Since parting ways with my music partner nearly a year ago, I have been reticent to pick up any instrument and try my hand at solo composing. Fear is what holds me back. Pure and not so simple fear. As with so many seemingly insurmountable challenges I have experienced in life, I know that I…
Category: career
(Don’t just) Wade in the Water
I vividly remember my AP Psychology class in high school. The main reason I remember is because my teacher was so very inspired and impassioned with the subject. I loved going to his class, where I felt that my presence was valued and I was almost always pleasantly surprised by the information I gleaned from…
Gotta get out
Most days, I live in my mind. I staff museum sites at a park, and there are many hours of the day where my own inner voices carry on a heated dialogue while I intermittently sit, stand, and talk with visitors. This winter was a rough one for me, both emotionally and for my immune system. On…
North of the border
It is the final day of April, and I am sitting in a third floor room typing away as the rain falls in a cold, wet blanket outside my window. These past two weeks, I have traveled under the auspice of Story-to-Song to two very different locations, cities, and climes in Canada. Last week, I…
What now?
The Sandbox may be over, but my work as a startup entrepreneur is just beginning. The past three months feel like a surreal, frenetic blur. They were very real and quite invaluable. I took an abstract idea and found a way to turn it into a viable business with tangible products. I even worked with…
Believe it or not
Last night, I performed at an exhibit opening at the Arts League of Lowell. I had submitted my first recorded album for an exhibit honoring the life of Kerouac called “Travels off the Beaten Track.” I knew that David Amram would be playing earlier in the gallery opening, but I got the go ahead to…
Against All Odds
Tonight is the final awards ceremony for the Merrimack Valley Sandbox Winter Accelerator Program. It has been a challenging and very rewarding three months. Yet, I think I speak for everyone in my class when I write that this evening’s final ceremonies will be bittersweet for all of us. A couple of weeks ago, a…
Fake it ’til you make it
I went to an extra Sandbox session this morning. I went into the session thinking that it was about fundraising, but the more appropriate title would be “Pitch Practice and Ego Destroyer.” I came home with a hopeless feeling in my heart, heaviness in my chest, and a lump in my throat. You will feel…
Talk to everyone because you just never know
There are many people who have walked in and out of my life and had a formative affect on the person I am today, how I engage with the world around me, and the values I try to embrace and infuse into the work I do, particularly with regard to sustainability and songwriting. I wonder…
Speak like you are a Fortune 500 Company, but don’t quit your day job just yet
Don’t call us, we’ll call you. It’s not you, it’s me. These clichés were ringing in the back of my mind during one of our recent evening sessions at the Sandbox. There were two gentlemen seated at the front of the room. They were entrerpreneurs with startup businesses in the Boston area. They each introduced…
Marieke is Guiding Song 