2,000 Paper Cranes... And Counting.

I remember first learning to fold paper cranes... it was at Peace Camp 1999, in Vancouver, BC. I had just turned 10 and was BFF with Rachel who was a year older and therefore SO cool. I had sort of gotten the gist down, but I had this really shiny gold paper that was really pretty that I wanted to fold a crane with, but that paper is a little hard to use when you are a beginner. Rachel helped me smooth out some of the mistakes I had made and together we finished that gold crane. I thought of it as our friendship crane. And though Rachel and I have not spoken since that summer (I've been trying to find her on facebook but have been unsuccessful so far...), that crane brings me memories of our friendship that summer.

here it is, twelve years later

I was in fifth grade that next school year, and we read the story of Sadako. We folded cranes, and I, of course, was already an expert. 

Sometime around age 11, I started folding teeny tiny cranes, tearing my origami paper so I could make those little cranes. I'm not sure exactly what the draw was; perhaps the challenge? maybe I just thought they were cute? Anyway, the summer I turned 11, I decided I would fold a thousand cranes. Mostly just to see if I could do it. And I guess something to do with ~peace~. It was a slow start, but a pretty big undertaking for an eleven year old. I only folded maybe a hundred that first year.

In seventh grade, we studied Japan in social studies class, so we approached the subject of the atom bomb & Hiroshima & Nagasaki. As a seventh grade class, we folded 1000 cranes to send to the Sadako memorial in Japan. I donated some of my teeny tiny cranes to the cause, and folded many more, because again, I was an expert at this already.

In eighth grade I was very angsty. Reading my journals from back then is just drama, drama, drama, ~feelings~, ugh my lyf sux, etc. By then, folding cranes had become a calming activity, a coping mechanism. I'd play some music (angsty, of course), and fold. At this point, I barely needed to look down, my fingers knew exactly what to do.

It was the summer after eighth grade, the summer I turned 14, that I found out my friend Madeleine had cancer. When we departed that summer, we were confident we'd be seeing each other again. Her cancer was treatable, she was young and healthy, she'd be cancer free in no time. I'm not sure when exactly I decided that the cranes were now Madi's. It may have been right when I came home that summer after learning she had cancer. It may not have been until a few months later when we realized that this wouldn't be as easy as we'd thought. Nevertheless, I had folded maybe 400 cranes by that summer. And sometime in the next few months I did decide they were Madi's cranes, and it became almost urgent that I keep folding, that I make it to a thousand.

Time passed slowly or too quickly the next few months, who can say now. Come April, I got a phone call. I answered the phone and the person on the line asked to speak with one of my parents. I shrugged it off, I didn't know who it was. A few minutes later, my mom came to me with the phone. She told me it was Madi's dad on the phone; it was going to be soon. That conversation with bob is up there in the top ten hardest conversations I've ever had. I don't remember much of what was said. I remember sobbing. And I remember bob saying: "She was a great kid, eh?"

After I hung up the phone, I went and sat on my futon. I had 900 cranes. I folded a hundred that day. I sat there sobbing and folding, while each of my family members took turns sitting with me. I made it to a thousand. Madi departed to the heavens a few days later.

I put those cranes in a box. I couldn't be there for all of her illness, but this had been how I was present with her, how I had thought of her every day.

Months later, much too soon for me, a classmate of mine died of heart failure while playing basketball. I had never known him well, but it was all too real to have another fifteen year old die. That first day when we heard the news, teachers hardly expected us to do anthing. We made cards for his family, we wrote him letters. I folded cranes. I sent fifteen with a letter to his mom that first week. I had every intention of folding a thousand for him as well, but somewhere in there, time passed, and while I kept folding, I got busier, it went slower, and I had never met his family, only seen them from afar at his funeral. I know that they would have still appreciated it, but I never did give his family the rest of the cranes.

