YESTERDAY IS HISTORY
TOMORROW IS MYSTERY
TODAY IS A GIFT
I put these words bold because they were written in huge golden letters on a signboard mounted on an apartment block, above it’s name on the entrance. It was a striking contrast with the rather deteriorating building, so I looked around for a picture of Jesus (what else could accompany these words and explain the reasons for putting them there?). There was none. So I penned them down on an envelope and went back home.
Here we go back months in time. My wife made a carton house for our son. As he grew, we added some things and made fine adjustments, such as a ramp and spare room for cat, and shelves for his toys, and windows from carton toilet paper rolls. It was painted few times other and fit with doors and secret places, at best times he could park inside his tricycle. As this house suffered a lot from all the sort of games played in and with it and from our cat’s claws sharpening exercises, we fixed it with tape and papermache, and painted over again. Cat and son loved this box, and often fought for it. When we moved house, we couldn’t take it with us: it was just to big, too worn out and too odd.
So we dumped it in the street by the rubbish bins. No, nobody cried. But, I felt like an iceberg losing a big chunk of ice: it seemed like this box was with us forever, growing in size as our son and cat did. Before we departed for good, I wrote around it my goodbye, some looped in circle, as a spell, words:
YESTERDAYISHISTORYTOMORROWISMYSTERYTODAYISAGIFT
After that I came back home, found and reread Mike’s memory “Garbage Can Zen”. I wanted to read more. So I headed to his blog and found there a quote from Chuang-Tzu: “The perfect man employs his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing; it refuses nothing; it receives, but it does not keep.”
Cheers, Mike.
abraxus
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