Letters number one hundred and twenty-eight: The days go on

Dearest J,

I just finished reading Kafka On The Shore.  Don't think Murakami was one of the authors you read...? Not sure.

The album is out, the two-night concert was a success.  For a little while, of a few days, many friends and friends of friends talked about it.

It was all so overwhelming and gosh, I didn't know where my strength came from..

To work non-stop under the great stress of finishing recordings and organising the concert; of preparing myself for the concert: face my songs and the audience, and brave the enormous beauty of the 11-person ensemble for Restless Heart.

Yet I've lived.  I think I'm enjoying the fruits of my labour - my mind is pretty clear now for most part  - in the sense that I allow myself to sit back and enjoy the smallest and most important pleasure of being an artist now: the afterglow, the quiet afterglow.

Like today...

I woke up a minute before 8am, stayed in bed...slept a while more.  Woke up again a while later and drifted between reading Kafka and checking FB and sleeping more.  Got up finally at 10am.  I put some porridge to boil, hung up laundry, slowly stir fry some vegetables (long beans and broccoli), sautéed needle mushrooms, branched purple cabbage with olive oil and soy sauce, fried an egg.  I ate two bowls of porridge with the dishes, over the novel; I ate slowly and took my time to wash the dishes.  After lunch I treat myself further - reading on the sofa, not enough, I poured myself the Yozu sake I bought from Kobe.  I napped in between reading and finally finished the novel at 3pm.

What a life right.

Put all those months of rushing between gigs and recordings and late night meetings and rehearsals and deadlines and stress and sleepless nights and not eating well and getting skinny into perspective...

Every now and then, more so now that I can slow down pace, I think about you and wonder about all sorts of things.

Even though I move fast on my toes and sometimes too fast to catch a breathe, I always, often wondered why life would be if you're still around.

Would I have made the album?  Would I write songs?  Will we go to London together?  .....

What I know for sure is that if you were here when I make the album and concert, you'd be really happy for me and proud of it all for me.

Your parents and Mama came to the concert on first night.  I gave copies of my CD to Alex, Yan and your parents.  Your mom asked for 5 copies to sell for me.

The journey after this is pretty much...another chapter, I guess the chapter before and up to the point of concert was called "WORK IT".  What comes after this is perhaps "Make It Last"?

The memories of you will last for a long long time.  I like this conversation at the end pages of Kafka On The Shore a lot, put it down here for you:

"Are memories such an important thing?"

"It depends," she replies, and closes her eyes. "In some cases they're the most important thing there is." 

"Yet you burned them up." 

Forever yours,

B

the emptiness has brought fruits

Waiting it out, the draught that has brought on so many different emotions.

First there was clusters of panic feelings and negative thoughts and the wandering mind.  Then after the initial dwellings of meaningless thoughts the rational task force team sprung into action, several attempts to steer the ship towards brighter shores.

While several positive action-plan took place, part of me took on the empty days with new learned glee.   It has been a funky place to be, am still here, hopefully not for long. Some of these days span out with such lyrical grace that I have not experienced for the longest time.

The leisurely yoga class, the therapeutic cooking, the solitary meals eaten without haze, leisurely dish washing, staring into space while the music plays, reading pages after pages without a care to rush to a sound check, organising stacks of different homework on the floor of my study, reading late into the nights, sleeping in.
There were countless conversations.  Mostly intimate ones, one to one.  I had organised another round of giving away clothes I cleared out from the `store/guest room'.  The most productive meetings for friends, the girls would come, one by one.  We would chat, while clothes would get tried on, and I would showed her to Tommy cafe and I'd get some bread or a drink from her in return for my pre-loved wardrobe.  Old friendship rekindled, clothes get new homes and I get free bread.  Perfect arrangement.

And then there are the dark dark thoughts and emotions that have
 lingered too long, overstayed its welcome but seem to have taken a permanent residence.  I have learned to stay afloat and stay in the battle no matter what comes.

Two new sets of lyrics were emailed to composer during these `empty days'.

Neck got hurt badly and warranted the attention of a chiropractor.

I have learned how to stir fry vegetables I have not cooked before. I enjoy improvising over the kitchen top.

Phone went missing/stolen all within a span of 5-minutes on a rare trip in a mall last week.  Now owner of a swanky and sleek new phone and more bills to pay.  Savings account needs massive work.

Finished reading Susan Cain's [Quiet] and Jeanette Winterson's [Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal].  Super satisfied with Winterson's unapologetic story of depression and bad childhood, her observations of life and art are so brash, harsh and inspiring at the same time.

I have read her The Power Book and Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit - time to get her other titles.

Just some of the quotes that I shared on FB, from her [Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal]:

"Creative work bridges time because the energy of art is not time-bound. If it were we should have no interest in the art of the past, except as history and documentary. But our interest in art is our interest in ourselves both now and always. Here and forever. There is a sense of the human spirit as always existing. This makes our own death more bearable. Life + art is a boisterous communion/communication with the dead. It is a boxing match with time."

"....trouble is just something that has been filed in the wrong place. That is what Jung was explaining of course - as the chaos of our unconscious contents strive to find their rightful place in the index of consciousness."


