sun! Still, I do intend and hope to weave some Dream Into Change work into the remainder of my time in the Golden State.

My travel on the train so far has been every bit as much fun as I had hoped. I took the Amtrak Coast Starlight from Portland to San Jose, complete with a sleeping compartment. Unfortunately, I attempted to reserve my vegan Dining Car meals 68 hours prior to my trip, and they have a 72-hour cutoff, so I missed it. Fortunately, the dining car staff were pretty accommodating as I cobbled together meals from what was on the main menu. For example, for two meals I had steamed vegetables, brown rice, and a baked potato – all of which were ostensibly parts of meat-centered meals – which I seasoned with one of the Newman’s “light Italian” or “balsamic vinaigrette” dressing packets they provide to each table. Not ideal, but workable. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the vegan meals I ordered for the return sleeping-car portion of the journey, in about a week, will be on the train when I board it.

I think I will write a letter to Amtrak, asking them to offer vegan meals on their regular menu, with ingredients they could stock on each train. (The way it works now, they must request them from an outside vendor when a passenger pre-orders them.) Each meal on their menu has at least one vegetarian entrée option now, but none are vegan. It seems to me that this could be easily remedied. Perhaps after I write the letter, I will post it here in case any of you would like to send a similar one. I’d love to see more people eating animal-free meals as they ride the rails!

One thing I love about taking the train, vs. driving or flying, is how community-oriented it is. In the dining car, for example, you are always seated at a table with fellow travelers, and I had some great conversations over meals. Many rail passengers – especially those in the sleeping-car section – are retirees, with interesting stories of their lives and work. One thing that struck me, given my interest in helping people to align their values and passions with their paid work, was that many of these folks seem to have done that. I enjoyed hearing their stories. I also had lunch one day with a young woman in college who is studying criminal psychology. We had a great, uplifting conversation about restorative justice. She had not heard about it, but when I described it, she loved the idea.

Right before I ate with her, I had read an incredibly moving and inspiring article about restorative justice, from the front page of The New York Times. I highly recommend the article, which follows the recent story of a 19-year-old Florida man who killed his 19-year-old girlfriend, and her parents’ decision to forgive him and undergo a healing victim-offender dialogue together. I am so heartened to see these ideas gaining mainstream media coverage. I also noticed at various points in the article that NVC-based communication skills could have prevented the tragedy from happening in the first place; it only strengthens my resolve to do everything I can to spread awareness of these two ideas as much as I am able.

On a related topic, on this trip I have also been reading Nancy Mullane’s Life After Murder,which had been recommended to me by a fellow volunteer at the Oregon Prison Project. Mullane is an NPR reporter who followed the stories of five men convicted of murder, who had been serving life sentences in California prisons.

It is an eye-opening look at how “normal” people who commit violent crimes can be, as well as at the flaws in our justice system and the California Department of Corrections (and the governor’s office), with respect to actually meeting the needs of safety in the community while recognizing the humanity, and ability to change, of many of these inmates. I recommend the book.

I arrived in Santa Cruz late Sunday morning, and enjoyed spending time with my friend, and gracious host, Lisa. We went to the beach, the woods, and several vegan or vegan-friendly restaurants, and had a lovely time. I had hoped to also lead a workshop in Santa Cruz, and Lisa had helped me to publicize it; but the enrollment was low, so I needed to cancel it. Perhaps just as well, because I came down with a cold, too.

On Tuesday morning, she took me to the bus mall in downtown Santa Cruz, where I hopped a comfortable, wifi-equipped bus back to San Jose and the Amtrak station.

I got on the train, and had another, totally unexpected, community connection: for my coach ticket between Santa Cruz and LA, I was seated next to a woman who has worked for the state PIRGs (Public Interest Research Groups for many years. I worked for OSPIRG, and a couple of related groups, for many years myself. We knew several people in common, and talked about politics, progress, and idealism. Totally unexpected connection. So glad I took the train!

After our chat, she had work to do, so I spent most of that journey in the sightseer lounge car, enjoying the scenery of rolling hills and, eventually, the Pacific Ocean at sunset.

Now I’m in Los Angeles, for my first time ever! I’ve lost my voice with the cold, which is a bit surreal; but I’ve been enjoying the sunshine, the beach, and – of course – some great vegan restaurants. My cousin Nathalie has been a wonderful host, and I’ve enjoyed spending time with her after many years apart. Today, I had lunch and caught up with a former Portland ecstatic-dance community friend; tonight, I am looking forward to dining with a friend from high school whom I have not seen since our graduation night in Virginia, 22 years ago!

Wonderful trip so far. Tomorrow: San Diego!

Month: January 2013