EVERY DAY IS A GOOD DAY

If tonight never end. If tomorrow never come.

My love for instrumental music probably started from Yanni or Kitaro, when I was in my secondary school days and their music were all the rage for being revolutionary.

The other day in the Husband's car, I was surprised to hear a somewhat familiar piece of piano music playing. It has been so long since he played that CD that both of us forgot how much we used to love instrumental music. They are the kind of music that no matter how many years later you listen to them, they still sound so classic.

Asian pianist composers are different from the Caucasians, in that their music are a tad more delicate in their emotions.

My all-time favourite musical instrument is the piano. I think because I'm such a sucker for emo music.

I'm still not giving up hope that one day, I will have the chance to learn it.

It's really true, you know. When you think about something, send out a thought, somehow or rather, the Universe will send it your way. Sometimes it takes days, months and years. Depends on how much you want it. And if you really deserve what you want. 

The CD was from 6 years ago, at least. It was so deja vu to hear it all over again, raking up a lot of memories. Especially when we were on a long drive home and hearing the music soothed my heart and calmed my nerves.

Have you ever tried relaxing yourself? Like letting loose that grip on your hand, really slowing down the activity in your brain, relaxing your facial muscles (you would be surprised at how much you are frowning) and even stretching those toes of yours. Whenever I do that, I can't help but ask myself why.

Why am I so tensed up about?

What is bothering me?

為甚麽我過的不自在？我要怎麽樣才能夠自在？

It's not about the money. It's not about the possessions. It's not about the people.

If I ask this in those public forums, I can half imagine some of the cynics will blame it on the government. That's too convenient.

We can always live a life that's out of the mould. It's just whether we want to. I vouch for that because my adult life is nowhere near the standard Singapore mould.

And if you choose to live a cookie-cutter life, it's your choice. Don't whine.

Show you a pic of the CD we have next time! I forgot to snap a pic of it!

But I found her music on Youtube. Didn't know their titles (everything was in Japanese) so I had to scour through tens of it to find those that I like to share with you girls!

西村 由紀江  Yukie Nishimura is a Japanese pianist whose piano style is light and easy to listen to. I goggled for her details and wow, she's already 46!

手紙 Letter

This music was a inspiration for a Cantonese song by Eason Chan but I'm not sharing it here. Because I still prefer the piano music. Once such a beautiful piece of composition is made into a pop song, the sincerity behind seems to take a backseat.

鏡花水月

And while trying to look for Yukie Nishimura (I couldn't remember her name, typed Japanese pianist on Youtube search and this came out), I stumbled onto Yiruma 이루마, a popular Korean pianist and composer. Here's some of my favourites!

 

River Flows In You

If a video has 6.4 million Youtube views and counting, it got to be good.

Kiss in the Rain

I like this piece just as much. For being so delicate and that gentle tug on the heartstrings.

If I ever play the piano so well, I wonder if I will look so absorbed.

If you skip clicking on the previous videos, this video below, ladies, you must watch. It's gonna take your breath away.

Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence
 by 坂本龍一 Ryuichi Sakamoto

Piano with cello accompaniment. They did it in 1996, way before the piano guys. Like what the comments say, this is the kind of music that touch your soul.

I think to kickstart this pianist dream of mine, I can go buy a Ipad mini, no wait, make it a Ipad so I can see better, get a piano and put on those piano Youtube tutorials that teach how to play these songs. That will be my music score on the piano. And I must select those tutorials that say XXX music piano tutorial - SLOW version. Haha.

Metta,
欣雨 Xinyu

LOTUS CHARMS

While learning Buddhism, I develop this love for lotuses.

Not the actual flower though. I like tulips and sunflowers more.

It's the significance of it that captures my heart.

“蓮花表示由煩惱而至清淨，因為它生長於污泥，綻開於水面，有出污泥而不染的深一層涵義。”

Yesterday while doing a pet project of mine, I was surfing and stumbled onto this Esty site selling, of all things, lotus charms! On necklaces, bracelets and so forth!

And they are so pretty!

My favourite style is the delicate lotus outline charms.

24 karat gold over bronze lotus pendant on gold chain from jersey608jewelry.etsy.com

 Mother daughter lotus flower pendant necklaces in sterling silver from jersey608jewelry.etsy.com

 What a mad adorable set!

 Lotus charm earrings on sterling silver from jersey608jewelry.etsy.com

No bigger than 1 dime! 

 Lotus charm bracelets in nickle-free materials from Etsy

 

I like how delicate-looking this bracelet is and it's double chained! Reminds me of Perlini's Silver bracelets that I tend to covet as a teen and they always break on me.  

Or wear it as a tiny charm bracelet! Real sweet from Etsy!

Metta,
欣雨 Xinyu

What if...

The other day over Mother-in-Law's Day steamboat lunch, my brother-in-law was asking me, "So how's things at TFL?"

I paused for a moment, thinking of how to answer.

I have been slowing down, compared to the usual weekly launches. Shuttling between home, suppliers & Vivo is also real tiring. When you go on public transport. Thank Buddha for the Husband who is more than happy to drive my stocks & I around.

