Strong Women Of St John - Kim Templeton

By Crystal Bray

Kim Tempelton single-handedly saved my fingernails. While that may seem like a small thing, what with all the wars and conflicts looming large in our global consciousness, it was no mean feat, to be sure, and, in its way, is worthy of commendation. Since I could remember, my nails were, for all intents and purposes, nonexistent. I gnawed at them constantly and largely unconsciously, leaving nothing behind to even attempt the most meager of back scratches. Yes, I knew it was a disgusting habit. Yes, I had tried to quit before. I had tried everything (even that yucky gunk you paint on in the hopes that it will repulse you enough to realize and cease what you’re doing. It was gross but it didn’t stop me). Nothing worked permanently. I resigned myself to a life lived with unpainted stubs gracing the ends of my hands. Until I met Kim. As a manicurist, it’s her job to notice people’s hands (and feet), and she glimpsed my stubby nubs right away, and, if I remember correctly, may have even gasped audibly as I attempted to conceal the wreckage behind my back. Recovering, she straightened up, fixed me with a piercing gaze from her baby blue eyes, and stated boldly, “I’m going to break you of that habit.”  While I appreciated the confidence with which her declaration was uttered, I remained skeptical. But Kim was right; she did save my nails. She made it her personal mission to break me of my nasty habit. She succeeded where many others had failed, perhaps, because I really didn’t want to let her down. She had such faith in me that I would have felt like a real jerk if I hadn’t come through. That was more than two years ago, and I’ve had fingernails ever since. To me, this little tale illustrates two very important aspects of Kim’s personality: first, that she is a really great manicurist; she loves what she does and it shows in her loyal list of clientele, who come to her for a great manicure but also for the personal attention that Kim gives to each of her appointments. Second, that Kim is, ultimately, a confident and strong woman who knows her own strengths and believes in herself. Although she’s the first to admit that she’s lost her way and even her sense of self on her journey through this life, she has emerged on the other side, reinventing herself at a time in life when many women are settling into the notion that “this is just the way I am, and the way my life is.”
Born in San Diego in 1957, her father’s job as a traveling salesman necessitated the family’s frequent relocations. “I never really had any roots growing up,” Kim admits as she arranges herself in a chair to begin our conversation. A childhood spent with neither a real home nor a steady group of friends makes Kim’s love of St. John all the deeper, for she readily admits that this is the only true home she’s ever known. When Kim was thirteen, her parents underwent a rather nasty divorce. Her father moved to Newport Beach, and Kim and her older brother bounced back and forth between households for many years. “My brother and I basically ended up raising ourselves because my mother worked all the time and my father traveled. I would go back and forth pretty much every seven months to live with whoever felt it was most convenient at the time.” It was a lonely upbringing, but one that fostered in the young woman a sense of self-sufficiency that has marked the rest of her life. Starting high school in Newport Beach, she found it difficult to fit in with the kids who drove Porsches to school and wore designer clothes every day. “I went to my counselor and asked how I could get out of there the fastest,” she laughs, “I ended up taking seven classes a day as well as going to summer and night school, and I was the first and only student in the history of the school to graduate in two and a half years.”
She graduated at 16 and, to avoid another round of being shipped back to San Diego to start her life anew with her mother, Kim accepted an offer of marriage from her boyfriend. The relationship was more of an attempt to escape than anything, and, after two and a half years of marriage, Kim realized that “I was holding down two jobs to support us and I’d even bought a house, but he couldn’t even hold down the most menial job and never looked like he was going to.” At 19, she left, filing for divorce, and returning to Newport Beach, where she was introduced to a man named Larry. The pair hit it off, and were best friends for three years before embarking on a relationship. By 1982 they were married and had a child, a son, together. Kim was very happy, for a time, with her newfound stable life, an existence which she’d never previously experienced. “Larry had a good job and was very stable, and we really got along well,” Kim says, before confessing, “I always say that I married three times: the first out of stupidity, the second for security, and the third for love.” Kim and Larry eventually divorced, but continued to maintain a strong relationship for the sake of their son. Kim was, again, on her own once more at 27. She found work at a beauty salon in Newport Beach, run by Kelly Tempelton. Immediately, the two had a strong connection, and they eventually ended up dating. Kim was head-over-heels for the first time in her life. She felt that Kelly had all the qualities she sought to possess and she idolized his adventurous spirit.
