The Throwaway Box

to-keepI’m showing solidarity with a couple close to me who are going through their life long ‘treasures’. ‘Downsizing doesn’t even begin to describe the process they are going through at the moment. In this article, A Beginner’s Guide To Swedish Death Cleaning, (It’s nowhere near as horrifying as it sounds) there is a compassionate and practical idea to help the process of letting go of ones ‘treasures’, by retaining some of them.  That is to create a Throwaway Box filled with a few carefully selected items that mean a lot to oneself, but nothing to anyone else. This is part of the article mentioned above.

This box could hold anything from “old love letters, programs, memories from travelling” to “a dried flower, a stone with a funny shape, or a little, beautiful shell”. The idea is that your friends or family may look through the box, but have permission (from you!) to get rid of anything inside. And of course, while you’re still around, you get to enjoy all your lovely little things.

I started my box this evening. It looks like I want to retain items that harbour fond memories of people, places and events, it might be my ‘gratitude’ box. The striped piece of fabric relates to my mother who kept it in her sewing box. The purse was given to me by a ‘Dharma Uncle’ when travelling in Japan in 2005. Symbolizing my dharma family, through Rev. Master Jiyu, to multiple ‘relatives’ in Japan. There is another item that will go into the box from relatives in Malasia and Taiwan.

It is proving quite easy to gather these items since they have been populating several draws I use for stationary. Already I can see I don’t need to have so many pens!

Let the Swedish death cleaning begin. You’ll have to read the article to understand what this is all about. No, I’m not about to die, as far as I know, just that I’d like to make the task a of dealing with my belongings a pleasant one when, I do.

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