What are words worth?

Letters, birthday cards, notes scrawled on torn out notebook paper, entry passes and invitations...as I sift through the pile of paper on the first shelf I have decided, in my new-found resolve, to clear out, I find a messy mass of memories. Driving in to school, communing with other harried parents A wish and a dream, still unfulfilled The beginning of something, and something ended A bouquet of affection bundled into thoughtful gifts

I woke up this morning feeling a sense that my life was overflowing....in the wrong kind of way. Yes, it is full in many ways, in all the good ways, but in addition to all that love and friendship and professional fulfillment (please note: I do not include material wealth and that house by the lake), there are reams of paper of various description, sarees requiring starching and ironing, fabric lengths waiting to be tailored, forms of legacy media to be either digitised or thrown out, broken cups and other memorabilia that have outlived the memory...you get the picture. A recent conversation with a friend brought up the idea of leaving a "light footprint". We had seen others struggle with getting rid of their parents' and grandparents' things, and were assailed by these visions of our offspring sitting in the middle of all this (what they would most certainly consider junk) and wondering which things to throw away and which to keep, any possible grief they may be f