Journey of a Thousand Cranes, Part 4

Image by 1278956 from Pixabay 

When I had folded over 700 cranes I realized I wasn’t sure what I was wishing for. 

Was I wishing for love? 

Or power? 

The standard definition for the expression “lucky in love,” was somebody who had her pick of many desirable lovers - a very powerful position to be in. 

That was tantalizing. 

Or did I want to be a world-class seductress, powerful enough to finally win over those beloveds who had always been out of reach? 

That would be proof of my redemption. 

My wishing meditation to become “lucky in love” made me face just how unhealthy my perspective on love really was. 

And knowing my stance was toxic, and…well…unloving…made it much more difficult to play the usual role with the people at the root of that. 

I have come to appreciate the expression “family of origin” as well as its implied meaning that true family is found elsewhere for those who had to make that distinction.

In my family of origin, it was always about somebody else. Drama was the focus in a family where everybody was proud to be crazy. 

As the least powerful and least valuable member of my family of origin, my dutiful role was to be the the watcher enthralled with the chaos stirred up by the colorful people around me, or the peacemaker who listened and make soothing, agreeable noises in the fights and crises that were constant. 

I caused little, if any, trouble, and received as little, if any, attention from the others. If I tried, I was either brushed off or shut down. My main source of approval was from my role to and for the others, not in and of myself. 

I was the good one, but the others were fascinating.

How can anybody be lucky in love with a start like that?

Many times when I folded cutout photos from magazines, excerpts from my abandoned novel, and yellowed pages from the book of one of my favorite writers, I wasn’t in a loving frame of mind. 

I was enraged at those who had brought me to where I was – folding paper in the hopes that maybe things could get better. And I wasn’t just obsessing over family members, false friends, and selfish lovers.

I was angry with myself for my own participation. 

In the meantime, my paper cranes were really beautiful. 

My folds had become very precise; and the designs on them from the manuscript pages, the novel pages, and the photographs were unique - no two cranes were alike. I was excited about being done with the paper birds so I could finally put them up on the wall. 

I wasn’t the only one who appreciated them. 

Going around town, I’d occasionally see cranes I’d folded and given away. 

They were taped to the computer at the hairdresser and the florist, to the cash register at the café where I got my mocha, and the bakery where I got my bagels. 

In colleagues’ offices, I’d see them tucked between the stalks of a plant, or peering at the top of a framed print. 

It was very satisfying to see them because that told me that they were truly appreciated. I’m sure most of the cranes I gifted ended up in the garbage.

But I saw enough of them out that I felt a recognition I never knew I craved.

When my count was at 800 cranes, I was on a camping trip with my philosophy class. Yet I still brought paper to fold. 

Everybody knew what I was doing, but nobody knew what my wish was. 

One of my classmates asked me if I’d heard about the true story, “Sadako and the Thousand Cranes.” 

Allie explained that Sadako had been a twelve-year-old girl born with leukemia in Hiroshima after WWII. Her wish was to be healed and live, but she died before she finished folding a thousand cranes. 

After her death, her classmates finished the project for her and she was buried with all the cranes and a statue was erected in her honor. 

That is how the crane has become a universal symbol for peace and the devastation of war. 

As poignant as that story is, I was distressed at the time I heard it, and then I felt guilty for being so selfish. 

On a deep level, Sadako’s wish has come true, because a part of her lives on every time somebody folds a crane – even me, with my shallow desires. 

But she still died. 

And so did Jeff’s mother. 

I just wanted to date on a regular basis. I didn’t want to have to die to have a mob of people pining for me.

When my count was at 900 cranes, I slowed down in the folding of them. 

I was anxious about the wish because I realized how much I wanted it to come true, even if I didn’t know what I was wishing for. 

Journey of a Thousand Cranes, Part 3

Image by Anja🤗#helpinghands #solidarity#stays healthy🙏 from Pixabay

Meditation is a strange trip, leading to unexpected places within one’s psyche. 

Modern day spirituality – call it New Age or not - has called out fear as the opposite of love, and our problems come down to being in a state of fear and not love. 

That sounds like an easy problem to take care of, and I wish it were that simple. But it’s not. 

