Intention Not Direction

I worked my way through high school and college. Most of my early jobs were service oriented. The throughline, which continues to this day, is that I was always deliberate and intentional with where I applied to be hired. It could not be just about the money. It had to be in service to a greater why. I had to have an honest answer to “Why work here?” and it couldn’t be “Because they pay the best”. My time and energy were too valuable to invest otherwise. I had to make money to pay the rent, that was an absolute truth. But I knew I could go about it on my own terms, and I knew the rewards would be bigger than money.

Here are some examples of how that showed up.

ARCATA TUXEDO

This menswear boutique and tuxedo rental shop was located in the Jacoby’s Storehouse, right on the Arcata Plaza. The building was appealing to me because it was historic, and it was community integrated. I wanted to be in that space, I wanted to go to the Plaza every day. I wanted breakfast at Los Bagels around the corner and to get my bulk goods from the co-op, but mostly I wanted that community. I knew that my classmates would pass through there at prom season and that would give me other chances at social connection. And because the Jacoby’s Storehouse was home to other retail shops, restaurants, and mysteries to be explored, I wanted in. I filled out an application in person. And then I followed up over the phone, once a month maybe, until the owner, Carla, finally said “Come on in. I have a spot for you”. Carla introduced me to the inner workings of small business, money management, merchandising, working with vendors, and supporting events. It was my first foray into the wild ride of customer service, navigating expectations for peoples’ big moments, deeply learning that small acts of service, even when ultimately done for a paycheck, have a massive impact on other lives. Fail to have suits ready on time for a wedding party and the emotional consequence ripples outward, affecting expectations and plans. And they ripple inward, affecting nervous systems – theirs and mine. If my intention for why I was doing the work was greater than just a paycheck, then I could show up fully for the service that was needed.

THE JACOBY’S STOREHOUSE

I went on to work at several of the other businesses in the building. Bon Boniere was next door to the tux shop, so I would hop from my shift hemming and steaming rentals, to making milkshakes from small batch ice cream. There were two sister restaurants, plus catering, in the building. I became the hostess for Abruzzi downstairs, Arcata’s fine Italian dining. And I worked catering events and odd jobs for Plaza Grill, the third floor family restaurant that peered down upon the main floor of the building through a central opening. So if I was folding cloth napkins for Plaza Grill, I could also be waving from the mezzanine to Carla down below in Arcata Tuxedo. It was a hustle and bustle and a stitching together of service shifts to make ends meet. The community energy carried me through my first year of college, which was at the time as an English major at Humboldt State University.

RETHINKING RETAIL

I relocated to Portland to take a pause. I planted myself in a quaint community quadrant that was walkable and applied for a retail job at Restoration Hardware. They were familiar. They were founded in Eureka, CA and the original store in Old Town was where my friends and I would daydream through the shop’s glimpses of homes we might one day have. I stood on my feet and pointed people to drawer pulls and books about bungalow style. I was happy for them that they were outfitting their dream homes. Meanwhile I bought bagels, plain and dry, for lunch. They were only forty cents. I walked up the trendy, highly shoppable avenue and found another retail job at a small boutique called Girlfriends. The boutique was windowed on two full sides, flanked by leafy oaks, with a coffee shop, a bakery, an imports store, and a classic toy store as neighbors. I walked through the doors of Girlfriends and felt the natural light brighten my spirit. I handed the owner my resume and she quickly glanced at it, rolled it into a tube, and then sat me down for a chat. She offered me $10 an hour, which was better than my job up the avenue hawking bougie hardware. I could work on this delightful community corner at Girlfriends and go back to school to get some kind of degree. I could never have afforded the items in the boutique if I didn’t get a substantial employee discount, but I loved how the owner, Susan, carefully curated the space. She was in love with the experience of welcoming in old friends, and friends she hadn’t met yet. She created a space to be together. She introduced me to country music and to Sam Cooke and Pink Martini. She helped show people how beautiful they are, she showed me that service could be colorful and playful, and that a sparkly pink t-shirt could be an opportunity to connect meaningfully with another human.