She and Kelly worked and played together, and it seemed to be a perfect match. They were both driven, hard workers who loved their jobs. But both also felt increasingly chafed by the atmosphere of California living. Working twelve-hour days and getting beyond burned out with the Newport Beach life (“it’s chock full of beautiful, fake people who are always dressed to impress”), she and Kelly accepted an offer to fly to St. John for a much-needed vacation. It was 1989. At the time, Kim’s son had informed her that he wished to live with his father. “I’d always been the one who had him on the weekdays, the one who made him do his homework and chores,” she says, “and his weekends with his dad were like Disneyland.” Kim acquiesced and her son moved back with Larry, giving her some unexpected freedom in her own life. They arrived on St. John on the two o’clock ferry, and, by three, were trying to figure out a way to stay here. “The next day, we decided to get married,” Kim says, laughing at relating the utter spontaneity of it all, so unlike her typical modus operandi. “It’s funny, because I’d never been a thrill-seeking type of person who flies with the breeze. I’d always been very conservative and checked all the boxes,” she concedes, “but I was just blown away by this place and really got swept up in it all. It suited me and I didn’t realize how much I needed it.”
They were married aboard Camrita (a craft that was a Cruz Bay staple) and returned to Newport Beach with the news that they had decided to sell their possessions and move to St. John. Their friends thought they were crazy, a sentiment which was only intensified when hurricane Hugo ripped through the island and Kim and Kelly still refused to change their plans. “We just figured that we could come down and help people out, since we’d had such a strong connection to the people we’d met here on vacation,” she says. “I wasn’t afraid to come here and I knew that I wanted to do something different. I felt I’d always lived such a secure, rigid life, where I always did what I thought I should and everything had to be planned out. I wanted to break out of that. Kelly was the love of my life and I would have followed him to the moon.” They arrived six weeks after the storm, and were happy to see that everything was pretty much back to normal.
Although Kim had intended to take a respite from manicuring for a time, she found an unanticipated need on-island for the services she was well-trained to provide, and she was convinced by a friend to begin doing nails in her salon two days a week. By her third week on-island, she was working full-time at the salon.
Everything seemed to be falling into place, but Kim still readily admits to having moments of intense doubt about her life-changing decision. “I’ll never forget the two of us sitting on the floor in the middle of our temporary apartment, surrounded by boxes, both bawling our eyes out and saying ‘what have we done.’ We just felt like fish out of water in this whole island life. It was so foreign for us. I missed my son and my family. I would talk to my son and he was happy; he was racing motocross and winning national championships. It was just a reality check that I had really walked away and I wondered if I could get through it.” One of the greatest aspects of Kim’s personality is her ability to be surprisingly candid about her own vulnerability. We’ve had some very deep conversations over the years, during which she’s really laid some heavy things on the table, tears streaming down her face, but somehow seeming cleansed by the experience of unburdening herself with words.
Eventually, of course, Kim mastered her fear and doubts, learned to slow down a bit, and began to enjoy her island life. She amassed a steady clientele at her friend’s Cruz Bay salon, but she found that ultimately she wanted her own place. She remembered a little space she’d seen her first week on-island, which she’d always thought would be great for a small salon. So she got a lease, christened it “Pampered Pause,” and realized her dream of opening her very own nail salon in paradise on August 15th of 1991. Pampered Pause was and is a small and intimate space, an ideal environment for what both she and her clients desired in a nail salon. “Everyone really wants to be able to talk about their lives,” Kim asserts, “and I feel very fortunate that I have eight to ten women a day who come in from their busy lives feeling stressed out and disheveled, and, by the time they stand up to leave, they feel so much better.” She’s happy to be involved in a “feel-good industry,” and still insists that her job “is a joy,” going on to explain that, “I never have thought of this as my job. If I ever have trouble getting motivated, I just look at my appointment book and see who I get to talk to that day.”
When I ask Kim what she believes makes her a strong woman on St. John, she refuses to take credit for herself. “I feel that I’m a strong woman because I get to spend my days with strong women [and they] have helped to make me what I am today,” she says. “Call them what you want: clients, friends, or family, they all rallied together in my time of need.” A few years ago, Kim began to truly appreciate the community that she had made her home. In St. John, she was more than just a number, she was a person about whom people cared deeply. Kim is still awestruck by the outpouring of generosity she received during what she calls “The hardest three years of my life.”
