Kelly Loves Crafterglow

Crafterglow (n.): The feeling of accomplishment achieved after completing a satisfying craft project. ex: "I am basking in the crafterglow of finishing the beanbag owl I made for my niece Georgia for Christmas."

Kelly Loves Quitting Her Job and Going Freelance

I definitely love the quitting part. We'll see, as of January 1, 2010, whether or not I love the actual "going freelance" part. But I suspect I will. Herewith, my Top Ten List for why I anticipate loving my new lifestyle:

10) I get to write all day, instead of being in meetings all day.
9) Never again missing a powder day!
8) There won't be an Accounts Payable guy in my life anymore, which means Baxter won't have to bark rabidly every time he walks by my office.
7) More time to blog, right?
6) All the cool kids are doing it. (Witness Exhibit A and Exhibit B.)
5) I'm done asking permission to go to the dentist.
3) Only two clients for all of 2010, both of whom I love.
2) No more sitting through soul-deadening discussions parsing out how the G&A allocation will affect the P&L. Aaarhghgh!

And the #1 reason I think I will love quitting my job and going freelance....drumroll please....

1) I will be a professional writer! How cool is that?

Kelly Loves the Phrase "I Am a Honeypot"

Jean said it first. We were all lazing around the couch at Jenna's last week, talking about this and that (subjects of discussion at the womens' circle are not to be disclosed; what happens in Circle.....well, you know) when suddenly, and entirely within the context of the discussion, Jean just hauled off and said, "Oh, I know I'm a honeypot."

I had to stop her. Did she just say what I thought she had said? Had she just declared herself a honeypot? She looked surprised at my surprise. Wasn't it obvious?

Of course it was obvious. Jean is nothing if not a honeypot. But it wasn't about the words, or even the sentiment. It was bigger. She'd spoken a simple phrase (now the battle cry of the Circle; t-shirts are already in the works) but it said so much.

To me, it was one more example of all the ways in which I am not like Jean. I think I could talk straight through from now until the rapture and never would the phrase "I am a honeypot" come out of my mouth. But Jean calls it like she sees it, and when it comes to her own self-image, she sees it with clarity. This is a woman who owns her power and self-worth. She does not apologize. She does not mitigate. The mirror through which she sees herself is not all fogged up with a lifetime of the message, "You are not enough." She knows she is enough--in fact, she knows that she's more than enough. She is beautiful, intelligent, witty, charming, a rock star at work, a stunner in bed, a magnet. In short, a honeypot.

I am inspired. So inspired that I transferred my little container of farmer's market honey into an actual pot and put it on my kitchen countertop, labeled with a little post-it that says, "I am a honeypot."

And so I am. (And so are YOU!)

Kelly Loves Watching this Video

Seriously, I've watched it like 10 times.

Kelly Loves Forgiveness

So my intention tonight was to write a teensy tiny post about forgiveness--a short one, focusing on how much I love my friends, who (I hope) have forgiven me for sending out an email asking them to sign up for my blog--and then proceeding not to blog. For days. For a week, even.

But the truth is that the topic of forgiveness deserves my actual love and attention, so now that I'm here I think I have to actually go for it.

Even though I should be reading a manuscript right now. Even though it's late, and I worked late, and I'm tired. I'm going to sit here and spend some time on forgiveness. Because forgiveness is worth it.

I should know; I've seen it up close and personal these past few weeks. And lo, it is good. As it turns out, it has a higher vibration than just about any other energy I can think of. In fact, I've come to see it as a sort of jetpack on the path of spiritual development.

Let me be clear: I'm not talking about granting forgiveness here. I'm not talking about saying, "This person did this awful thing to me and was mean and horrible but look at me, I'm like Jesus, I am benevolent. I forgive them for their evil behavior."

No, I'm actually talking about asking forgiveness. And specifically, asking forgiveness from someone who may in fact have wronged you.

I know--you're like, "Wha...?" Because that's not the kind of forgiveness we usually think of--not in reference to ourselves, anyway. Usually we are the heroes of our own human dramas, and as such we cast ourselves as the receivers of good things like forgiveness, and not the perpetrators of acts that require them.

But all I can tell you is that being in the presence of truth incarnate for five days (I'm speaking of my recent retreat with Adya here) kind of sandblasts your perceptions. While in his presence one afternoon I spontaneously began to cry. I cried because realized that I was deeply and truly sorry for the way I'd behaved toward one particular person in my life.

And it was damn surprising, because the person I was thinking of was someone who I'd previously cast as the victimizer, not the victim. The person I'd previously thought deserved my forgiveness, if anything. The person I might (just might) perhaps (if she was lucky) be able to forgive on my deathbed. THAT person. You know the one. You have one, too.

