ballerina girl, Alameda, CA, Canon Digital Rebel XSi

I saw a high school rendition of High School Musical last weekend. With my soft spot for musical theater, I was excited to go. It was under the auspices that I was supporting my friend whose daughter was in the show, but the truth is that my inner twelve year old really, really wanted to be there.

As we waited for the curtain to open, they played old Michael Jackson tunes on the sound system and it moved me more than I anticipated. Crocodile tears poured down my face when I heard the words to Man in the Mirror… the lyrics seeming so poignant suddenly. 

I’m Gonna Make A Change,
For Once In My Life,
It’s Gonna Feel Real Good,
Gonna Make A Difference
Gonna Make It Right . . .

But it didn’t stop there. I was choked up for the entire two hour show, wiping away my tears as each dance number came to a close and those bright little faces beamed out at the audience. I don’t even have a kid up there! I thought. What are you crying about?

But I was thinking of Ben up there dancing one day, with all that joy and hope in his eyes. I was thinking of myself up there, remembering the musicals I had done in junior high school, and how I practiced so hard each day memorizing the words to every song in the production, not just mine. I remembered when I was Maisie in The Boyfriend and there was a scene where I was supposed to kiss a boy named Noah and how terrified I was, having never kissed a boy in real life before. We never rehearsed the kiss but had sworn to each other and the director that we would do it, no problem, in the actual show. In the end, he left me up there alone for our big moment, having bolted backstage too scared to go through with it. I waited a few heart stopping seconds for him to come back, and then relieved, ran offstage as well.

As I watched, I remembered and felt the excitement and promise that performing at that age felt like-the feeling that you could do anything, that anything you dreamed was possible. I also remembered, like a bolt of lightening, that I was a dancer and a singer, that somewhere deep inside me was still that girl who loved to cartwheel, sashay and sing out loud. Life covers up so much of that essence, that distilled sense of who we are. When I look back, it seems so simple and clear, so easy to see all of her.

And for a moment, while watching High School Musical, I remembered, that she is still me.

P.S. The LUCKY winner of the Orla Kiely bag is: Robyn who said, “It’s so lovely! I would love to fill this bag with all of my little treasures.” You will be getting an email soon from All About Cute! We are all very jealous.

My delicious Ben, not sleeping, Canon Digital Rebel XSi

I am a bit of a mess today. One of those mornings when you wake up with a start at 5am with your list of everything UNDONE in your life flashing before your eyes. This is rare for me, so I decided to get up and just get to work, hoping that getting some things under my belt would help relieve that feeling, but it didn’t. As the coffee started to kick in and the emails began to mount, my to-do list kept growing.

And then I remembered. This was the precise feeling I had yesterday afternoon as I rocked Ben. It was one of those nap times where you are desperate for that child to sleep, and as you rock them you are thinking about all of the things you will accomplish while they nap. You count on those precious two hours to yourself, right? And then of course, after nearly an hour of trying to get them down, they are up officially, not sleeping, and now crabby because they are still tired.

In that moment of pure exhaustion and despair I realized the very bad news-I was never going to get enough done. There would always be more to do, I could always have done it better, and the idea that after x, y, and z was done I would feel satisfied, well that was never going to happen either. Because after that, I would notice what a disaster zone our house was, or that my site could really use a facelift, etc.

It is a neverending cycle.

I cried when I took that in. The gravity of that feeling of not enoughness hit me hard. If this is how I am going to live my life, I thought, then what’s the point? There is no joy in this.

As I shared these thoughts with Matt this morning, he echoed my feelings. It seems we are all in need of a paradigm shift. He said something I really appreciate, “If we’re not loving the process then what are we doing? It’s not going to get better at the end of this list, because there is always another list. There is always going to be more so the trick is to love the tasks as much as possible.” Which is another way of saying, let’s love each moment as much as possible. I can see how simply doing what’s in front of you, with as much mindfulness and joy as you can is a piece of the puzzle. Maybe we should trash our to-do lists and create some to-be lists instead.

I would love to hear your words of wisdom people.
…..

