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.
