woolgathering

I really love Valentine’s Day.

Hands down, it is one of my favorite holidays. I’m not a huge fan of going on some sort of fancy dinner date or anything involving a horse drawn carriage and fireworks (being in class for twelve hours doesn’t help this cause either); I just always dress for the holiday spirit and make valentines.

This year, I spent a lot of time making grammar-themed valentines for my work, so I wanted something simpler to make for all my other favorite people, so I learned some origami. I’m a fan of the cootie catchers, but I had always failed at anything bigger than that. Those water bomb things or paper cranes? Not a chance. They always turned in to piles of crumpled paper. I decided to try for something a little out of my norm, so I memorized the instructions for a heart with wings.

I tried to find origami paper, however venturing on a Sunday night at 10 p.m. to WalMart was a failure. Luckily my best friend has a large supply of scrapbook paper. My hearts were pretty damn adorable, if I do say so myself. I decided maybe it was time to relearn paper cranes after all.

With a few hours to kill while hanging out at school, I picked up some graph paper (thank you engineers for having such awesome notepads of paper) and parked myself in Starbucks for a folding bonanza. I’m so exciting, right?

While Googling directions for paper cranes, I stumbled upon the legend of 1000 paper cranes. The ancient Japanese legend is that anyone who folds the thousand paper cranes will be granted one wish by a crane. 

The crane is a highly revered and mystical creature according to Japanese folklore, and it is rumored to live a thousand years. This story has been translated into modern tradition by giving the gift of a thousand cranes. It is often given to new brides from their father as a symbol of life long happiness and prosperity or to babies for a long life and good luck.

Because I’m planning my wedding, I can’t help but like the idea. I still have a while off, so I have plenty of time to begin my paper crane folding. Thanks to some time spent at Starbucks, only 998 to go!

2.17.12