The summer of 2006, it was the 60th anniversary of the bombings in Japan. My aunt and uncle's church did a commemoration, and I folded the cranes for the service.

Time passed again. I grew older, didn't fold cranes as much. I finished Aaron's thousand, had Madi's thousand in a box, and had even more. Last summer, we began packing up the house to move to TX. I didn't know what to do with all those cranes. Madi's would of course, be making the trip. But Aaron and I hadn't been as close and I felt weird keeping them even if I didn't give them to his family. Though they may have been "Aaron's cranes", the truth is that there was a piece of my soul in every one of them. My pain, my suffering, my tears, my love, my joy, my hope.

That summer we returned to Keuka, NY for Peace Camp, which had been the last place I had seen Madeleine. I decided that I would take some of these cranes and we would have a small memorial service in the lake, giving the cranes to the water we'd had so much fun in at age fourteen. Her biological sister Genevieve, her spiritual sisters Frances, Sarah, Lydia and I put the cranes in the water. We told stories and remembered our beautiful sister.

cranes floating in the lake

I had only taken some to NY however, so I was still faced with the issue of what to do with all these cranes. My friend Sean suggested: "Use them to make one giant crane, charge admission to see it, and then take a bath in the millions of dollars you will inevitably make. Your welcome." Other suggestions were to make a mobile or donate to a children's hospital. My mom then suggested that maybe we give them out at church. We joined Mt. Level in 1997 just before I turned 8. This church is our family, and I liked the idea of giving them something to remember us by. The last Sunday that all of us were there as people living in Durham (we have gotten to visit a few times since), I brought a basket of cranes, I believe a few hundred. They were all different sizes and colors, people took one or many. After church was over, there were still some left, and we saved them for the kids I had worked with for years in Messiah's House.

We officially moved to Texas. I still had maybe a few hundred cranes left, just the teeny tiny ones, and I figured I would make art with them or something. My best intentions are often overcome by laziness, so mostly they have just sat in their box.

On the seventh anniversary of Madi's death, I had my own memorial service for her. I went to the grotto on St. Ed's campus, which had been a place of solace for me, especially my freshman year. I used to walk back from the photo lab pretty late, and would stop to chat with Madi a while before heading to my dorm. That day I took 22 cranes, for she would be 22 this year, and laid them at the altar. I chatted with her a while, cried a bit, and remembered my dear Madi.

This brings us to present day. Where are the cranes now? Still in a box. But I am leaving for LA soon, and have been struggling with how to say goodbye to my friends and family here.

And I came up with something to do with the cranes.

Yesterday I spent folding boxes to put cranes in. There is no significant number of cranes in each box, just sort of filled each one. My hope is that these become prayer cranes. I am going to be especially in need of prayer in this next year of my life as I embark on this next year of service with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. I want to give you something tangible to remember me by, something to guide your prayers (or positive thoughts, if you prefer) for me. I have also made prayer crane boxes for my new roommates that I will meet in less than two weeks, so we can share this journey together.

If you would like one, please let me know. Don't worry about me running out, I can easily fold more. Also, if you are not nearby, I'm not sure how well these will hold up in the mail, but if you would still like a crane, I can send you a bigger one.

If you have stuck with this entry for this long, props to you. Thank you for being part of my journey.

Day Five: Which Animal Will We Donate??

My mission in Missions on Friday was to give an overview of the Heifer Project, and really to focus on aspects of the organization. We learned about how HP was started in 1944 during the Spanish Civil War and has helped over 4 million families both directly and indirectly through passing on the gift. Heifer has some important guidelines for their work including:

• There must be need
• Humane treatment of animals
• Environmentally sustainable practices
• Communities and families share in decision making
• Must set goals and report progress
• Passing on the gift

Passing on the gift is something that I tried to reiterate time and time again during Missions, because it is what I see as the most important aspect of the Heifer Project. Not only does HP donate directly to communities, but those communities can keep spreading the wealth through passing on the gift, as well as experiencing the joy of giving.