I think the opposite of love is all about power, the aphrodisiac of the ego.  

Power is far more seductive than fear.

The more I’ve experienced and the more I’ve observed within the dysfunctional arena of love, I’ve found that power is the enemy. Our most basic good and evil struggles is the tug of war between the two. 

I think most of us can remember not so much the one who got away, so much as the one who was never caught.

Can’t you still picture that would-be beloved who was always out of reach?

Can you still feel the residual of past yearning churning in you belly? 

“Why doesn’t he call?” 

“Why is she so distant?”

“How can they not love me when I’m so good to them?”

Maybe the reason was because there is pleasure to receiving the love without giving any back. Maybe you weren’t challenging enough. 

Power.

On a less romantic note, can’t most of us think of a time when we did something we knew was wrong, but were tempted by the short-term benefits? 

How many of us acknowledged it to the person wronged with a sincere apology? 

Was the burden of your conscience enough to direct you to the high road? 

Even after the long term consequences were starting to demand pay back? 

Enough said. 

In any unhealthy group – family, work, friendship, relationship - in the struggle between love and pride, power usually wins because who wants to surrender in a struggle? 

Power feeds the ego at the starvation of the heart, but the more powerful in toxic groups ignore that painful stress to couple, family, and even community welfare. 

The powerful get their strokes and that satisfies. Guess who gets stuck paying off the emotional tab, and guess what gets used to hook you?

After all, don’t you want them to be happy? 

If you truly loved them, of course you would.

Yet don’t they want you to be happy? 

But you should be happy, for you’re given a place in their lives and how can that not make you feel loved? 

I speak from experience and my track record proves it. 

My significant relationships were with extremely self-centered people.  These men never considered my feelings in the way things were supposed to go in the relationship. 

When it came to “fixing” our problems, the focus was on their malcontent and my inadequacy. As an extension of him, I wasn’t supposed to be unhappy, and if I was, I should just get over it because there was certainly nothing wrong with him. 

And the awful part is that I accepted that dynamic until I was so miserable I extricated myself from the tar baby. That is always a torture.

Such were my thoughts and memories as I folded paper.

Around 500 cranes, I noticed that the traveling gym rat had not responded to the letter I wrote about an incredible kayaking trip I had taken. 

As I focused on that, I fumed that this project was a stupid idea on the day I got a package from Jeff, the friend who had first told me about folding the cranes. 

Inside the package was a blue kimono and a note explaining that he had gotten it for me a year and a half ago in Tokyo, and how sorry he was it had taken so long to send it on. 

But the kicker was on the kimono – it was covered with cranes in flight.

My jaw had to be picked up off the floor.

Since the Buddha said there are no coincidences - and I respect the Buddha - I took it as a sign to hold the faith and keep folding.

By 600 cranes, I had gotten really creative. Cutting out equidistant squares from magazines and photographs made for some far more unique, one-of-a-kind cranes.

One morning, I sitting on the ground in the long line of people who had gotten there early for the annual ski swap – the one chance every year to get good gear cheap. People practically camp out to be one of the first in line.

I sat on the ground, and folded paper as I waited with everybody else. 

A man sitting nearby noticed and told me that he and some friends had made a thousand cranes out of gold paper for a Japanese couple about to get married. It was a traditional thing to do and according to legend, it brought good luck to the newlyweds.

“These are nice folds,” he said, picking up one of my paper birds.        

My road to love has suffered many gridlocks as I dated the no-good’uns and ne’er-do-wells. There were nice guys who asked me out and sometimes I dated one and they were always a pleasure to be around. 

But there was always a reason why it wouldn’t last. And frankly, that reason was because I wouldn’t give them a real chance. 

Of all my self-destructive patterns when it came to love, I had to see all the time wasted for what it was – wasted time – every time I yearned for the love who was out of reach, falling madly in love for the friend who liked me well enough, but just wasn’t interested. 

That disinterest put him on a pedestal high above me and I pined more than ever, paying no mind to the suitors who offered something real.    

When I had folded over 700 cranes I realized I wasn’t even sure what I was wishing for.