....so anyway,

You make a decision to live on and live long, so just strife and let that decision bring you down the road....and hope each new decision you make bring you more inspiration to strife more.

The Sky Is Crazy girl is BACK!!

Hehe, I always get a kick when I tell people that The Sky Is Crazy author Yvonne Lee is my sister, and they go like, "HAA? Really? I have her booook!!! Wow you her sisteeer???"

Well, if you have her first book, it's now time to go get her second book....now in major book stores :)

when she let me go through her manuscripts months ago, I couldn't help but smile and nodding to the stories she tells through those pages...as the title suggest, it's a book We women can relate too, and for the male species, something to understand us a little better.

Nice book for your girlfriends this Christmas!!! Hehe, wicked idea? Well, look out for its review in magazines & dailies :)

Book talk & signing session next Sunday at MPH Midvalley @ 4pm...come join us.

The Law of the Garbage Truck

This one I can relate quite close to home :) though before reading this I have been trying on my own to not let petty things get into my big picture but to now know this new methodology of the Garbage Truck is most delightful...

Thank you Sushee for sharing it in email :)


The Law of the Garbage Truck

By David J. Pollay
Positive Psychology News Daily, NY (David J. Pollay) - October 2, 2007

I really like this. Hope you will too......something for us to think about as we look toward a new year.

How often do you let other people's nonsense change your mood? Do you let a bad driver, rude waiter, curt boss, or an insensitive employee ruin your day? Unless you're the Terminator, for an instant you're probably set back on your heels. However, the mark of a successful person is how quickly you can get back your focus on what's important.

I learned it in the back of a New York City taxi cab. Here's what happened.

I hopped into a taxi, and we took off for Grand Central were driving in the right lane when, all of a sudden, a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car's back end by just inches.

The driver of the other car, the guy who almost caused a big accident, whipped his head around and he started yelling some pretty nasty words at us.

My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean, he was friendly!

So, I said, 'Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!' And this is when my taxi driver told me what I now call, 'The Law of the Garbage Truck.'

'Many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it. And if you let them, they'll dump it on you. When someone wants to dump on you, don't take it personally. You just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. You'll be happy you did.'

So this was it: The 'Law of the Garbage Truck.'

I started thinking, how often do I let Garbage Trucks run right over me? And how often do I take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, on the streets? It was that day I said, 'I'm not going to do it anymore.'

I began to see garbage trucks . Like in the movie 'The Sixth Sense,' the little boy said, 'I see Dead People.' Well, now 'I see Garbage Trucks.' I see the load they're carrying. I see them coming to drop it off. And like my Taxi Driver, I don't make it a personal thing; I just smile, wave, wish them well, and I move on.

One of my favorite football players of all time, Walter Payton, did this every day on the football field. He would jump up as quickly as he hit the ground after being tackled. He never dwelled on a hit. Payton was ready to make the next play his best.

Good leaders know they have to be ready for their next meeting.

Good parents know that they have to welcome their children home from school with hugs and kisses.

Leaders and parents know that they have to be fully present, and at their best for the people they care about. The bottom line is that successful people do not let Garbage Trucks take over their day.

What about you? What would happen in your life, starting today, if you let more garbage trucks pass you by? Here's my bet. You'll be happier. Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so.. Love the people who treat you right. Forget about the ones who don't. Believe
that everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, TAKE IT! If it changes your life , LET IT! Nobody said it would be easy........ They just promised it would be worth it.

Sleepless in Wikipedia-land

I can't remember starting when, but I've become a serial-Wikepedia-reader-in-the-night-time. I find myself awake at 3am a lot, glued in front of my PC screen, reading things off Wikepedia.

It was easy to get hooked, I needed to find out some general information about something, that must have been months and months ago; J had told me about the wonders of Wikepedia like ageeees ago but I only caught on ages after that....

If you're a user of Wikipedia you'd know that you can hardly ever complete reading an article without ending up wanting to know more about other things that are related to the root subject that you were researching on...

So here I am, night after night, in my room....reading endless chains of article about anything, and everything.

One reading leads to another, and another, another one, one more, one more...

about a famous book, a singer, a celebrity, a historical event, world, history, scientific surveys, movies, technology, country, a song, an author...

I can't quite explain it but it feels a bit like as if I'd grown knowledge-thirsty overnight. It's not like a fabulous handbag from a flea market which I can show off to friends, but it's a private nice feeling I get when I'm reading about all these whatever-things...around the clock whenever the need arises, to know about something, something that has an entry on Wikipedia.

Try it, `google' anything on Wikipedia today, you might just get hooked like me.

Right now I'm reading the production notes on the film Fight Club, this morning I was obsessed with information on Edith Piaf.

A day ago it was about song cycles, and Beatles.

Two nights ago was the novel Trainspotting.

Two weeks ago it was all about the iconic Irish writer Samuel Beckett.

Some time back it was history of China, history of human sexuality....

Curiosity is giving me sleepless nights. It's funny how an interesting book at hand while I'm lying in bed can send me to dreamland pretty fast while I'm able to stay awake for a way longer time (when I should be snoring away), straining my eyes at 3am, reading about homoeroctism on dear old Wiki.

Enuf said, I best finish (a tough order) up my readings this time round and get to bed.