Continuing the piano theme from some of my recent blogs, I have just discovered Dustin O'Halloran.. Oh my.. Instantly a new favourite artist/pianist/composer! His pieces are just beautiful..


*sighs*

This is a MUST watch! Very relevant and educational to what's going on in the world..
"Reza Aslan calls out the media for generalization and bigotry when reporting on Muslims."


....this guy fucking rocks!!

Just one of the many reasons why I want to visit/live in NY for a bit:


These guys... Oh man.. One word: DOOOOPPPEEEEE! aha!
I linked a street performance just to show how incredible they are, but be sure to check out their studio/album recordings too.. Just amazing!!

Can we all really follow the cliché of a new year being a new beginning? Can we leave all what has happened in the previous year behind and move on? Can we simply forget what has happened and focus on the future? ....I think it is true in parts, but not entirely... Oh how I wish it were completely true, but we do all carry some things through into the new year. We carry all of the good things, and unfortunately, some bad, too.. I know this is the case for me at least.

We can however change our attitude, our vision, our outlook on things. Are the bad things I'm carrying through to 2015 really all that bad? Or is it just me thinking that they're bad which makes them so? There is a quote that is relevant to this method of thought:
“I once read the sentence 'I lay awake all night with a toothache, thinking about the toothache an about lying awake.' That's true to life. Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.”
C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

I experienced a lot of ups and downs in 2014, unfortunately there were far more downs than ups. It has been the worst year of my life - or at least that is what my cynical thoughts tell me. I experienced depression, anxiety, angst, betrayal, heartache, being let down, and most prominently; allowing bad health rue my life.

Do I allow these shadows to follow me into 2015? I can let go the grasp of some. I can move on and learn from the bad. I can forgive and forget. I can learn from my own mistakes. The experiences in 2014 that may have initially been bad, have ultimately turned good. I have learnt from them - a lot - those lessons have been absorbed and will no longer be a hindrance in the here and now, and these lessons will also be important in the future.

There is only one "bad" thing that I am carrying into 2015, and that is the issue of my health - something I have blogged about before. It is bad in so much that it limits what I can do in certain aspects of my life, but there are many things where it has no affect, and that is the positive thought I have to tell myself in 2015. Life is and can still be good despite what I may be dealing with - and that is the attitude I'll be taking with me into this new year..

I am on new antibiotics for the following 5 weeks, and if they don't work my Doctor and I have already planned the next step - and if that doesn't work - we have also planned for the following step - and if that doesn't work, we're onto the next, etc.. Eventually this burden will be lifted and I can learn from it. I can experience and appreciate the things it has left me unable to do in a new way. In a remarkable way. Once it has been lifted that worrying shadow which has followed me around this previous year will evaporate, and I'll finally feel free again. Until then I'll practise the positive thoughts that I had lost long ago. It's not all bad and life does go on - in a good way – in the best way..! Starting from right now!

I wish everyone a great start to this new year - despite if you have an unwanted shadow following you. This can be the new beginning where you chose to deal with things differently, and that is perhaps the most important thing we all have the ability to do. We can't always change our circumstances, but we can change our outlook and attitude on them - and what better time to make that choice than right now, at the beginning of a new year!



Keep smiling, folks.. Life is beautiful
xx

The past month I've been reintroduced to classical music. I spent my childhood listening to a mixture of classical and many other genres of music - my mother was an incredible pianist. Before my parents got divorced and we were a stereotypical middle class family, living in a big Regency town house, we had a room with just a grand piano in the middle of it. I would spend hours and hours watching and listening to my mother play, and because of that I have always had a soft spot for the piano in my heart. Music has always been a huge part of my life and I listen to pretty much everything, but have failed to give classical the attention that it so deserves - I've always liked it but have never fully explored and lost myself in its depths until recently..

This piece resonates deeply with me:
So beautiful and touching..

I have recently discovered this guy, Evgeny Grinko, a composer who's performances with other artists are incredible, I strongly suggest checking out his stuff. This solo performance however is something I'm captivated by - I love his somewhat cavalier attitude - dressed casually and smoking a cigarette whilst performing.. I just love it!


...and finally, Nils Frahm. I don't know much about him and have only checked out a handful of his songs/performances but they are all incredible. This piece I'm about to link is remarkable - pushing the limits and developing new techniques and styles. He starts the video by bashing around the inside of a piano with toilet brushes?! ...and then plays two pianos at once?! Somebody commented that this is the future of classical music... who knows?! The piece has much more of a jazz twist than a classical one, but anyway.. ..you really have to stick with this performance to the end as the finale is immense!! I LOVE this!

Happy dogs :')


This gif makes me smile so much

As do these:

I have spent my afternoon coffee break browsing this incredible website full of lovely words: http://wordstuck.co.vu

"Wordstuck is a collection of different interesting words, mostly from other languages that do not have direct English translation. Some just sound lovely, or weird, while others are words we’ve felt or experienced, something we came to pass by everyday that we never been able to name, or something we never thought there exist words for them."

Here are just a few of my favourites, all to do with the beauty of life
















....and now it's time for me to get back to work and create a painting with meraki!
x

...whilst whispering the things I'm going to do to you in your ear..
Yes.
Please.