The other mission during Missions was to choose which animal we wanted to buy with the money the children had brought for offering that week. Around the room, I had pictures of all the different animals you could buy through Heifer Project--honey bees, cows, ducks, chicks, llamas, trees, goats, pigs, water buffalo, fish, sheep and rabbits. Each child had four stickers for their four votes--they could put them all on one animal or split them up in any combination. After all four groups voted, our top vote-getters were rabbits, llamas and ducks. The petting zoo that we had that day likely had something to do with the rabbits and the ducks getting so many votes. I didn't really want to point out that the rabbits were just going to be eaten when all the kids kept going on and on about how cute they were and that's why they voted for them...

Later in the afternoon, we found out how much money we had gotten through the week, and with the church's promise to match us, we had over $1000!!!! I can't remember the exact number, or the exact amount of animals but I believe we will be purchasing two llamas, a water buffalo, two goats, two flocks of ducks and three trios of rabbits. The kids were very excited and I am so glad that I got to be part of them making a difference for families throughout the world.

For Creative Arts Camp, we had a shorter day that day to prepare for our presentation. We did some quick theater games then went over the dance they would be doing later. We had three groups, and had each one do a different dance--Jai Ho, African dance or folklorico. The music group had to borrow the stage about halfway through, so we moved to a different room and played a few rounds of freeze dance.

Later we got to present our dances, and I stood where they could see me to remind them of the dance steps. All of the groups did very well and I think really showed what they learned during the week. We didn't have time to do any of the plays so we told the parents to ask their kids about them. The other presentation groups were quite good as well, and I liked seeing what the other classes did.

This was a wonderful week and I am so glad I got to participate. Heifer Project has been an important organization to me for a long time and I was glad to learn more as well as share with a new generation. I also love teaching dance and am glad that I got to expand their horizons a little bit in terms of dance. What a great week!

Day Four: LLAMAS

A lot of you that know me, know that llamas are one of my favorite animals. I love llamas. I was very excited for llama day, which happened to be Thursday.

In Missions, we started out talking about South America, again clarifying the difference between a country and a continent and naming some countries in South America. A lot more of the kids had actually been to countries in South America, and I have been twice, so it was cool to offer that personal experience to the lesson.

We then began discussing the animal for the day: Llamas. I have a couple of model llamas from Ten Thousand Villages, made with real llama wool, so I brought them along. First class we passed them around, but that seemed too distracting so the rest of the classes I held on to them and told them they could come pet them after class. We talked about why llamas are in important animal within the Heifer Project--used for wool, as pack animals, hides, candle fat, etc. People can travel long distances, which they often have to do to go to other towns, especially going to market. Llamas have two toes and padded soles and are therefore very good at climbing the mountains, which is an important aspect when living in the Andes. Llamas eat twigs, moss and brush, meaning they are not competing with a lot of other animals and are easier to feed than other livestock. At an hour old, they are already running around. We heard a story about Tomas, a boy whose family had to wait their turn to get the baby llama from another family that had gotten one from the Heifer Project.

In the afternoon, we acted out a folk tale in which a condor has kidnapped a girl, and then a frog saves her. I then taught a bit of folklorico and tried to tie in some elements from Chilean, Peruvian and Brasilian folk dance. In one of the groups we did a little bit of capoeira, because of a request from one of the kids. I must confess that I have not done capoeira in a while, and was racking my brain to remember some moves. Fortunately the kids had a capoeira master actually come teach them in a different class, because I wouldn't have wanted them to go home with only my (kind of terrible) lesson. The folk dance, on the other hand, went very well. I am pretty experienced in folklorico now as I have danced in a group for four years, so I taught some simple footwork. It seemed a little less exciting because in folklorico there is so much focus on the footwork and the rhythm of the feet than in other dance styles, but the kids seemed to enjoy it all the same, so that's good!