Impermanence
things to be grateful for
Friday 25th October 2024
I feel quite calm. Last time I was approaching this ‘procedure’ (the time when it didn’t go ahead), I was fear full. Triggered by memories of my mother, conscious of my sisters and aunts and the legacy left to me. The one potentially growing inside of me.
I tear off a plastic label from this pencil and screw it up. Considering this small plastic label. Will it break down? How long will the sum of its parts survive? What of its particles remain indestructible, entering into plants, water and bloodstream.
Long after I am dissolved back into the ground, what inside of me will remain? The microplastics I have unwittingly absorbed, the leaden shell of a coffin, or tin of a casket containing ash and bone.
The wind moves in the blossoming jacaranda.
Yesterday they removed the spreading, sprawling fig from across the road. Soon they will remove the old house that has stood under the shade of that fig for a time before world wars. They who now own that house and land, will build a new testimony to their life. The old, removed or replaced, reshaped and the imprint forgotten.
Annie and her group of meditators meet today and will contemplate impermanence. So on this day will I.