The question on my mind the past 2 months is: How do you choose, when you have 2 passions?

2 passions that are not quite complementary.

2 passions that take up just as much time in a day as the other.

2 passions that seem to be telling you, "It's either me or him."

2 passions that when I'm indulging in one, I'm thinking about the other and i never to be able to focus and still my thoughts.

I love fashion. I like the different styles that we women get to play day in day out. Never mind if I'm always wearing pants (hahah, even my supplier's salesgirl notices). Even if I don't get to play Barbie on myself, I like seeing how fashion can make us women go crazy and delirious all at the same time.

I had wanted to be in fashion retail since I was a teenager. And this online phenomena is a God-sent to all of us. Without it, there would be no online stores. No affordable fashion every week. No seeing how others conjure up a myriad of stylish outfits given the limited budget we all have. No booming of online personalities who find advertising for online stores a viable source of income. This whole craze is just so Uniquely Singapore. And it's so god damn fun. 

I don't mind the late nights. I don't mind the long hours. I'm most happy when my customers are happy. And even the 2 hour shoot that I have every week with my models is a happy pill on my down days. Chattering about nothing in particular and everything that I can think of. I just like. 

Without TFL, I would have never be so internet-savvy. Customising my own blogshop, doing up pictures/montages, setting up a Facebook page and knowing what should go on it, moving on to a dotcom and the eventual setting up of this blog which I barely have the time to update, I know, but hey, knowing that it's here makes me happy. I don't have pretty OTDs pics to put up on this blog, I don't have exciting places to share with my readers, I don't do write ups on the latest fad in Singapore, so I guess if you are still reading this blog, you and I must have been the best of the best friends in our past lives. Lol.

You know, happiness is never quite determined by a single thing when you are of a certain age.

And the definition of happiness changes over time. 

I have a strong love for the Dharma. Learning it over the years cleared up so much of my past unhappiness, made me a stronger person, gave me hope when all else seemed to crash and most importantly, set me a goal that defines everything else in my life. Even the Husband said I'm a less grouchy person, compared to the early days when he first knows me. (At that time, he never say I grouchy leh.)

And since 2008, I had wanted to do more. To contribute to the propagation of Dharma, to help others to understand it if they are seeking an answer, to let people know that all can be well, that really Life is can be very enriching when you have a direction. 

I subscribe to the notion that everyone needs a religion, a spiritual guidance. Yes, if you ask me, of course, I would say being a Buddhist is the best because the teachings of Buddha is omnipresent and really answer every single thing in the Universe completely. His wisdom was far beyond a normal person's understanding 2600 years ago and remained so even today.

But no, I'm not the kind who go about bashing up other religions. Because 信好過不信.  And to be honest, no decent religion teaches you to do bad.

Come along TFL, and this little thought of mine got pushed back. 

This year, just as my geomancer predicted, was a year of many changes. Over CNY, I suddenly had this thought of slowing down and focusing on other things in my life. When we are so caught up with daily grind of running a blogshop, sometimes important things get chucked aside and by the time I remember, I can't helped but ask myself, "What if?"

So I took the plunge 2 months back and now I'm getting more involved in translating Dharma articles. 

Not easy, but I am so happy. So happy that I wish I can do it day in day out. I don't mind plonking myself in front of the laptop to translate the hundreds and thousands of articles to English. Years of training from handling TFL emails. I find my mind and heart expanding, as I do the translation and in awe as all these new knowledge flows into my mind, reminding me what an honour it is to be able to help in this little way, to be able to share such profound knowledge with people from all over the world, who had no way to understand this till now, in a language that they spoke. I am deeply humbled and grateful. Grateful too that I'm born in Singapore and that made me effectively bilingual by no choice of mine. Haha.

If my heart has wings, it would be fluttering up and down and doing a little skippy kind of dance. Just to show you how happy I am, even though most people would find it geeky.

The other day, when the Husband accompanied me to the shoot (a nicer way of saying that he was the driver), he saw me fiddling with the camera, ironing the clothes, putting outfits together to 'Barbie' my model and then stuffing the trolley when the shoot ended. He asked me why I seemed so happy doing all that 'rough work'. I told him I did not know how to tell me. It just feel right and I feel I'm in place. Not there, or there, but just here. Right here.

And it's the same feeling when I spent countless hours and long nights to do up the translation proper, so that no one would misunderstood the Dharma due to silly mistakes of mine. I just feel in place. You know, that feeling you get when the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle are put together. Something like that. It just clicked.

When I told the Husband about the internal mechanisms of my passions, he mused, "Well, I guess you just will never be the normal kind of 9-6 wife, or the chasing-after-kids wife. But remember, it's okay, I will always support you, as long as you are happy doing what you do."

Awesome husband. 

But there are bills that still need to be paid.

And like what my geomancer says, I'm always over-ambitious. So yes, one baby step at a time.

Do you have something that you really like to do, but never found the courage and time to?

I pray for you, that this year would be a year of good & positive changes for you too.

We only have one life. Let's feel right about it.

Metta,

欣雨 Xinyu