origami

Three sides

She stepped out of the double glass doors and into a snow flurry of cherry blossoms. They were swept down the windy skyscraper corridors from unseen trees. She walked down the shadowed streets toward the plaza where buildings were far enough apart to allow sun in. A group of small Chinese children in catholic school uniforms ran around chasing each other and shrieking. She sat on an empty bench and opened her bag. In it was an egg salad sandwich and a can of Coke. She ate fastidiously and quickly, watching the teacher round up the children and lead them to a bus. She carefully replaced the sandwich baggy and Coke can into the paper bag and wrapped the bag tightly around the trash before dropping it in the trash bin.

She looked at her watch. Five minutes to walk to the building and three to take the elevator up and three more to get a cup of coffee, so eleven minutes left before she should get going. She reached into her pocket and brought out a small pack of colored paper. She flipped through them, and, thinking of the blossoms, selected a small square of pale pink paper. The Haga cube, she decided. She knew six different types of paper origami boxes by heart, as well as a pyramid, an octagon, the crane and the antelope. Boxes were her favorite thing to fold. They seemed most elegant, most free of any connotation or meaning other than their own boxness. She folded the square perfectly in half, and gave it a sharp crease with her nails. Her fingers fluttered like white birds across the paper, and as the paper folded, her mind unfolded.

Five days ago he had moved his things out of the apartment they had shared for two years. Brown cardboard boxes held together with tape. He pulled a box marked "kitchen" out of the back of the storage closet. He had never opened it in the time they lived together. She didn't even know what his plates looked like, if they were patterned or plain white. He had never felt committed enough to her to unpack.

She folded the paper in half again, then opened that fold and folded the two sides in. Twenty-one days ago he told her he was going to move out. It was a Saturday afternoon, and she was watching TV. He said he needed space, he wanted time to think. She sat staring at the TV. The pictures on it were still moving, but they no longer meant anything. It held as much interest for her as a mirror for a cat. All she could say was "Okay." It seemed too hard to think of anything else.

She folded the paper the long way over. Then she opened it up completely. There lay a gridwork of creases across the white side of the paper. She folded the paper diagonally, creasing only the upper right hand corner and the lower left hand corner.

She had cried for hours the night he told her. And she had cried every day since, until she had started folding. Folding boxes gave her calm. She folded the paper diagonally the other way, creasing only the lower right hand corner, then unfolding it again. The lines made sense. They led to something solid. All one had to do was make the correct creases in the correct spots, precisely and cleanly, and the box would leap into shape. She flipped the paper over and began the next series of creases, a long diagonal, two perpendiculars, two more diagonals.

A man walked over and asked her if she was making one of those Japanese birds. She said no, and nothing else, and he walked away. Cranes are lucky, a thousand cranes at your wedding will bring luck and many children. She held the piece of paper in her hand and looked at it for a moment. It seemed the paper with its many lines was like her palm, and if she were a palm reader, maybe she could read the future of little unfolded origami boxes, as well as reading the stories in unclenched fists.

She pressed the sides and it began to fall into shape. Two sides of the cube, three sides, tuck the edges in. It was smaller and more delicate as it took on three dimensions. She started to tuck in the final side to finish the small pink box, but the paper resisted. It was missing a crease and wouldn't fold in properly, and as she tried to improvise the crease, it sprang from her hands and into the arms of the wind.

She looked at her watch, then rose from the bench. She straightened her skirt and walked back toward the building. The small pink box sailed through the air in the company of cherry blossom petals, and into the gutter.

1994

a box
another

4/26/2001 08:58:09 AM | link

Sunday April 1

Went to the fleamarket at Alemda. It's at a former navel base.

I went with my sister and my mom. Lyssa's a fiend for jewelry and kitchy furniture. Mom likes to look at everything.

This one's for you Philippe: nice car!

Lots of cool odd old toy cars....

After we went to Joe's cabel car for burgers. Dad met us there.Pictured here modeling an egretings baseball cap. Will the latest fashion be tchotkes from deceased dot-coms?

I love Joes. Great burgers, great milkshakes, great rootbeer floats, and you can watch the butcher cut up meat if you are there during the day. this did dismay my sister teh vegitarian somewhat. Dad and I watched, though.

4/1/2001 09:24:58 PM | link