Throwing stuff out

Yesterday I did some serious 'life laundry' going through loads of financial paper work stuff; tax, pensions and 'investments'. I say 'investments', note the quotation marks; at the moment it all seems worth slightly less than it cost to buy! I've been putting off a proper sort through a heap of pension statement stuff for years; just shoving each incomprehensible piece of correspondence to the end of a pile in a carrier bag. I hate all that stuff. They all say the same; '...this is what you might get [but it's any ones guess if you will]... markets... up... down...' Basically this correspondence is not worth the paper it's written on except it is required to comply with the rules to 'protect' the industry... Ugh. Eventually I reduced it all down to the latest statements etc and after throwing out all the original bumf the pile comes down to a few sheets. Quite satisfying! Moving on with this in to other papers; redundant instruction manuals, school certificates, old training course notes etc., etc., I have the thought, particularly when looking through stuff that the inland revenue might ask me to reproduce, that a self, a history is at least as real as all this! One can't just bin it all; the tax man will have his way, I do need to keep P11D and P60 forms, he may yet send an other tax return! But also a sense of the redundant; past financial projections, forgotten manuals for equipment which has been thrown away... Life now moved on from then. A mix then between junk, and the 'reality' of earning a living and keeping the tax man happy.

Then on a more human level an old school photo and and old Ladybird book about electricity. I recall how things seemed for me when that photo was taken and I don't think it's just projection that I can see it in the eyes of the little kid; uncertainty. I looked in the book, it used to be my favorite, I loved anything to do with electricity, inside is written 'To David, love from Joanna. 1973' I would have been six years old. Joanna is the mother of a school class mate and she is still alive; I decided to return the book to her so she could reconnect with giving it.

Today I looked at the book, the school picture and the now tidied financial stuff and I could feel little David having traveled that journey from six to forty three; clear inner child connection. What a lovely light in the world and all of us have such light. And I recall this post and having returned once more from Cluny I again find that I miss it or rather the the rhythms of life and the people there.