With the help of the world's greatest forgiveness coach, a.k.a. my friend Jenna, I wrote the person previously known as my antithesis a letter. And I said I was sorry.

For having been so angry. For having carried her around as an enemy in my heart for the past X months. For not having seen that she was doing the best she could at the time; for not being able to do better myself.

And you know what? It felt like a resurrection. (Which is apt, given this is my Jesus year--the big 33.) It's not like my life has changed outwardly, though I did win a friend back in the deal. The real transformation was on the inside. It's like this single act of surrender--of showing my heart and saying I was sorry--washed me clean. Having done that, I feel like I can do anything.

Even ask forgiveness again—right here, right now, from you.

Dear You, Beautiful Blog Reader,

I’m sorry for not having blogged this past week. I was busy; I had a houseguest; I did not make the time. I will try to do better next time.

With love,
Kelly

Kelly Loves Georgia (the Niece, Not the State)

Georgia, double-fisting her first birthday cake....incidentally, wearing a top her Aunt Kelly gave her for Christmas

Does not this picture speak for itself? You can see more illegally cute pictures of little Geo here.

Kelly Loves Dancing, Oddly Enough

A seriously low-res video clip from Chantal's SoulSweat DVD, which you can buy here

Ever since I first moved to Boulder, my friend (and colleague) Chantal has been telling me I should come to her dance class, SoulSweat. My response always ranged somewhere between hysterical laughter and annoyance. Was she serious? Did she not have eyes? Could she not see that I am not the kind of person who goes to dance class? I am not remotely athletic, I thought. I don't know my left foot from my right. I'm not an "exercise person."

But then life slammed me up against an emotional wall about a year ago. As I gathered the shards of my broken ego and glue-sticked them back into the shape of a whole person, I discovered that the "me" who was emerging this time wasn't exactly like the "me" I'd thought I'd been. I was suddenly an altogether different being.

And one Friday night, to my own shock and surprise, this altogether different being spontaneously wanted to go to dance class. The rest is history: this past weekend I shook my booty right through the Soul Sweat Teacher Training Workshop.

Um, did you hear that? I said teacher training. Me--the non-exercise person. The "I'm such a bad dancer Mrs. Wiehe always put me in the back row in high school show choir" person.

Me--and eleven other amazing women, ages 23 to 59. We danced, we played, we choreographed. We laughed, and some of us cried. But mostly we had boatloads of fun.

How unexpected!

Kelly Does Not Love Mean Landlords

The monkey dog, smugly sunning himself at the office in between reigns of terror

Luckily, I have no mean landlord of my own. And now that I own my own place, and realize that one day I may actually be a mean landlord myself, I've maybe even developed a bit of sympathy toward this archetypical nemesis. (I know, I can't believe it either, but you try living across the courtyard from a dawn-to-dusk college house party, and you, too, may become a fan.)

But all feelings of sympatico with the iconic landlord flew out the window when, yesterday afternoon, the worst thing EVER happened--and I discovered it was the handiwork of none othe than a landlord. Specifically, the landlord of Katie the Dogsitter, who cared for my little terror of a monkey dog on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I could work in peace.

I only caught the highlights before I went down: Complaints from neighbors. Out of business. So sorry to see Baxter go.

When she revived me, I was solemn. It was out of my hands. There were only two options:

1) I would have to bring Baxter with me to work five days a week instead of the previous (manageble) three. Said change would indeed drive me insane, and I would jump out a window. It would simply be destiny. Death comes for us all; I just didn't think he'd come for me in an office park in Louisville.

2) Baxter will have to be relocated "to a nice farm in the country."

I've since been reminded that other options--such as dog training, getting a doggy door at home, etc.--remain, but for now, I'm wallowing.

Kelly Loves Target (But Not As Much As She Used To)

Confession: I used to be a total Target girl. Where I grew up in Indiana, there was a Target practically within walking distance. All of my affordable shopping needs were met beneath its sizzling red neon bullseye--hair products, sporting goods, cute undies. All the essentials, under one roof.

It was only once I went to college that I realized not every family automatically hit Target on the way home from church. At the time I was in school with my beloved sister (who writes this blog) in Washington, DC. The two of us were forever bemoaning the District's lack of a Target. Many of our friends at school puzzled over our obsession with this large discount retailer--but then again, many of them had never been to the fairytale land that is Tarzjay. For Target is a midwestern company (shout out to Minnesota) and all those many years ago its mastery of style + affordability had not yet swept the eastern seaboard.