GRATUITY

I’m a big believer that everyone should spend time in the service industry where the work is happening in the moment and tips are earned. It’s such a relevant practice of non-attachment, of living without expectation. Because even if you deliver prompt, friendly service, go above and beyond, and connect on an honest, authentic level with the chaps on the other side of the bar, they might still very well stiff you when it comes time to cash out. So do it for more than the paycheck. Do it for more than the tips. Do it for the conversation, for the practice of being present and listening, for the connection with humans you might not otherwise meet. Do it for the chance to work with food, to de-mystify where food comes from and how it’s prepared and served. Do it for the chance to develop portable, transferable life skills. Do it for the friendships you’ll make over post-shift downloads about the regulars, the anomalies, and the pub softball game on Sunday.

I chose to work for McMenamins for the flexibility around my school schedule, and for their reputation at the time as a locally-sourced, arts-focused chain of brewpubs and theater venues. McMenamins created community living rooms, and offered employees the opportunity to lean into curiosity, train in all of the restaurant’s roles, and grow with the company. I swapped out kegs, shook up pink Cosmos, wanked fries (technical term), worked the grill, and served tables. Food service was an embodied practice at being present, keeping that tray aloft, balanced with cajun tots, pitchers of Hammerhead, and too many ramekins of ranch dressing, while being shouted down by three other tables for refills of RC Cola. The tips were shared. Each role in the restaurant equally vital in meeting expectations, and maximizing moments. Shared gratuity and shared gratitude led to friends for life. And the opportunity to lean in and grow led to me serving as an assistant manager for one of their downtown pubs, and then as an events manager for one of their venues. It was there where I would continue the practices of relationship management, helping create and deliver upon big moments, time and team management, and shared gratuity. And it was there too where I would discover that integrity meant sometimes setting boundaries, and even walking away in order to reset intentions when the job situation was no longer in service to this one luscious life of mine.

Present day Kelli is pretty similar to 1994 Kelli. Still climbing trees. Still in overalls. And still intentional with how I shine this little light of mine. Photo by my big sister.

Community Resourced

Here’s the part with the cover letter highlights, the background information, the curated content of my personal story. The education, work history, projects and passions that have been gathered into my Mary Poppins’ magical handbag – a wealth of resources that are close at hand, and available for sharing.

I graduated from Portland State University with a BA in International Studies. My focus was on Latin America. If you had asked me at the time why I chose that field I would have replied, “To connect with migrant worker communities, and be an advocate for policy change for a healthier, more sustainable world.” I had no job in mind. I didn’t know what was even possible. I knew I loved people, that I was curious about the capacity of community, and that I wanted to be fluent in Spanish so that I could be a better communicator, and thereby be able to provide better support, however that showed up. I also knew that if given the opportunity, I would love to travel to Cuba, which at the time, was still under heavy travel restrictions. When I learned that a summer study abroad program would be opening up two semesters after my anticipated graduation, I altered my schedule. I applied for and was accepted into the 2002 summer program offered through Universidad de la Habana. I completed my studies in Cuba, despite the dialect far out-pacing my school-taught Spanish.

To this day I am not fluent in Spanish, but I am almost fluent in Spanish. In 2019 I took a road trip through Patagonia with a dear friend, and we learned quite quickly that my almost-fluentness was better than remembered, and served us beautifully when seeking out unlikely gasolina in remote pueblos, or finding a fantastic fishing spot from a fly shop proprietor, or explaining to airport security why I had a sheep skull in my luggage. The knowledge we gather never fully goes away, but when called upon it can be tapped into, and strengthened through practice.

