Orizuru and Synchronicity

The wall-to-wall carpet that I bought in 2012 had been vacuumed regularly but had never been cleaned.  It didn't appear horribly dirty, but something prompted me to have it cleaned professionally a few days ago.  When the carpet cleaning technician arrived, he announced that he had cleaned my carpet once before.  He appeared to be in his 50s.  I can't say that I recognized him.  My rough guess is that he cleaned my carpet at least 20 years ago because I can only recall having someone clean my carpet one or two other times since I moved here in 1984.  He did a fine job.

In order to have my carpet cleaned, I had to move some furniture and numerous other belongings into my kitchen, my hall closet and out onto my porch, leaving much more empty floor space than I usually have.  It occurred to me that it would be a good time to let go of some of those belongings and free up floor space.  Then it occurred to me that, while I was at it, I could let go of other belongings and free up table and shelf surfaces.  

Among what I let go of were origami that were scattered around my living room on shelves and tables.  

This morning I was given the tiniest origami I have ever seen.  Orizuru.

If Sadako Sasaki were still alive, she would be 76 years old today / Synchronicity

Last night just before I went to sleep was my first attempt to make an origami crane in many years.  The crane was the 13th and the most difficult in a series of progressively difficult paper foldings that I began by making a yellow boat on Christmas Day, with the idea of attempting one folding each day.

My first attempt at folding the crane wasn't quite right, but it was close.  I was tired.  I photographed it and went to sleep.

Early this morning I learned that today, January 7, would have been the 76th birthday of Sadako Sasaki.

Just now, I made a second attempt and was successful.

Sadako Sasaki

Visions of Hokusai / Breakthrough / Synchronicity

A friend I've had for 51 years sent me a book of origami and haiku from the British Museum.  The package arrived on my doorstep on Christmas Eve after I'd gone to sleep, and I found it when I opened my front door at 4 a.m. on Christmas Day.  My first reaction was delight.  My second reaction on opening the package was a sinking feeling because in all my life I have never had any luck with origami, only annoyance and frustration and that terrible sense of inadequacy I have often experienced when it comes to following written instructions.  In addition, because I had come down with an upper respiratory cold on December 20, I was in the depths of the type of debilitating depression that always arises when I have a cold.

Nevertheless, I found the book to be beautiful.  The origami paper at the back of the book is exquisite.  In the midst of that depression, something urged me to attempt origami once more.  Before I went to sleep at the end of Christmas Day, I succeeded in folding a boat!  I decided to attempt only one origami a day.  To my amazement, I was able to continue to follow the written instructions one day at a time, as the folding increased in difficulty.  Folding the origami became the high point of my day.  Here is what I had folded by the January 1, 2019:

 Yesterday I felt well enough to go  out to look for a journal for 2019 and found this:

This morning when I was looking at the stats for my blog, I noticed that someone had visited this post from August 2009:



"... and what a wave must be."

Last night I folded a grasshopper:

To add to the synchronicity, it was in June 2009 that David Carradine died.

In the next three days, I will fold a horse, a flower, and a crane.