My word for 2016 is KINDNESS. If I’ve called out this words as a theme for my year before, I’m doing it again. No matter what. Hope you’ll join me.
Merry Christmas, belated Chanukah wishes, and blessings of every other kind to all of you kind people.
xo
Sunrise, Sunset: 52 Weeks Of Awe & Gratitude By Kim Weiss I received a free copy of Sunrise, Sunset for my honest opinion.
But first… our moment(s) of zen. Take a deep breath and enjoy the show!
MIAMI HERALD – one year ago!
October 26, 2014
Author interview: Kim Weiss on ‘Sunrise Sunset’
Local author’s book pairs inspirational quotes with gorgeous photos.
Sunrise, Sunset: 52 Weeks of Awe & Gratitude. Kim Weiss. Health Communications. $10.95 in paper.
Sunrise, Sunset: 52 Weeks of Awe & Gratitude. Kim Weiss. Health Communications. $10.95 in paper.
By Connie Ogle cogle@MiamiHerald.com
Gratitude is popular these days. Scroll through your Facebook feed, and chances are you’ll see some friend listing things for which they’re grateful (family, friends and chocolate tend to rank high on many lists).
“Gratitude is a hot topic,” says Kim Weiss, director of public relations for local publisher Health Communications, which specializes in self-help titles. “It’s been selling well in self-help for a while. … I think people need little reminders that kind of break them out of their busy day. Unless you’re already involved in some kind of practice that allows you to stop and smell the roses, not everybody does.”
Weiss admits that like most of us, she’s not always in a sunny mood (“I’m not exactly Pollyanna”). But she definitely has something to be grateful for these days: the publication of her book Sunrise Sunset: 52 Weeks of Awe & Gratitude (HCI, $10.95), which she’ll discuss Thursday at Books & Books in Coral Gables.
The book is a collection of her photos of sunrises and sunsets — all shot from her home in Boynton Beach; fortunately she can see east and west from her terrace. Each photo is paired with an inspirational quote.
Weiss first started taking pictures with her iPhone, then graduated to “a real camera,” she says.
Publishing a book with the company where she’s worked for 20 years has been a treat.
“I actually wrote a book that never came about, about relationships and finding love in midlife,” she says. “It just didn’t happen. But my theory is you push over here, and something pops up over there. I’m not a visual artist, and here I am doing this visual book. It’s all funny and ironic to me.”
Weiss has built a following on Facebook; others are starting to post their own sunrise and sunset photos on her page. Seeing the day begin or end isn’t something she takes for granted.
“Even if I’m in a crappy mood — which I am a lot — that moment when I go outside … how could you not be amazed?” she says. “I think, ‘How lucky am I to look at this?’”
Here’s the story, I’ll share more later. Meantime, sit back and enjoy the view!
Probably my most memorable experience related to the date of September 11th is getting to go to NY in 2011, to Ground Zero, with a bunch of 10-year-old kids, each one born on that tragic day in 2001. Little did I know when I was watching the fiasco on television news, something like we’ve never seen before, that so many amazing souls were being delivered to planet earth. A blessing, each one of them.
This particular group had been part of a book we published called Faces of Hope: Babies Born on 911. And, as is the tradition to reflect on the positive here at HCI , (and personally as well), working on this book proved to be cathartic for many on staff. We were proud to pass that experience along to our readers. Who knew ten years later I’d be sailing on the Circle Line with this group of “models.”
Naturally, the media wanted to follow up on these kids and see how they were doing. That included media from Europe as well as the US. These kids got photographed (again), written about, and broadcast over the airwaves all around the world. I got to be there to help coordinate their efforts. In between the spells of rain, the air that day felt palpable and my eyes stayed moist. The monument wasn’t finished yet but the cavern where it was being built exuded an odd power.
Here it is a few years later and I can’t help but feel like I gained something tremendously valuable by working with Christine Pisera Naman, the author of Faces of Hope and the mother of Trevor, one of the children born on 9/11. Lemons into lemonade is too pedestrian a term for what this project means but, I’ll settle for that expression now. Lemons are in almost every dish I prepare and turning around an unfortunate experience into a blessing is a lifelong practice, or at least ambition, of mine.
I dedicate this album of photos – which I think might be my best yet – to the souls who departed that day and to the ones that came in. And, to the rest of us in the wings, finding ours.
Thank you, kind people, for allowing a little break in the blogging schedule here at the sunrise/sunset ranch (lol). Well, I’m back now and hoping to stay in touch a bit more regularly. I’m happy to say, I kept up with my morning and evening sun photo shooting. As usual, with cats circling my ankles! That’s my daily meditation and would be hard pressed to go without this lucky ritual.
It’s still hot as blazes here in South Florida this late August month. Tropical storms still loom out in the distance and we do our best to keep them far, far away. Now that I’ve got you here, without further delay, let’s just get right to the photo collection, about 36 this time from the past weeks. I hope you enjoy them, I think some of these are my best, and also encourage you to join me on the interactive photo-posting Facebook page (http://on.fb.me/1JkFkG4)that corresponds to my book and this blog. Enjoy!
If I could tell you how excited, frightened and out of my mind I am about displaying my photos at an art exhibition, I’d have to jump out of my skin into some kind of video and just spend an entire minute SCREAMING!! For joy, for wonder, for awe & gratitude. How my little book got me here and where it’s taking me is a ride I never anticipated. I can’t explain it. I can only allow the adventures to keep scooping me up and flinging me into the wonders of the unknown!! As I twitch and tweet all day, I’ll leave you with a couple weeks worth of images and inspirations. I hope you love them. And, I hope you’ll share them and let hear from you – on my Facebook page and here! Wish me luck, sun people!
All these photos, all these inspirational quotes, all these moments inspired by my terrace view. Never for a moment do I forget how lucky I am. But more than lucky I realize how much I am spoiled. I realize this each spring when the sun decides to hide from me. How my apartment is blocked and situated just so and If I only had that east facing corner unit I could see the full glory of the sunrise EVERY day of the year. How will I deliver real time photos to you when this happens? What a wonderful problem to have.
Every routine, no matter how divine, can become stagnant and mechanical if we don’t have these interruptions. What the absence of the sunrise causes me to do is look elsewhere for beauty and that pursuit of awe that seems to sustain me. Clouds to the south and west become more interesting. Their tips infused by the rising sun’s light in the distance. The shimmer of the ocean in great expanse in front of me and the pinks and oranges in smudges across the sky. I am pulled out of automatic pilot mode and thrust into the moment. Into the presence of now. Cliche as it sounds, it’s these testing moments that cause growth.
I’m told that my beloved sun will be back for daily snaps very soon. Until then, I’ll enjoy the shows of Mother Nature in any and all of her surprising and wonderful permutations. And, in the meantime, I hope you enjoy this edition’s slide show. I made it just for you!
Enjoy the photos and inspirational passages, for now. Back soon with more news.
Sunrise, Sunset: 52 Weeks of Awe & Gratitide 