Now I move through life with a pervasive sense of gratitude, in awe of the unlikely phenomenon that I’m experiencing with you right now – sole reader – as we share space in some way on this blip in the human era. I draw resource from all of the teachers I have had, some intentional, some accidental. I draw resource from the relationships I’ve formed, in all their nuances and circumstances. I draw resource from community the way a lamp draws electricity from a power source, and when I practice in all those resources, I shine.

A pause along the long, dusty, and iconic Ruta 40 in Patagonia. Photo by John Waller / Uncage the Soul Productions.

Links and Rabbit Holes

This is a limited portfolio of sorts. Some sites, stories, and projects are simply no longer published and accessible. And I have only shared here examples of the types of activities I love the most.

Outdoor Project Stories

Fall: In love with no place in particular - An early autumn roadtrip adventure to Steens Mountain in SE Oregon.

Fishing With Frank - A personal narrative in support of legislation for the Frank and Jeanne Moore Wild Steelhead Sanctuary, which successfully now protects 100,000 acres in the Steamboat Creek Watershed.

Growing Up Inside A Douglas Fir - Summer camping plans with my kids included ascending into the forest canopy with Expedition Old Growth for the climb of a lifetime.

Asleep In The Arms Of Ancients - A birthday celebration and tree top slumber party in the heart of one of the most breathtaking and ecologically-immersive regions in the Pacific Northwest, Opal Creek Wilderness.

Travel Oregon

Meet The Neighbors - This was a creative campaign in partnership with Uncage the Soul Productions to promote lesser visited towns in the Mt. Hood and Columbia Gorge region.

Growing Up Inside A Douglas Fir - This story was originally published on Outdoor Project, and cross-published on Travel Oregon and other travel-oriented websites.

CHASING TOTALITY

A storytelling project for Oregon Public Broadcasting with Uncage the Soul Productions to capture Totality, the total eclipse that moved across Oregon in 2017. I was the backcountry camp manager for our production team for six nights below Three Fingered Jack in Central Oregon, and provided live social media content during the eclipse event. Watch the video here.

KATHMANDU KIDS

2018 - I built a website and created a successful fundraiser along with Uncage the Soul Productions for Himalaya Environmental & Cultural Awareness Center, a children's home in Kathmandu, Nepal. We successfully raised over a year’s worth of tuition and board for 13 orphaned children, and sent care packages for each child with school supplies and personal gifts from an elementary school in Scappoose, Oregon. The website is no longer active. The GoFund Me Campaign is still published.

Listen To Your Mother

2014 Live Storytelling Show at The Alberta Rose Theatre. Co-Director, Producer, Storyteller - “Underneath, we’re all naked.”

Press Release for 2015 Show

2015 Live Storytelling Show at The Alberta Rose Theatre. Co-Director, Producer, Storyteller - “Stay.”

Urbanmamas Podcast

Urbanmamas is no longer active and has since released the domain. The six podcast episodes are no longer available. Original press release here. A smattering of old social media posts are still out there.

Smoky sunrise silhouette during the 2017 eclipse near Three Fingered Jack. Fires were burning on both sides of us on Mount Jefferson, and near Sisters, Oregon. Photo by John Waller, Uncage the Soul.

Always Searching For The Right Words

It’s more than writing, but it didn’t start out that way. It began with a six year old’s appreciation of how words were like puzzle pieces to a picture that could be created, how they could sound like a spell when spoken, or could become a song when put to melody. This first grade poetry was penciled out in a baby blue spiral notebook:

Litter litter litter, why does everyone litter.

Even baseball hitters spitter their litter!

Oh why does everyone litter litter litter.

Through time, through experience, through the myriad ways in which I’ve used words to craft a story, sell a product, change a mindset, and make myself chuckle, I’ve realized that the scope of the puzzle that can be created through intentional word-searching is bigger than comprehension, and far more powerful.

Words are seeds. What am I planting?

Words are weeds. What am I choking?

Words are medicine. What am I healing?

