It starts because the “Easy Origami Giraffe” is decidedly un-easy. Or at least the directions are. The lily, though, with its detailed instructions and clear pictures—it has a lot of promise.
The first time through the pattern works like a puzzle. But after making a few you discover there’s a rhythm. The paper dances a little. All the preparatory folds, the ones that seemed so fussy at first, become clear, and things happen under your fingers as if by magic.
It’s amazing how quickly your fingers are able to learn the distances—how far one point must travel to meet up with another, how far an edge must go to reach the center crease—soon it becomes a smooth motion. Something felt, no longer calculated.
Of course they are only shadows of the real thing. But the colors, the motion, the neatness of the folds, all draw you in. The delicacy of this thing that used to be flat but has been folded into something with dimension and substance—it calls out a certain feeling in you, to hold it in your hand without crushing it.
This is no longer about making decorations for the kindergarten classroom at day camp. This is about color and form. This is about making pathways, and mirroring something you couldn’t possibly re-create.
It is about a small gift to the world, adding beauty to beauty, seeing possibility.
It is about trusting that there is meaning even to the things that don’t make sense at first.
Clearly you need to make a whole bouquet.
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