Five minutes ago, sun was streaming through my window and I was thinking I’d have to go and change into a cooler jumper.
Now look what happened.
However, the “Oracle” says:
“Beautiful clear skies in the afternoon.”
No. Cancel that. That was for Brooklyn.
Cambridge: “Drizzle in the afternoon will taper off.”
What’s Brooklyn doing on my phone?
My buddy Tim lives in Brooklyn with Oscar, another cat that doesn’t like me. But do I really need to keep track of their daily weather?
Auburn, WA is also still on my phone and my cousin’s town on Vancouver Island that I visited just before leaving the West Coast. Why?
Lately, I have been saying to myself that I must stop dithering and divest myself of all the STUFF that will one day be a problem for someone else to deal with.
The least one can do for whoever inherits one’s mess, is to reduce it. It should be so much easier for me to get rid of things than some poor person who decides to go through it in case there is something important.
It’s all psychological, of course. Getting rid of items you’ve had a long time feels like giving away bits of your life.
But one needs to be serious. I have hundreds of photographs I never look at. People I care about, I see in my mind, I feel in my heart. Is discarding their photographs a betrayal?
Certain items of clothing that I wore once, at a some special time. How is keeping that going to help me?
To be fair, I have managed to offload some of those.
It helps to know a fabric artist who turns old clothing into something beautiful!
Bit by bit those things will go. I’ve already removed Brooklyn and those other places from my iPhone!
It’s little things that are so hard. Ornaments that were given to me by people I love. I can’t bear the thought of them in some fusty antique store or an estate sale.
But they won’t mean anything to anyone I know and they won’t be loved. As if they have feelings!
Maybe the truth is that it’s about my feelings.
It’s pathetic, feeling so empty, that in just a few decades, no-one will be aware I existed. It’s a fact.
But does it matter? It will make no difference.
The most inconvenient item one leaves behind, is one’s body. Wakes and looking at dead people, make me shiver. Funerals are big business. Not for me.
A dead face should not be a last memory, surely?
I saw my father dead because he died in my presence. The strange thing was that he looked exactly the same after he expired and I had to ask a nurse if he was gone.
Somehow I thought one would feel the departure. But my old dad was never exactly in my heart, nor I in his.
Long ago I decided I shall not go in a box or an urn.
If they want it, my body is left to science. It would be ironic for doctors to be interested in me dead when they were mostly so uninterested in my live self!
The ultimate rejection? Well, if that happens, in some places (Connecticut?) you can be made into a tree which would suit me fine. I like the idea of wild creatures living in my branches.
Failing that, I’ve asked to be aqua-mated. It’s an alternative to cremation which bothers me because fire terrifies me. More nonsense. I’ll hardly know, will I?
Then I’ll be scattered, along with the ashes of my dear departed pets. And that will be that.
How did I get so maudlin?
Really, I just want to be practical. People need to know what to do because if you’ve not been told, it’s a dreadful process dealing with someone’s departure.
But a lot people don’t want to talk about such things.
So I’ve written it down.
Now I just need to get rid of all that STUFF.
.
Sun breaks lit up the landscape which I thought looked great against the angry sky.
The Pink bush is identified: Cherry plum. It smells sweet.
Oh, and I’m not planning to depart any time soon.
The last point is good to know!
Thank you, Peter!