The process of writing is a neurological and spiritual intersection, where the right now meets with all that came before me, and the possibility of all that has yet to arrive. I am like the fruiting body of a mushroom, made visible only because of the vast, interweaving mycelium that brought me here, the living and ancient network of which I am a part. The words I choose are the spores I send to the air. And so I choose them with care, everyday and everywhere.

A clutch of Cortinareus Violaceus on the porch at Jawbone Flats in the Opal Creek Wilderness in fall 2019.

This One Luscious Life

I didn’t know how to use my college degree to find a job. But I figured out how to follow an intention to make my living by being my best self.

START ME UP

Post college, and after leaving McMenamins, I went to work as a smiling-faced slinger of snacks at Trader Joes in Beaverton, Oregon. I was happily employed with this people-centric company when I had my first child. My intention to begin this child’s one luscious life through healthy practices meant that I just said no to disposables. (I said an even bigger to no to using the term “sposies”, which still makes me cringe.) We were a cloth diaper family. Then I saw a new product that intrigued me. They were a hybrid diaper, a colorful cloth outer with a fully compostable, and flushable (what?!) inner. And they worked really beautifully on my baby’s bum. The company was called gDiapers, and I looked them up. They were local! Get outta town, they were IN town. I commenced to writing an email, an absolute love letter, to their general mailbox. It was a work of art, that email. The president and co-founder, Kim Graham-Nye, invited me into their office in NW Portland, just two blocks away from my first studio apartment in the city. The Graham-Nyes were about to be interviewed for The Today Show. They were a teeny tiny family company that was about to go big. The HQ was also the Graham-Nyes’ home, and there was onsite childcare for the small staff’s families. Kim and her husband, Jason, who was the CEO, invited me to work for gDiapers as their Customer Service Manager. And what happened after my enthusiastic acceptance was an eight year whirlwind that changed the course of my life.

For anyone who has not worked in a start up, imagine an empty board game. The earlier you arrive in the creation of a start up, the more empty is the game. Which means the few people tasked with creating the game — the first employees — are figuring out everything from what the game looks like, who the players are and what they do, and most importantly, what’s the point of it all? And how does that point get communicated to others so that they care and want to play, too? I could write an entire book on that eight year adventure, but for the purpose of what is failing to be an abbreviated account of my work history, here are the highlights of lessons learned, opportunities leaned into, and teachers to whom I’m forever grateful:

• I was hired to interact with customers, who were mostly parents and grandparents of brand new babies, just like I was. We were all very tired.

• I worked alongside a small but mighty creative marketing team, who welcomed my curiosity. They shared their knowledge in their areas of expertise: traditional marketing tactics, digital advertising and SEO, email marketing, and grassroots, community programs.

• I offered suggestions to the marketing team and to leadership that I’d gleaned from my interactions with customers. There were ways we could better communicate with them, solve problems before they happened, and leverage their passion in order to reach other parents.

• I began to write website content, and then took on the emails too. As Facebook came online I grabbed the reigns, ultimately cultivating a community so strong it would be recognized later as exemplary in Social Media for Dummies and other articles and case studies. Facebook’s frenemies, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest, came online and I put those to use to connect with and inspire other parents. As mommy and daddy bloggers owned the internet, I made friends with them, I even became one of them. And I learned how to form authentic partnerships so that our respective platforms could go farther, together.

• Always a Team Spirit Commissioner at heart, I organized the company’s team-building activities, like the g Olympics, coordinated our staff off-site retreats, and planned and ran our on-site events. I also leaned into my love for photography and began to capture photo content for the company, as well as create cheeky culture videos for the company’s YouTube channel.

• gDiapers was the first CPG (consumer packaged good) to receive B Corp certification. This is where I learned about and fell in love with B Corps, understanding what it means to use business as a force for good, and why we desperately need it. I learned about commercial production, and the upstream and downstream impacts that are unavoidable, but that can be sustainably softened through thoughtful planning, striving to create relevant products that are Cradle to Cradle, not designed to extract and be discarded.

