An Inspired Life: An Interview with Kelly Gross
By Kathryn Shively Meier
Every single woman has experienced it: that one rouge-cheeked, florally-attired relative who takes you meaningfully aside to advise, “You know, you could get a man, if…” you’d just learn to keep your mouth shut. If you weren’t so opinionated. Or for Kelly Gross, a twice alumna of the University of Virginia (Double Hoo) and current U.Va. piano instructor, “if you weren’t such a feminist.” For those who haven’t been tormented about their unmarriageable qualities, lack of career direction becomes fodder for prescriptive family members. If you’d just focus, you could become a successful businesswoman, lawyer, baker, candlestick maker. But is life really only as rich as finding that significant other or the perfect job? Consider becoming inspired about setting a different type of life goal—one that can satisfy anyone from the fresh college graduate, with nary a career clue, to the 60-year-old, long-married retiree. These goals do not require a handsome knight to gallop onto the scene or a higher degree to unlock the ivory tower. They are completely yours to envision, yours to cultivate, and yours to start enjoying the effects of…as early as tomorrow. We sat down with Kelly Gross, inventor of the “yearly project.”
In January 2006, at the ripe age of 28, Gross made a decision. She was a satisfied single and actually had her dream job—teaching piano. “On a lark,” says Gross, she decided to spend a year exploring new recipes and trying fresh fruits, vegetables, and products from the farmer’s market (in pursuit of an answer to the burning question, “What the hell does one do with fennel?”). In short, she began what became known as her “culinary year.” Once a week she would gather ingredients for a new cooking extravaganza and snap a photo to document each scrumptious meal, prepared solo or with friends. She also began to see a cooking “project” as a way to strengthen ties with her existing friends and meet new ones. She already had three friends who were chefs, and as she started to tell people what she was planning, others wanted to play a part in her journey. The following year would become the “repertoire year,” during which Gross systematically memorized piano pieces, freeing herself from the written page to truly connect with the music. That year had to be cut short, but she remembers each painstakingly memorized note to this day. Currently, she is tackling the challenging but seductive language she had always longed to know—Russian. Up next? Photography. She is already casting nets to find tutors, a dark room, and a camera that is up to the task.
“On a lark” hardly describes the incredible journey that has led Gross to become the creative self-motivator she is at age 30. In fall of 2000, midway through completing her masters in musicology at U.Va, Gross contracted Lyme disease through the bite of an infected deer tick. Lyme disease generally progresses in three basic phases: 1. a localized rash, often in the form of a bull’s eye, 2. dissemination, characterized by problems with the heart and nervous system (sometimes including palsies and meningitis), and 3. later stages, which involve motor and sensory nerve damage, brain inflammation, and arthritis. If the early rash goes unnoticed, Lyme can be exceptionally difficult to diagnose, as in Gross’ case.
A year after being bitten, still in the dark as to why her body was deteriorating, Gross was feeling weakened, stifled, and limited. Her physical pain and emotional distress began to converge on the stuff lying around her house. Suddenly, she wanted to purge her house, and unloading on Goodwill became a consuming personal goal. And so it began. She started to set small, confined goals that she could manage. Next month it was drinking water—because she hadn’t been. With Lyme sapping her energy, “one month at a time became as far ahead as I could ever look. Time is very strange when you’re sick.”
Gross was finally diagnosed at 24, and the following year she heroically picked back up her masters work. By August 2005, thanks to the help of Dragon Speak dictation software getting her through five weeks of comprehensive exams, she was standing at the brink of a new career, the career she had always wanted, and could potentially have for the rest of her life. She likens the feeling to a threshold, not unlike the threshold of marriage. “I saw the immensity of time stretching out before me. A lot of women go through this when they start their first real job that they know they’ll be in for a long time.” It was exciting, but potentially static. A flat but welcoming horizon.
Gross had long been ruminating upon the fact that her former monthly goal setting could have broader implications in her life. She also was well acquainted with the unpredictability of her disease and the uncertainty of what she could accomplish in a day, a week, a year. It was then that she started thinking about taking a year to focus on eating local and fresh and cooking outside of her comfort zone. On her 28th birthday in January 2006, she stepped into the culinary world she had drawn in penciled lines.
Looking back at her first yearly project, Gross says the effort was fairly minimal and the rewards exceedingly generous. Beginning a yearly project for yourself is quite simple.
Step 1: Choose your passion
Gross has found the elusive remedy to the “I’ve always wanted to try…” copout. She chooses her year’s project based on whatever she has the burning desire to do. In the case of the current year, she chose the Russian language because she wants to understand the Russian mind—to give herself the tools to understand the country’s arts and literature from the inside out.
Step 2: Assemble a supporting cast
Perhaps the most rewarding part of Gross’ projects is that as she make inquires of her friends, “people come out of the woodwork with unknown and bizarre talents. It strengthens your connections with friends and helps you meet new people.” Tell your friends what you are planning and ask how they can contribute or support you, whether it means offering a recipe, donating those old Russian textbooks from college, or lending use of a dark room.
Step 3: Determine your intensity
Your project can accommodate any year of your life, whether your free time is abundant or strictly limited, and in Gross’ case whether or not your health is impaired. Gross’ cooking year required minimal money and only one new experience per week. However, her Russian year has been significantly more demanding. “With Russian, I’ve had to fight like a bulldog, but I’m not stopping. I’m determined that this is going to work.” Finding a tutor, acquiring books, and the sheer hours spent practicing have been among her challenges.
Step 4: Execute
The fun part! “This is quite liberating,” says Gross. As women, “we’re supposed to be the beauty trapped in a hamster wheel. You have to keep up with money, makeup, planning for marriage and kids. These projects are not a personal makeover. They are just about, what do I want to do with my time?”
Step 5: Celebrate your accomplishments and reflect
For Gross, taking photos of her exquisite meals reminded her of the joy her culinary year engendered. The pieces of music she still plays by memory also fill her with a sense of accomplishment. “When I have more money, I’d love to end with a big bang, like traveling to a new country.”
Gross’ journey through her twenties has been unusually trying, yet she has found a way to be content without looking to society’s norms for a happy life. “I see myself doing this for the rest of my life. Period. I see myself at 62 trying gardening.” Gross believes that “when you’re attracted to something, there is usually something much deeper there.” Indeed, from being around Gross it is clear that something amazing happens when you allow yourself to discover why you have particular interests and then set goals according to those personal desires. You become more whole as an individual and more in balance with those around you. For Gross, she is able to cope with heartbreaking physical limitations by expanding her internal universe. She reflects, “In a way, I’m exploring the world, literally, one project at a time.” But it’s not just any world, it is the world Gross has longed to know, often surprising and immensely gratifying.
Kathryn Shively Meier is a graduate student in U.S. history at the University of Virginia, poet, and Online and Submissions Editor for Iris Magazine. She also harbors secret dreams of becoming a chocolatier. She and her talented husband live in Charlottesville, VA, and hike the Blue Ridge Mountains whenever they get the chance.
If you or someone you know has led an inspired life, submit a personal essay or article idea to Iris Online here.
