Eighteen years later, let's talk about "ordinary days" wen/Li Oufan

　"The Rest of the Lovers Like Jade" is an autobiography of my married life with Ziyu (her original name Yuying), written in the millennium, and nearly eighteen years have passed since then (2018). Looking back now, it seems that the story is written by another couple, but the content is our own. This little book, co-written by the two of us, is a kind of "two-voice body", but the form and content are very complex, including letters, diaries, notes, travelogues, quotations, as well as "health regimens" and guidelines to fight depression.

　　Tolstoy famously said, "Happy families are all similar, but unfortunate families are different." I would venture to add a comment here: Even happy families and marriages are superficially similar, but the ways of happiness are still different. Although my marriage with Ziyu began with fate, the way of daily life after marriage was gradually established step by step by ourselves, and had nothing to do with fate. Looking back now, the "ordinary days" we spent together for the first two years were not ordinary at all. Less than half a year after marriage, Ziyu's depression attacked, and our lives suddenly fell from heaven to hell, and we cried and cried day and night. How do couples live their normal lives in this mood? This is the first test of our feelings. After nearly half a year of struggle, we finally defeated the devil and passed this "marriage entrance test".

　　Many men are "big men", only care about their own careers, rarely think about the spiritual needs of the "other half", and career and family seem to be inseparable. Like most scholars, Ziyu's daily life revolved around me, and after years of experience, she finally adapted. Now that I am nearly eighty years old, I have finally learned how to "slow down", but it is easy to say, but it is not simple to do. Sometimes my "occupational disease" will also recur, when invited to participate in academic conferences to give keynote speeches or publish papers, I will be nervous, in order to prepare, although not to waste sleep and forget to eat, but sometimes I am also fully engrossed, into the book pile, regardless of the presence of the wife around me! My wife occasionally complained, and I replied in a dignified manner: "You must understand the life of a scholar, people in the jianghu, involuntarily." "----------------------------------------------------------------------

　　How to live a normal life in a busy life? This is a difficult problem, and it is also Ziyu's greatest contribution in our married life. There is a main purpose of living a normal life, that is, health maintenance, including body and mind.

　　When we got married, I told Ziyu bluntly that I had lived alone for too long, developed a lot of dirty bad habits, and begged her to take care of me. Ziyu is a person who is born to take care of people, and given the age gap between us (I am thirteen years older than her), Ziyu regards taking care of her husband as her main task after marriage. This doesn't work in the United States because it violates the basic stance of feminism. But I know that people should be blessed in the blessings, and every day I constantly express my gratitude to her, and bowing has become a ritual at the breakfast table every day. On the one hand, I want her to manage me, on the other hand, I don't obey her, like an old naughty boy, playing with the skin at the dinner table, turning eating into a game, which makes her feel overwhelmed. However, unconsciously, I gradually changed my bad eating habits and learned the good habit of eating more vegetarian dishes and not being full. When I was a bachelor, I always slept late and got up late, and after getting married, I gradually got up early with Ziyu going to bed early, but when I got up, I would drag my feet. She forced me to do gymnastics morning and evening, practicing flattening, although I sometimes cut corners, but over time, the effect was outstanding. I'm nearly eighty years old, I'm still in good shape, I can sleep eight hours a day, and I can take a nap at any time. It's all thanks to my wife. My influence on Ziyu, according to her confession, was that my open-minded personality and sense of humor changed her impatience, and I taught her to relax, listen to nature, and not scramble when riding the subway. She walks faster than me, and I'm willing to be a "tail dog", shouting "Don't worry" in Cantonese behind her at a critical moment. Don't worry! Sometimes there are musical proper nouns - slow board! To other passengers, our couple may be a little strange, and I can't take care of it. Now my "slow living" philosophy has finally been affirmed by many cultural critics and scholars.

　　Any couple living a "normal life" is a process of running into each other and accommodating, but the methods of running in are not the same. Some couples quarrel, and the more quarrelsome the feelings, the better – of course, there is no shortage of examples of the more quarrelsome and distant and finally divorced. Ziyu and I rarely quarreled, respecting and understanding each other from the beginning of the union. As for concessions, I still have more opportunities to give way, because if there is a debate, I can't argue with her. Any couple who have been together for a long time will find out each other's temper, so that they will be safe. However, this kind of homely saying can be said by everyone, which is not unusual. The more important element is fun – fun is the antidote to living ordinary days and making life easy and enjoyable, but fun must also be discovered and created. For example, I deliberately performed my 18th century gentleman's bow on the breakfast table, which has now become a ritual, which is also a pleasure for me, and my wife knows that I am performing, but is still very happy. Some people say that our old husband and wife go out hand in hand, still so sweet, and sometimes "flirt" in public, it is really "shameless", we do not think that we are annoyed, not ashamed, and regard it as normal. I used to perform "striptease" before going to bed at night, but now it has become aerobics, and my wife is still laughing and having fun. All in all, to live a normal life is to put down your body and return to basics. What I have benefited the most from Ziyu's personality over the years is her innate innocence, she has experienced so many times of depression, but she is still innocent like a girl.

　　In the past two or three years, Ziyu has begun to paint, without a teacher, the paintings are natural, and the output is amazing. She finally found a favorite thing to do, which is a big breakthrough in our lives since we were married for more than ten years: in addition to being a housewife and an amateur writer (she has written no less than six or seven books herself), Ziyu has one more "identity". But this "identity" is extraordinary, and it has completely changed our daily lives. At first, Ziyu did not take painting as a thing, but just wanted to sneak around and relieve the pressure, but she gradually discovered a mystery: her happiest and most selfless time was the tens of minutes of painting. She spread out the paper on the table and, without thinking, painted colorful watercolors with her pen. I didn't care at first, but when she happily walked into my study with an abstract landscape she had just painted, I was struggling to think about my own article, looked up and saw her smiling face, and finally realized a truth: this is the sustenance of her future soul. She herself said that it was given to her by the bodhisattva not only for self-cultivation, but also to communicate with others. Sure enough, friends occasionally saw her paintings from the videos of their mobile phones, and they all reflected that they were good. Some friends not only like it, but are also willing to open a painting exhibition for her.

　　Ziyu finally realized that her paintings were not for fame and fortune, but for self-cultivation. She didn't ask for anything, just to reflect on herself. She said that teaching is not also a kind of cultivation and generosity, because I have no class of teaching, and anyone is welcome to come and observe my class. As I listened, what came to my mind was a sentence from the poem that Mr. Yu Yingshi had given us—"A smile makes Brahma come out." The first sentence of this poem is "European wind and rain over the years", which cleverly put my name in. Yes, in the past thirty or forty years, I have experienced a lot of "European wind and beautiful rain", and now it seems that I have reached the final stage of "coming out of Brahma", does this "laughing and picking flowers" refer to the creation of the two of us? This flower is ZiYu. In my mind, she is a little lotus.