And the winner of the photo session from Thea Coughlin’s is Shawn who said, “I must have vaulted from your blog to hers at some point and loved her pictures-images. so count me in…i’d love to get some great shots of family!!” Congratulations! Thea will email you soon.

Me, taken by the talented Vivienne McMaster, Canon Digital Rebel XSi

*This photo above was taken by the lovely Vivienne McMaster in the Edible Schoolyard here in Berkeley. This is an incredible program where middle school kids get to grow, cook and eat their own food.

Other spring pleasures include…
Going to see Michael Pollan and Novella Carpenter (author of Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer) in conversation this Thursday.
My new, most comfortable shoes ever (like walking on clouds)
Kiehls Grapefruit Essence Oil by Kiehl’s.
Learning to cook from the talented Heidi Swanson… Her book, Super Natural Cooking is my new fave and her website is endlessly delicious. It also helps that she is an incredible photographer!
Deciding between seeing David Sedaris or Jack Kornfield tomorrow night. Feel free to weigh in!
LOVING these books by Marisa de los Santos. (Love Walked In and Belong to Me: A Novel
The hope of growing my own tomatoes.

What are your spring pleasures?

self-portrait, San Gregorio beach, Canon Elph

It’s scary to create space. Seriously. Taking a break is not for the faint of heart. To stop the things you normally do (work), habitually do (blog), or even compulsively do (take photos) and to sit in the space that’s left over. Well, it is confronting.

My aim was to look at the month as a cleanse, a spring cleaning of the spirit. You know those cleanses you do for allergies? where you remove all sorts of things from your diet, like dairy, wheat, sugar, and then slowly, incorporate those items back in? The idea is that you get to see how your body reacts, distinguish how each thing effects you, for better or worse. It’s also an opportunity to see if you can nourish yourself without these things.

And so I started my cleanse by clearing my physical space. I purged the heck out of it, selling everything I could, cleaning and organizing all the cluttered up nooks. I even pretended we were moving and considered each item with the same precise question, If we were moving right now would I bother putting bubble wrap around this and putting it in a box? I loved this task and felt like with every item I let go of, the more my mind could be clear, the more space there was to breathe.

And then there was my body to cleanse. I needed to heal. I needed to rest. I was sick as a dog for nearly two months, had had a sore throat for most of that time, and after a round of antibiotics and lots of acupuncture I was out of ideas. Let me add that when I get sick, I keep going. Partly out of necessity (Ben has needs that supercede my own) but also out of habit, out of a compulsive need to do do do, keep up, lest everyone forgets about me, I fall behind, I blow it, I fail, it all falls apart. There is some deep fear embedded in there, like if I stop or get help, or god forbid take a vacation, I will be behind. Losing. I have always been like this, as evidenced by my perfect attendance record all through elementary school and high school. Seriously. I have witnesses.

So I rested, and also made a pledge to stop finishing Ben’s hot dogs and french fries and go to Farmer’s markets more. I started practicing yoga again (oh, painful) got on my bicycle (I love you Flirt) and started drinking Kombucha tea (the first few bottles tasted like salad dressing, but now I quite like it) I also planted vegetables for the first time in my life, three kinds of tomatoes.

But those were the easy parts.

The thing about creating space is that you get to see where you’ve been hiding.

For me, it was in work. I stopped blogging, for example, but couldn’t resist filling my blog with awesome guest bloggers while I was away (They were so good I considered outsourcing the whole enterprise) I put an autoresponder on my email that I was away, but couldn’t resist filling jewelry orders anyway. It took me weeks to unfurl myself from my habitual ways of being and doing. it was uncomfortable. I noticed that there was empty space there. What do I do now? And there is some pain in feeling that emptiness, noticing the holes we fill by working hard and using social media and compulsively connecting, connecting, connecting… It was painful to see some of the places I hadn’t tended while I was tending other parts of my life.

It’s easy to do what works. It’s easy to feed the thing that is flowing, that makes you feel satisfied because it is giving you some juice. There is nothing wrong with that. Of course we are going to feed the things that are working best in our lives. But having the courage to look squarely in the face of what is hard, to turn toward what is challenging and tend those things too, (however confronting they are) well that’s another thing entirely.

