800 cranes -- and moving backwards?

I'm worried.

As I pass the 800 mark and draw ever nearer my goal, the anger still flares. What happens if I fold 1,000 cranes and I'm still the same angry person I was when I started? What if I'm forced to admit this was all for naught, that I've failed, that I'll never conquer my anger?

To be fair, it's the holidays. My three children are home from school, alternately bored and bouncing off the walls about Christmas. The noise level in the house has escalated. I'm also deeply depressed about the effect the holidays have on my kids (greed, etc.). I feel like a failure when I see how this soulless, technophiliac culture has sucked them in, despite my best efforts to the contrary.

And yesterday, with Christmas Eve bearing down on us, I finally had to dive into the fray and spend several hours roaming Target to buy all the junk that will make my children "happy." Yuck. I dislike shopping at ANY time of year. Talk about a living nightmare! I had a raging headache by the end of it. And I'm still not done. Must go again, either today or tomorrow.

I'm like a dieter struggling to get through the holiday season without packing on 20 pounds. Only, I'm struggling to get through without exploding 20 times.

But if anger is going to be vanquished, it has to be vanquished no matter what the circumstances or time of year. If I'm to be a peaceful person, I'd like to be peaceful on December 23 as well as January 19 and April 3 and July 14.

Maya Angelou once said that you can tell a lot about a person by how she handles three things: lost luggage; rainy days; and tangled Christmas lights. That's it, exactly. The stress of the holidays is no excuse for losing it. In fact, here lies my greatest opportunity to show who I really am.

Or who I aspire to be.

Birds of heaven

A few years ago my friend Peter Matthiessen, the novelist/naturalist/Zen master, wrote a book about cranes called "The Birds of Heaven." What a lovely title, and how apt. Cranes can soar as high as 20,000 feet in the sky. Their annual migrations are as long as 3,000 miles. Surely they glimpse heaven on those journeys.

No wonder many cultures have revered cranes for centuries, and consider them symbols of good luck and longevity. In Japan, cranes are nearly mythical beings, capable of granting a wish to whomever folds 1,000 paper likenesses of these majestic birds.

Once in my life, I was near a whooping crane. What a transcendent experience! These incredible creatures have a wingspan of eight feet. They are immense and white, and quite intimidating up close -- yet beautiful. Messengers from heaven.

A friend of mine invited me to come with her to the Kissimmee Prairie in the middle of Florida, where volunteers and scientists were caring for a nonmigratory flock of whoopers -- part of a national effort to preserve this fragile species, which remains in grave danger of extinction.

While the wildlife experts took blood samples and other measurements from each crane, the volunteers held the other ones and tried to keep them calm, sitting in metal folding chairs, one bird in each lap, fitted with a canvas hood so it couldn't see its surroundings. Because I hadn't been trained to work with the cranes, I was not allowed to hold one but that was fine with me. These huge creatures, as tall as five feet, are a bit scary at close quarters. I sat next to my friend and watched. We had to be very quiet, to keep the cranes' stress level to a minimum.

As I fold these little squares of origami paper, I think of that day and the profound silence in that circle of chairs. We were in the presence of heaven, I think.

700 cranes -- and counting

I've now folded 700 paper cranes. Hard to believe. The goal of 1,000 is slowly coming into view on the horizon. At my rate of 10 cranes per day, I am only 30 days away from senbazuru. About a week into the New Year.

Even this far along, I still struggle. The last two days, I have felt intermittently crabby -- no huge temper outbursts but snappish and surly. I've fallen back into my old habits of staying up too late, so this is caused by lack of sleep, I'm pretty sure. Earl(ier) to bed tonight, and we'll see if that makes a difference.

For inspiration, here are the words of wisdom on the tag attached to my tea bag in tonight's cup of Yogi Tea:

"Your strength is in how calmly, quietly and peacefully you face life."

Birthday blessings

Today I have been blessed with many beautiful gifts from Mother Earth:

1. I didn't go to bed until after midnight, so was awake for the first few minutes of my birthday. The day began with a silent white moon, waxing full, sending its light through the cold window beside my bed.

2. At dawn, standing in the freezing dark at the school bus stop with my daughters, I suddenly heard a heart-stopping (for me, anyway) sound: the honking of Canada geese. I looked up into the sky and there they were, in a ragged V, soaring overhead, trumpeting their call. Absolutely lovely.

3. Later in the morning, I walked out my back door and there, not 20 feet away, was "Scott," the resident hawk of our neighborhood, skimming low through the branches of our woods and calling Happy Birthday to me in his unmistakeable voice.

4. During our drive up into the mountains, in the yard of a farmhouse: a brown dog, lying on his back in the grass, all four paws wriggling in the air. A sunbath on a winter morning. Such joy.

5. A walk through a chilly Appalachian cove forest and finding, at the end of the trail, a half-frozen waterfall.

6. In the evening, as we sat by the fire on the back porch, the moon was wreathed with a giant silver corona. I haven't seen one of those in years.

Beautiful, beautiful day. I'm filled with gratitude.

The Peace Tree

Our Christmas tree this year is a little different -- a lot different, actually. The usual ornaments never even got unpacked. Instead, we put my origami peace cranes all over the branches. A few white snowflakes, too.

The crowning touch is an unusual tree topper I found last summer in Boulder -- a lighted peace sign.

As soon as we decorated the tree, my cat curled up beneath it and has been there ever since, snoozing. He feels the peace vibes!

644 - In honor of Sadako

Tonight, I have passed the 644 mark, which seemed very far away when I began this experiment.