It was because of this overwhelming support that Kim finally discovered the importance and necessity of being able to accept help from others. It was a lesson that, for her, was a long time coming. “I always prided myself on the fact that I could take care of myself,” she says, “but, the bottom line is that everyone needs other family and friends. We can’t do it all alone.” The seeds of this philosophical shift were planted in 2000, when she went through the heartbreaking process of getting her husband treatment for alcoholism, followed by treatment for the serious health problems he had incurred. “We got through that,” she says succinctly, glossing over many years’ pain with characteristic stoicism, before admitting, “I think the hardest thing that I’ve dealt with was hearing him say that he wanted to leave St. John.” Abruptly, Kelly decided that he wished to return to California to be closer to his biological relations. Kim was devastated and torn about his pronouncement. She was still madly in love with him, but knew that she must let him go. She also knew she could not follow. “Apart from the fact that we had a lot of financial issues that I really didn’t see how I could handle unless I stayed here and continued to work, mainly, it was so painful because I just couldn’t imagine leaving. I wasn’t ready,” she says, smiling a little even as her voice shakes with the memory. “It’s funny, because I came here in the first place largely because of him, but when he said he wanted to leave, I knew I couldn’t follow. This is my home.” She takes a deep breath and composes herself before adding, “I found the strength to let him go.”
Kelly’s abrupt departure from her life was followed much too closely by her mother’s stroke, necessitating Kim’s return to California to act as caretaker. Four months later, she held her mother’s hand as she died. She was devastated and returned to St. John not knowing how she would get by emotionally or financially. What happened was that St. John was there for Kim. “I owed everybody when I came back,” she recalls, shaking her head, “but my friends, my clients, my strong St. John women, they paid my bills for me while I was gone. People paid my rent for me, my utility bills…. It was unbelievable. Everybody in this community just took care of me,” she says, still in awe of the staggering generosity of her St. John family, which renewed her resolve to remain. “I’m so glad that I didn’t try to pick up the pieces of my life for Kelly and leave St. John, because it wasn’t right. I knew I couldn’t leave just for him, although, before, I know I would have. I guess that’s a marker. In the two years that he’s been gone and we’ve gotten divorced, I feel that I’ve become strong and learned to take care of things for myself. I’ve also learned that it’s important to be able to lean on people and to accept their help if they really want to help you.” These lessons, easily stated now, were two of the hardest for Kim to learn and apply in her own life: belief in her own inner strength and the ability to reach out to others.
These days, Kim is still to be found at Pampered Pause, doing nails (she even won the Daily News’ Best Nails in the VI two years running!), listening, and even opening up herself to share with her loyal clientele. In an ironic twist of fate, her current roommate is none other than her ex-husband, Larry, whom she invited to come down after he went through a rough time of his own, happy that she could help someone else in their time of need. How many women could live harmoniously (and platonically) with their ex-husband? Today, Larry and Kim are a great team, and Larry has also been fully embraced by the St. John community. Kim couldn’t be happier to see him through his life’s rough patch.
The Kim sitting before me today looks more contented and peaceful than she has in years. Although she is often critical of her appearance, today, as always, she looks perfectly put together in a bright outfit and cute shoes, her long, blond hair just so. She notices the changes in herself too, and is glad for them. “I feel that, after three tough years, I finally have my business back on track. I’m no longer crying every day,” she says, candidly, adding, “I now am looking toward a future that’s positive and I’m trying to be grateful for every day that I’m here in St. John, and that I have the family that I have here. I know I never would have made it through if it weren’t for them. I am happy again,” she says, still slightly shocked to realize she means it. Since Kim’s business is built around her personality, it’s good to see her feeling better, and her clients can attest to the positive change.
Kim has lived on St. John for 19 years now, the longest she’s lived anywhere, and it is here that she’s seen the best and worst moments of her life unfold. “Now, at fifty years old, which is a big turning point in a woman’s life, I think, ‘Ok, what’s next?’ My answer to myself is: I just want to be happy and healthy.” Kim has altered her deeply ingrained sense of responsibility enough to realize that it also must include the ability to respond to life’s unforeseeable changes. To evoke the sagacious sentiments of Sir Paul and Mr. Lennon, she gets by with a little help from her friends. And Kim Tempelton knows that her life on St. John is as good as it gets, hands down.