Wide Awake. Every Day./Starla J. King: Reflections

Over Thanksgiving weekend I had the now-rare privilege of spending a handful of consecutive days with my son. A gonzo slice of heaven. He's always been one of the wisest people I know. He's always had plenty to say.

The conversation turned, at one point, to most desirable human traits, and on the quick top of his list was positivity. I want to be around people who see the good in things first, he said. People who don't make themselves feel smarter by constantly finding fault in others.

I know what you mean, I said.

Starla J. King, a life coach with bright eyes and a pretty impressive smile, knows, too. We met atmospherically on Twitter, as people do, but we met for real during a First Person Arts event that brought Dani Shapiro and me together on a conversational stage. Starla sat right up there in the first row, beaming positivity, embracing the dialogue, and allowing her slender body and her many tiny earrings to take it all in.

A few weeks later, Starla sent me her own new book, Wide Awake. Every Day., wrapped in blue tissue and a red bow. This is her gift to the world, her hope played out, page after page, that we'll all stop for a bit in this harried life  to see, to feel, to love, to know, to hold a cat in our arms as we watch the birds. Infused with personal stories, gently nudging us toward a more fulfilling state of being, this lovely book is organized in day by day fashion. A calendar of positive possibilities. It is utterly Starla—bright eyed, hopeful, brimming with love.

So here is something for you on this December 10th, where (here, at least) it snows soft snow.

Starla's word for this day is Re-new.

Her wisdom is this:

"Re-new is to make new again—we can choose it at any time by letting the old slip through our grasp as we open our hands to receive the new." What, Starla wants to know, can you do to "let go of the old...?"

Today, December 10, I plan to go take a walk in the renewing white with my eyes wide open and my camera around my neck.

What about you?