A Year in Portland

The last few weeks every day has felt like an anniversary of sorts. Tuesday, July 18, 2006, we drove into Portland as a famiy. Or, caravanned in, me driving the minivan with two kids, him the Civic with two more. We’d spent the night in Boise, the night before that just outside Salt Lake City, the night before that near the Grand Canyon, after leaving my parents in Albuquerque. I’d had one brief weekend here, before, looking at a school for the kids, seeing neighborhoods and deciding if this was really something I could do, but I think the commitment had been made as soon as we realized we could leave Dallas, we could live anywhere… Why Portland? There are so many little things that go into such a decision. I always liked the pine tree on...

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Posted by Mara Collins on Aug 5, 2007 | 1 comment

Life Without Glossy Magazines

I am still thinking about non-materialistic acquisitiveness, the little pieces of identity we take pride in and clutch. In a phone conversation with my best friend about what magazines we are each subscribed to (currently, only Brain, Child which I love with an evangelicizing passion, though I happily will pick up the Believer and Bitch when I feel like a treat while shopping in the local upscale, organic markets, and wouldn’t complain about a subscription to the New Yorker). But there was a time in my life I loved fashion magazines, and then weaned myself off them with Real Simple and Oprah magazines, with their cheery message of self-improvement. They all, though, whisper to me “you are not enough,” and out from their thrall I am so much...

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Posted by Mara Collins on Jul 29, 2007 | 4 comments