• From Customer Service Manager to Communications Director, I was building out a toolkit in thanks to so many truly remarkable teachers, and building relationships with game-changers and innovators.

LOVE BIGGER, REACH FARTHER

I ended my time with gDiapers in December 2013, and I began the new year in a role that had been custom created for yours truly at a marketing communications agency called Koopman Ostbo. They hired me as the Social Media Strategist for their clients, and I learned a great deal in a short amount of time, most importantly of which was this: I was capable of more. I wanted to do more for these clients, and I couldn’t do that within a narrow role designed only for the socials. So I toyed with the idea of self employment. I reached out to the remarkable teachers, game-changers, and innovators I had grown to know through the years and asked “Should I do this? Could small businesses use someone like me to prioritize their communications, and then put them into action?” I was met with YES. The first YES came from Tracy Puhl, CEO of GladRags, who would go on to be my longest running client in my newly formed marketing business, Mamore Communications. My tag line was Love Bigger, Reach Farther. That meant taking my tendency to always search for the right words, and applying it on behalf of brands and organizations who were using business as a force for good.

From 2014 until 2021, Mamore Communications offered mindful and creative communications solutions. I designed everything from one-off promotional campaigns and long-term ambassador programs, to monthly email newsletters and cornerstone website content. I produced photoshoots, created and upheld brand standards, and provided clients with monthly analytics and the path forward. I grew online communities from the hundreds to the hundreds of thousands. I created connections for clients with other brands, nonprofits, and collaboration opportunities. I organized volunteer outings with clients, cleaning up Portland’s parks and sourcing supplies for houseless neighbors.

If there was a name to the proverbial board game it might have been Reciprocity. The players were myself, my family, and my community, and the point of it all being this: We have just this one luscious life. Let’s show up for it by being our best selves, in service to life, right now.

IN CUSTOMER SERVICE TO HUMANITY

The global pandemic shut down a great deal of small businesses. Mine was kept afloat for a time by GladRags, who, thanks to the economical and reusable nature of their much-needed products, experienced a surge in demand, as well as my client, GoCamp, who offered people self-contained getaways with COVID-safe camper van rentals. And then GoCamp got bigger and needed a bigger team. And GladRags was well-equipped to carry on without my services, so I accepted a full time role with GoCamp as Director of CX (Customer Experience). In that role I recruited and hired a fully remote team, dedicated to connecting authentically and communicating clearly with one another and with our greater community of customers. I helped my team build their own toolkits. I demonstrated and shared a personal philosophy on being in customer service to humanity. How an intentional customer experience can be a force for good within a system that wasn’t built to be ethical. Customer experience is the whole package, not just the single transaction at the cart. It’s the words and photos that got them there and the why behind the game, it’s seeing themselves as players who are relevant, represented, and respected, not just as dollar signs. It’s the flow of the website, the thoughtfulness of the FAQs, the genuine About Us story, the follow up emails, the social media representation, and the impact of the game on the players, both current and future.

I was recently asked, “You know you do the work of the devil, don’t you?” Marketers are the liars, the snake oil salespeople, and the villainous thieves of capitalism. I’m no angel. But when marketers stand by a philosophy of being in customer service to humanity, they are instead this: The truthtellers, the protectors of people, the diverters of destructive, extractive practices, and the resourced creators working toward a circular economy, toward sustainability, toward improved human and environmental health.

Customer service and mindful marketing is where the revolution for kindness within capitalism can take root. The real buying power is in our capacity to see each other with eyes wide open, to hear each other with egos shut down, and to navigate the world around us without ultimately trying to make a sale. Instead, to ultimately make the most of this very moment. Because how we spend our moments is how we spend our lives, and success isn't in the future, it's right now, always has been.

Setting a scene for client Life inTents, and setting my own intention to continue cultivating a life lived in the present moment, in service to life itself.