Spring cleaning and impermanence

Nothing reminds you of impermanence more than when you are spring cleaning, especially if you don't do  it regularly enough. So today I was on a rampage of throwing unwanted stuff at home and it was like rummaging through a time capsule. Boxes of floppy disk, Nokia phone chargers and Kodak films had to be tossed into the trash bag. The fact that at their purchase the buyer could not envisage their imminent obsolescence was symptomatic of the speed of change. The instruction manuals traced the progression from desk tops to laptop, from VHS to laser disk to CD and to DVD players.  Dictionaries are retained more for sentimental reasons than for actual usage. A whole set of health encyclopedia went to the karang guni man. It didn't seem so long ago that they were often referred to whenever someone in the family was unwell. Who now carries a bulky copy of these when a touch on the iphone answers all you need to know.

The accolades in the form of trophies, certificates and medals reminded of moments of pride and glory but at the same time how no one remembers them now, not even yourself. A letter dropping out of a well loved book marked how friendship once so strong was lost forever. You see that stack of diaries and know they harbor tears as well as eclipses of joy and love; and yet they too have vanished in smoke. 

Needless to say the photo of my mother's baptism (when she became a Catholic at  70+) and where in the photo 2 loved ones have now passed on struck me vividly the impermanence of all things, all things.