Author Archives: Maren

Wow, what a wild emotional time. How are you holding up? I hope you’re finding ways to care for yourself during this time. If you’re feeling motivated to get backlogged projects complete, or take up new areas of interest, that’s awesome. If, … Continue reading →

Happy solstice!  Here in the northern hemisphere, we can finally celebrate the return of the light.  (I, for one, am very ready to welcome it!  My bike commute will be brighter every day for the next six months.)  In the … Continue reading →

Happy December, all! The new year is nearly upon us. In December, many of us take stock of our lives, and think about the changes we may wish to bring about in the year ahead. At this time, I am … Continue reading →

I’m sure I don’t need to tell anyone reading this that there is an extreme abundance of bad news in the world.  An awful lot of this news makes it into our Facebook feeds, and those of our friends.  It … Continue reading →

I recently had the honor of being interviewed by Matt Burns, who is touring the USA and interviewing (at least) 366 people in 366 days for his Unlikely Stories project. I sat down with him here in Portland to talk … Continue reading →

It’s been a couple of weeks!  Re-entry into Portland took some adjusting for me, so this final blog post of the trip has taken me a bit longer than I had anticipated. The final leg of my train travels went … Continue reading →

As I write this post, I am sitting in the sun porch of the house in which I spent most of my first 18 years.  My parents bought the house—a huge old stone farmhouse, built in the 1700s and expanded … Continue reading →

The bike ride on the W & OD Trail was everything I had hoped it would be.  The trail stretches 45 miles, from Arlington, Virginia out to Purcellville, where I attended middle and high school. I took a Lyft in … Continue reading →

The journey continues!  The Cardinal train was an interesting experience.  I definitely enjoyed the scenery, but I found that the physical trains themselves (I took two: one from Chicago to Charlottesville, and the other from Charlottesville to Washington, DC) were … Continue reading →

Chicago has been wonderful so far!  I am staying with warm and fascinating friends of a friend in a historic building within the beautiful Hyde Park neighborhood.  I spent all of yesterday with a dear friend exploring the Anderson Gardens … Continue reading →