When, after two years in school, my father hand-me-downed us his white old-guy Buick, and we finally had wheels, the first thing we did was dust off the map and plot a trip to the nearest Target (shout out to Green Belt, Maryland).

Soon after leaving DC I moved to the grand mecca of inconvenient shopping that is New York City, and once again I was adrift without my Target. New York is a place where haircare products, sporting equipment, and cute undies each get their own entire (expensive) stores. Saturday afternoon errands means dashing hither and yon, hauling dozens of shopping bags from subway platform to subway platform. We're not talking a civilized, climate-controlled Target experience here--we're talking elbowing your way crosstown through mass humanity. We're talking survival mode.

I mourned Target. I spoke of it often to friends, with a longing heart.

To make matters worse, around that time, mysteriously, advertising for the store started appearing on billboards across the city. No actual Target retailer, mind you, just lots and lots of billboards. Tormenting me. Then one Christmas, randomly, the signs started announcing the arrival of the Target Boat, set to dock at Chelsea Piers just in time for holiday shopping. My best friend Stace and I were just Target-deprived enough to fall for the obvious marketing ploy. (See photographic evidence above.)

My last couple of years there, I discovered that there was a Target that could be accessed by taking the G Train to (gulp) the Queens Mall. Yes, that would be in Queens. And yes, I made that trip. Many, many times. (For those readers interested in my spiritual development, it was on the long subway ride to Target that, one Saturday morning, I first cracked The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.) The year I was leaving NYC, the first Target store opened in Brooklyn--so hope was dawning for the city dweller. But alas, I was already on my way out the ever-revolving New York door, heading to brighter skies in Boulder, CO.

Where, once again blessed with a vehicle of my own and not one but two Targets on my drive to work, my love affair with Target promptly began to wane. (Such is my way in love and shopping. It is my curse to love only the ones who play hard to get...)

If you want to blame someone, blame McGuckin's. McGuckin's, the local hardware store that sells much more than hardware. They may not have cute undies, but they have just about everything else--including hundreds of adorable retirees in green smocks whose only job is to ask you if they can help you find something.

When I think about how sad I would be if McGuckin's closed up shop, benching all those cute little old men, it makes it very hard to walk into Target--the monolithic, the big-box, the national chain.

But I do still walk into Target--sometimes. Tonight was, in fact, one of those times. And my experience there led me to love Target once again. It was not the pimply teen in a red polo who accosted me as I passed the jewelry counter, wanting to know if I needed help finding anything. (I did not in fact need his help, for I was shopping with a purpose: shampoo, which I'll have you know is not available for sale at McGuckin's.)

What I loved was that, as I stood in the shampoo aisle, hemming and hawing between Pantene and Dove, I heard someone say, "Um, were you just on an Adyashanti retreat?"

And I remembered why I love Target--the Target in Boulder, at least. It's because as much as everybody loves McGuckin's, everybody still shops at Target. And because it's Boulder, that means you'll end up running into some guy who sat four rows behind you on a silent meditation retreat in California the week before--and that he'll say hi.

Kelly Loves Adyashanti

Last week I attended my second five-day silent retreat with Adyashanti, a.k.a. the free-est human being I have ever met.

The freedom I'm talking about is freedom from ego attachment. The freedom to experience--and to be--naked awareness, unguarded and completely vulnerable to the universe.

If I learned one thing on this retreat, it's that I love Adya. I love him spontaneously, genuinely, and with a devotion I have never yet encountered.

But in truth it's not Adya that I love--though I have had some level of exposure to his personality and find him suitably charming, disarming, and real. It's actually the wind that blows through him, which mirrors the wind that blows through me. I somehow have a better sense of the Kelly version of this wind when he and I are in a room together--when I'm sitting in silence and feeling its warmth and energy; when I have the space to tenderly explore what it might mean to be instead of do all the time; when I'm not robotically chasing the unmet needs of my childhood.

(Not that I didn't do some Olympic-style unmet-need chasing while on retreat. Sheesh. In a sea of middle-aged seekers of enlightenment, leave it to me to find and fixate upon on the one hot Boulder dude. Let's just say that when Adya started talking about being a "junkie for validation," I had to wonder if he'd been reading my journal.)

And With That, My Friends, a Blog is Born*

Post-retreat, over the world's best cinnamon bun at the world's sweetest cafe in Santa Cruz, my dear friend Jenna bemoaned the scarcity of writing in our world that is all three of the most important things: spiritual, intelligent, and funny. "What is there but Eat, Pray, Love?" she asked, her countenance despondent.

What she didn't know (or did she?) is that I love nothing more than a challenge.

*How original.