So what are the benefits of stopping then, right?

At yoga recently, the teacher talked about how our greatest strengths can be our greatest weaknesses. He used the example of how he is really friendly and kind, and how this strength gets him really far in life. “Until,” he said, “I really have to fight for something or set a strong boundary. Then it is my greatest weakness.”

I mused on this as I practiced, noticing that my greatest strength in yoga is my flexibilty (like feet behind the ears crazy talk) how I don’t have to be incredibly strong because I can always use my flexibility to pick up the slack. I can get by on my flexibility in almost every pose. Except for the poses where I can’t! and then I get to see where I need to build up my strength.

I think that’s what this break did for me. I got to see where things are out of balance. I got to see the pieces of my life that I lean into because they work, because I am good at them, because I can almost, almost, get by on just those things.

I can even forget that say, being strong is important too. That being healthy is important. That having fun is important. I can forget that inviting friends to dinner and going on adventures with my family is important. But it is. I want all of that too.

I’m adding blogging back into my diet again and I’m going to watch how it feels. I don’t think I’m allergic to it, but everything in moderation, right? I did miss you guys. Thank you for being here. And guest bloggers, bless you! It was so much fun to visit my blog and see your faces and words here. It’s good to be back!

Recently i took a little trip to Hawaii – a vacation where my heart + spirit took a much needed break from long working hours, deadlines, and self-imposed pressure. while i was there i wrote about the kind of joy that finds me only when i slow down enough to see and feel its breath and expanse: the brightness of being alive. it finds me in unexpected moments of calm, when my heart takes refuge from the ever growing to-do list, when my perfectionism gives way to feeling, to release. and when it arrives, the brightness feels deeply spacious and warm, like an intertwining celebration of all things brave in love.

Do you ever notice that when we slow down and pay close attention to our lives, we feel the enormity and the magic of beginnings, endings, and all the small yet meaningful moments in between? we cry when we hear music or read words that touch down into the spaces of our hearts that are a bit undercover, not frequently visited. we get emotional when we consider the distance we’ve traveled with our best girlfriends. we stand in awe when we see and hear stories of dreams coming true. we recognize the tiniest exchanges between us and our partners that leave us feeling loved. and we are deeply touched by the circle of life, stories told, and memories shared.

Although i feel the brightness in my everyday life, I’ll admit that i really felt it while on vacation, when my heart had a little more room and permission to rest and to see. the downtime gave me a good dose of perspective and clarity about all the things i could do to infuse more joy and fun into my life back home. but wouldn’t you know that the minute i returned home, i was back to overwhelm, long working hours, too much computer time, and an unbalanced routine that left me feeling dull and depleted. by day 3 of this i began to panic. is this the life i’ve chosen? you are so blessed, why are you complaining? geez kelly, what is your problem?

And that’s when i sent out an urgent email to a few dear friends asking for help. after admitting defeat and overwhelm, i asked: how do you get out of the house, tend to your creative yearnings, build a business, maintain that business, nurture your relationships, meet your deadlines, and on and on? if you have a secret, please share.

Of course it turns out that nobody had the secret. we’re all just doing the best we can, sometimes juggling it all with confidence + grace, sometimes not. it also turns out that by opening up the conversation, we each had an opportunity to relate, to feel less alone, to admit defeat in other areas of our lives, and even to celebrate what was working in our lives. the simple act of reaching out, asking for help, and hearing their stories of struggle and triumphs was exactly what i needed to take few steps back and adjust.

What i’m learning this week while i navigate these waters is this: that we are 100% allowed to stop – that we won’t be forgotten if we do. that our overwhelm is a whisper worth listening to. that our dreams can absolutely change shape and our everyday lives/balance/routine can change accordingly. that we must speak up about our feelings of defeat/burnout/overwhelm, because we’re not alone. and most importantly, that its our vulnerabilities that connect us and that we can soar, always soar on the brightness of being alive.

You can find the brilliant and soulful Kelly Rae Roberts on her website and blog… The beautiful photo of her above is by Denise Andrade.