Living Inside the Yes

Sometimes the dream finds you before you have the words, the plan, or any idea that you have just said yes.

A Seed Planted in Lahaina

Reflecting on the deadly fires that happened in Hawaii 3 years ago, I'm moved to share what their island gave me and how that gift continues to live on in a way that may just honor them in the smallest of ways, as it unknowingly helped me in the biggest of ways.

More than 20 years ago, while visiting Maui with my family during college, I walked into an art gallery in Lahaina, right by the water, and something in me simply said: Yes.

It wasn't a business plan. I didn't come home and announce that one day I would become an artist and open an island gallery of my own. I didn't make a spreadsheet, which, if you know me now, is perhaps the most surprising part. It was just a thought, quiet and clear, and then life kept moving.

“Driving home from my morning walk at my favorite park this morning and thinking about all those whose lives in hawaii have changed in a moment. And in the days and months and years to follow, uh, tragedy happens and we take pause. And just wanted to share what I find so interesting is the path of my life I’m on now was started from a seed that i planted unknowingly when I was visiting Maui with my family over 20 years ago. I walked into a gallery in Lahaina by the water and was like.

Yes.

I don’t remember what I ate or the details of conversations and laughter, but I remember distinctly having that thought. And now I’m doing it… and that gallery that inspired me is most definitely gone now. So, a not so gentle reminder to hold fast. Keep going. Remember we are one and how quickly change can happen. And what can I do or send or be besides finding joy in the simple fact that I get to spend my afternoon painting, figuring out how to do a voiceover on a Imagine for a time. Imagine those that are gone happy in the next, and those that are left behind having found rebuilding inside and out from what they have lost.” Kelly August 2023

You Have to Dream It First

We were recently watching *James and the Giant Peach*, the children's movie based on Roald Dahl's book, and I kept thinking about one of its ideas: you have to dream something before you can see it. You have to believe before the evidence arrives.

We usually have that backward, don't we? We say, “I'll believe it when I see it.” But nearly everything we bring into the world has to exist somewhere within us first, even if it appears only as a flicker of recognition.

Maybe some part of me saw this life already. Maybe it was waiting in some future timeline or a past one. I can go around and around with that idea, but the simplest truth is this: in Hawaii, I got to see it. Now, on Anna Maria Island, I am living it in a way I never thought possible.

The Artist and the Spreadsheet

At 42, I get to live the life I wanted as an artist. For a long time, I wasn't sure that was realistic. We hear “starving artist” so often that struggle begins to sound like part of the job description.

But I have learned that my creative life does not have to reject the practical side of me. I love painting, color, and making things, but I also love math and spreadsheets. That balance between the left brain and right brain helped me build Cove on Bridge Street in Bradenton Beach, a space where I can create, run a business, and share local art with the people who walk through our doors.

The business acumen helps create the space. The artist fills it with possibility.

Apparently, both were part of the dream.

The Ripple Beyond One Dream

Once you have a space of your own, the yes grows larger. An island gallery is not only a place to show my work. It can also create opportunities for other artists who are still planting their seeds, still imagining what could be, or still needing to see someone else do it before they can believe it for themselves.

That ripple effect has become quite a theme for me. One gallery in Lahaina reached a college student who had no conscious plan. More than two decades later, that seed grew into an art gallery on Anna Maria Island, and now the people who enter Cove may carry some small possibility away with them too.

You plant thousands of seeds. Some grow and some don't. You may not even remember planting them. But every now and then, one quietly becomes the trajectory of your life.

And Now I’m Doing It

“I don’t remember what I ate or the details of conversations and laughter, but I remember distinctly having that thought of YES. And now I’m doing it.”

That is where the idea of yes lives, right? It wasn't a conscious plan, and I wouldn't even have called it manifestation then. Something in me saw a possibility and quietly said yes. Twenty years later, I realize I am dancing inside that yes with so much more awareness and gratitude that I just revel in every day. What a gift.

So hold fast. Keep going. Notice what stops you in your tracks, what makes something inside you answer before your practical mind has caught up.

What seed have you already planted?