There's always enough time 🕒
when we are here, now. | Plus: my "Ins and Outs," 2024 Edition
Here in Arizona, we don’t change our clocks for daylight saving time. Time and our demarcation of it marches on undisturbed, without the hilarious notion that mortals could possibly pull such strings, as though time is something we could manipulate on our whims of preference or convenience.
And yet, our personal sense of time is always shifting it seems. You know this whenever you receive a vague voicemail from a doctor about your test results, or await an email from the hiring manager for a coveted job. You know it if you’ve cared for a sick loved one, a child or a puppy, or planned a huge and emotional event that lasts only one evening…or insert any number of moments that compress or expand our perception of time based on how attentive we are in them.
Over new year’s weekend, I was lucky enough to join a group of women to welcome 2024 from a cozy cabin in the woods of western Maryland. The retreat lasted three days but we all agreed it felt like it had been much longer, and I know that’s because of how deeply we were all able to pay attention while there.
As part of our experience on retreat we journaled on our highs and lows throughout the year, a mirror and a microscope into our struggles and joys. My 2023 Word of the Year was Play, and I learned that play for me is not something grand, raucous or exciting but rather is often in quiet moments of flow and creativity. For me, highs were about developing and immersing myself in relationships and community in Tucson, making a home, moving/taking care of my body, and the little magical moments in between:
Relationships
This year felt like a turning point in building a community where I live. If you’re reading this and you are living someplace new and it feels scary and weird not knowing anyone: it can take a while, but keep at it. You will find your people!
After teaching yoga for 10 years, I’m learning that the learning process happens best in community. The problem was that I struggled to find one for a long time. Eventually I realized I was beating myself up about this goal, when really my desire was to find a place to practice that felt like home to me. One day, I was walking down the street and realized there was a studio two blocks away. I went to a class, where everyone was so warm, funny and inviting. I started teaching there this week and am so excited about it! ☀️
We traveled quite a bit this year. We visited San Diego, St. Maarten, North Carolina, Taos and Santa Fe, spent a month in Big Bear, California, road-tripped through the Pacific Northwest, and I made a few trips to D.C. and NYC, too. We got to visit many friends (and their kiddos) along the way, and excited to keep this a priority into 2024.
Making a home
When Ben and I decided to move in together, we sat down and talked about our must-haves, nice-to-haves and budget, and wrote it all down. We found a house for rent a week later checking every box. It was the first and only place we needed to see. Ben says it was the spreadsheet, I say we manifested it. I think we’re both right.
Within a month of moving in, we created a photo wall together in our dining room featuring some of our favorite solo travels. We each have a bookshelf in the living room. We each have our own office. Each of the dogs now has a portrait, LOL. And we’ve started collecting a piece of art from a local artist in each new place we visit together (this is my favorite so far). I love that we did this when we first moved in, because it set the energy of our home being a shared space. When we threw a house-warming party, friends commented that it felt very “both of us” and I agree.
Health
This year was the first I found myself genuinely less drawn to alcohol. I can count on one hand the times I had two drinks in a day, and I went on several work trips and vacations where I stuck with N/A drinks, honoring my health, sleep and mental wellbeing. The meaningful thing here is that it didn’t feel like deprivation, it just felt better.
I found a strength training studio this year that feels aligned for me and am excited to now have the coaches there in my corner. I find that when I’m doing strength training my entire mood shifts in a positive way, so this has been huge.
I am not really a trail runner, but we went on some pretty rad trail runs in 2023, of which my favorite was through the Hoh Rainforest, where we encountered a bear from a distance. It came into my view as I opened my eyes after meditating by a waterfall…..whoa.
The lows I wrote down seemed to be often about a conflict in my presence, the times I lived in my head or in some future state or distant moment — rather than here and now. I spent more time on my phone than I would have hoped, often doom-scrolling or numbing out. The times I worried (baselessly) that I was losing my independence, friendships, spiritual practices, writing practice. I grew resentful if my day job crept into my morning routine. I worried, “I’ll never be able to afford a house,” and spent eleven thousand hours on Zillow looking at houses in distant places like Staunton, Virginia and Waynesville, North Carolina despite never, in fact, having stepped foot in these places (and loving where I live right now). My lows were when I lived outside of my reality and my perception of time expanded to fill the spaces of those anxieties.
During a delightful closing retreat ritual, we each wrote down our intentions for the year as we assembled a collection of items borrowed from nature. We said a few words, reminded each other we are in it together, and crossed the threshold (a very large stick) into 2024. In the warmth of our circle I forgave myself for the lows, so I could move forward with an open hand, in generosity of my time, resources and attention.
Fast-forward to January 7th on a chilly, gray afternoon back home in Tucson. I found myself sitting with a group of six other women, new friends I made last year through a book coven at a local metaphysical shop, sipping hot cider and poring through magazines, old calendars and greeting cards making vision boards. It is one of those things I had always wanted to do, but never did until that day. This felt significant somehow — like a reminder that it’s never too late to do that thing. That life is short but it can be long, too, depending how you live it. I brought a pile of papers, including an extra Tiny Beautiful Things, (for goodness sake, not the signed copy safely on my bookshelf) because I needed to cut out the words, Write Like a Motherfucker. (Forgive me, Book Gods, if this is a sin, but I did say a sacred thank you.)
By the end, my canvas was adorned with treasured words from an old card from a friend, 10-year-old shreds of paper with single words written as gestures of support from fellow yoga teacher trainees, and various illustrations that speak to the act of being immersed in the moment. And it was so….much…FUN. We felt like teenagers from another era as we snipped, mod-podged and tinkered away until the temperature began to drop and snow eventually began to fall on the desert earth outside the window. It was only for a few minutes, but it was magical. Eventually we looked up, having lost track of time, to realize that over four hours had passed.
My canvas — and the experience of creating it — now hangs in my office and speaks to my word for the year, Presence.
Ins and Outs, 2024 Edition
Out: Screen time, doom scrolling. Telling myself creative works must have a market value. | In: Making things with my hands. I got a pocket-sized notebook for poem-jotting. I’m already up to two for the year! Take more drum classes, take a pottery class. This IG video of a high-temp-a-day blanket has me dreaming about crochet now?? If I must do something with my hands, make it be that I make something new and expand time through my effort.
Out: Taking forever to reach out to a friend to make plans. Having to make expensive dinner reservations. Having to make complicated plans generally. | In: Just…hanging out. A few of Ben’s friends came to stay with us over the holidays and we did not turn on the TV for an entire week. Instead it was semi aimless drives (a la high school), take-out/cooking, and listening to records and spontaneously playing a narrative-based game entirely of our design.
Out: Multi-tasking. | In: Turning off notifications when I’m on a call. Listening to records start-to-finish and not doing anything else while listening.
Out: Over-committing. Resentment. | In: Self-dates. Unstructured alone time.
Out: Over-checking and over-analyzing finances. | In: Learning to manage money in a partnership (weird AF…), loosening my grip, having an open hand.
Out: Getting pushed around or ignored by healthcare providers. Doctors who don’t listen. Marketing tactics from fitness professions that tap into fears and scarcity mindset. | In: Seeking out and finding health care providers and trainers who have the heart of a teacher, who listen to me, and who care and are engaged.
Out: Crushing myself with marketing around new courses and offerings, feeling defeated by social media algorithms and a “lack of growth.” This drained my energy in 2023 and I’m looking forward to stepping back from selling this year. | In: Learning and sharing in community.
Wishing you a happy 2024, and I’ll see you again soon!
With love (and presence),
Kelly
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