The Song that Makes You Cry – #2

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Do you have a song that moves you with only the voice or the instruments themselves? Forget the lyrics and any emotional attachment for the moment … just what you hear from a voice or instrument(s).

The vocal in this song, Epiphany, sung by Jin of BTS, is so hauntingly beautiful, that just the beginning notes set off a quickening in me and an anticipationm of tears.

The lyrics (English translation in CC), are also beautiful – a song about the importance of coming to love oneself in order to be truly able to love another. But Jin’s vocals/tone are what move me, all on their own.

Do you have a song that moves you like this?

BTS is a South Korean “boy” band of seven young men with phenomenal musical talent. Their music is generally defined as K-pop, but also includes pop, hip hop, rap, and R&B.

Photo thanks: vahapdmr/Pexels @nextgrafik

The Song that Makes You Cry – #1

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I think just about everyone has a song that brings tears to their eyes. Don’t you?

Such a song often calls to mind an intense memory or feeling for someone we love or have loved. But maybe not.  

What about the song that has your eyes filling up and you have no idea why?

This song, Remedy, by The Ambientalist, touches something within me with the very first few chords of the guitar. Every time. But I have no memory associated with this song whatsoever. It just came to me one day, and stopped me in my tracks emotionally.

Do you have a song that does this and you have no idea why? Let us know and feel free to provide a link.

I’m going to do a couple more posts like this on the different ways music affects us as it does. Stay tuned …

“One Gorgeous Read”

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“Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.”

In 2001, long before many recent books about magical libraries, Carlos Ruiz Zafón had published this book, #1 in the series, The Cemetery of Forgotten Books. It was one of my Annual Library Sale picks. It’s a long read, nearly 500 pages, and I’m just past mid-way, but it’s so beautiful in the language and the writing, I thought to share a few quotes.

“In the shop we buy and sell them, but in truth books have no owner. Every book you see here has been somebody’s best friend.”

“One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn’t have to understand something to feel it. By the time the mind is able to comprehend what has happened, the wounds of the heart are already too deep.” 

“Bea says that the art of reading is slowly dying, that it’s an intimate ritual, that a book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us, that when we read, we do it with all our heart and mind, and great readers are becoming more scarce by the day.” 

“I was raised among books, making invisible friends in pages that seemed cast from dust and whose smell I carry on my hands to this day.” 

p.s. The title of this post, was part of a review by Stephen King.

p.p.s. (Yes, yes, I know … I should have chosen a different mug.)

A Book for You?

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Please check out the last six of my April book purchases. While I managed to find six from my list of “hopefuls” at the Annual Library Book Sale, there were still quite a few I wanted. So I headed over to Thrift Books.

See anything you like?

We have two Japanese women authors, recommended through Instagram if the viewer liked Haruki Murakami:

Before the Coffee Gets Cold – Toshikazu Kawaguchi – a Tokyo café offering its customers a chance to travel back in time.

The Memory Police – Yoko Ogawa – “A surreal, provocative fable about the power of memory and the trauma of loss.” (goodreads)

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio – A possible murderer released after ten years, revisits the circumstances of young Shakespearean actors that led to one’s death.

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen is a Pulitzer Prize Winner. “A gripping spy novel, an astute exploration of extreme politics, and a moving love story” (goodreads) – a young man’s story told now, in the chaos of 1975 Saigon.

And now … The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker is exquisite historical fiction, taking place on the Lower East Side in 1899. It is one of my top favorite books of all time, and I bought it for my “permanent” bookcase for books I would read again.

The Hidden Palace is the sequel Wecker wrote seven years later, with the golem and the jinni still the main characters as their intertwined tale evolves. I bought this to read, and cannot wait.

Anything for you? Check your library and/or visit Thrift Books – what will keep you up into the night is there.  

It’s Just Change

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That makes change sound so simple, so casual, right? Yet just the word ‘change’ can have some of us already feeling anxious, because we so often associate change with something negative.

Photo: towfiqu-barbhuiya / unsplash

But what if we could look at change from a different angle, and consider that all change is ultimately good for us in some way. What if we could take that a step further, and consider that everything is always working out in our favor?

That’s a concept that I would have likely disagreed with a couple years ago. I’ve since changed my mind. However, it does take an intentional shift in perspective. Every experience we have contains within it the opportunity to grow, and to find/be something better.

We can sit and stew and whine and complain about something that’s happening or … we can step back and look at it, and say, `what’s here for me to learn? How can this change benefit me?’ You might be surprised at what you find.

Photo: Ellis Garvey / unsplash, Instagram @ellisgarvey

This doesn’t discount the fact that change is sometimes painful. There is no growth without discomfort or pain. But if we can make that shift in perspective, and be willing to look at the bigger picture?

We can grow and find more happiness, more contentment, in our lives. In whatever time it takes, in the end? It’s just change, and you and I are strong enough to handle it.