We met at the studios of KBOO, a largely volunteer-run community radio station in Portland’s inner eastside, to have this conversation, and my first impression of Ursula there was one of matter-of-fact groundedness. Of someone who didn’t suffer fools. Someone whose wealth of experience had not merely accumulated over a long life well-lived, but had become something else altogether, had alchemized into a sort of lived-in wisdom. And with this wisdom there seemed to be no patience for masks, for pretense. Confirmed again and again as we talked, my first impression of her became my lasting one.