644 is significant because of a little girl named Sadako Sasaki. She is partly my inspiration for all this. Sadako was born in 1943 and lived in Hiroshima. When the atomic bomb fell, it was near Sadako's home. She was not injured but, like hundreds of thousands of people, exposed to intense radiation. Ten years later, at the age of 12, she was diagnosed with leukemia. While in the hospital, she decided to undertake the Japanese tradition of "senbazuru" -- folding 1,000 origami cranes in hopes of having a wish come true. Sadako's wish, of course, was to survive her illness.

Sadly, that did not happen. She died in 1955, a few months before I was born. One version of the Sadako story says that she finished her 1,000 cranes and folded even more before her death. Another version (the one I like better) says she only made it to 644 -- the same number I completed tonight -- before dying. Her classmates at school folded the remaining cranes and all 1,000 were buried with Sadako.

Either way, it's a stirring story, one that has inspired a book, several songs and two memorials to Sadako -- one at the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima and another in Seattle. At the memorial in Hiroshima, schoolchildren constantly visit with offerings of paper cranes they've folded. (An interesting aside: The "world's largest peace crane," with a wingspan of more than 200 feet, was constructed inside the Seattle Kingdome in 1999. It was made from hundreds of scraps of paper with peace wishes written on them by children from all over the world.)

Supposedly, Sadako composed a haiku about her crane folding. It shows that her wish went far beyond being cured of her illness. Her wish was the same as mine -- peace.

The English translation of Sadako's haiku:

"I shall write peace upon your wings, your heart and you shall fly around the world so that children will no longer have to die this way."

600 now

Last night, I reached the 600 mark. I've folded 600 paper cranes, in 60 days!

This morning I taught meditation at the local UU church.

And my sinuses are at rest, for the first time in a long time.

Feeling peaceful.

If we were angry a moment ago...

More words of Buddhist wisdom, this time courtesy of Ayya Khema, author and founder of Nuns Island:


November 29, 2008
Tricycle's Daily Dharma

Rebirth

"...We need not think of rebirth only in a future life. We are in actual fact reborn every moment with new thoughts and feelings, and we bring with us the karma that we made in the past moments. If we were angry a moment ago, we are not going to feel good immediately. If we were loving a moment ago, we would be feeling fine now. Thus we live moment to moment with the results of our karma."

--Ayya Khema, "When the Iron Eagle Flies"

The challenge of the holidays

I must confess: I've lost it 2 or 3 times so far this holiday weekend. I am not the serene being I aspire to be -- STILL. A work in progress, indeed.

The only thing I can say in my defense is that I do seem to be "catching" the anger a little sooner. I definitely notice it arising (as opposed to not noticing, until I'm in full rage mode). And I definitely see its causes. 99.9% of the time it's around an issue of control (see earlier post on that subject). My "special someone" is here in the house all weekend and that ups the ante, in terms of potential blow-ups. My challenge is right in my face all the time, so to speak.

A lot of us deal with this during the holidays. Families gather and instead of Norman Rockwell, we have sparks flying. The great irony of getting together with people we love!

It takes an enormous amount of self-awareness to see yourself barreling down the runway toward an anger attack, and put the brakes on. Sometimes this weekend, I have not been successful. But at least a couple of times I was successful. Yea! I need to remember that, and be grateful for those small victories.

Tooth abcess = sinus infection = anger?

I haven't posted in several days, and here's why: I went to a new dentist, found out I had gum disease (oh, great!), discussed with him my ongoing sinus problems and a couple of days later, found myself in his chair having a tooth extracted. That was yesterday. Once the tooth was out, he found it was horribly infected and had abcessed into the floor of the sinus cavity.

Long story short, I have been carrying around chronic infection in my body for several years. I feel so much better today -- both physically and mentally -- that I'm wondering how much this has had to do with my general crabbiness. I know I haven't felt well for a looooong time. I had been to several dentists and ENTs, trying to find someone who'd connect the dots between my dental and sinus problems. I always suspected they were related. And evidently they were.

Maybe it's just the huge relief over maybe, finally, finding a solution to this -- but I swear I have felt significantly calmer and clearer in the last 24 hours.

Hope it's going to last.

The halfway mark!

Here they are, all 500 of them, with the little human who, minutes before this picture was snapped, told me I was "making good progress" in controlling my anger. Out of the mouths of babes....

Day 50

Today is Day 50 of this 100-day experiment in senbazuru. And before the clock strikes midnight (in just a few minutes), I'm going to create my 10 paper cranes of the day. The last one will be No. 500.

Part of me can't believe this. I've made 500 cranes. I am halfway to my goal of 1,000.

Is it working? Am I less prone to anger? Have I found some measure of peace? Perhaps. Yes. Maybe. The truth is, this is a work in progress. I know I won't be magically rid of my anger, the moment I finish that 1,000th crane. Instead, I have to build peace as I go. While I fold colored squares of origami paper, I'm thinking about anger and the damage it causes, the walls it builds between me and others, how it puts peace continually just out of my reach.

This much is true: I am more thoughtful about my anger now, more aware of when it flares up, more remorseful afterwards. Small progress, but significant.

Today, when that special someone did "something" and I felt little hot flames of anger start to lick at my heels, I stopped. I smiled. Then I put my palms together and bowed in thanks. Thanking her for being a teacher to me, for giving me a chance to practice this all-important practice.

Yes, I admit, it felt fake. I was forcing myself to smile and bow. But here's the thing: After I bowed, I waited. I knew the anger was going to come roaring in, as usual. And ... it didn't. There was just a little pause -- empty space -- after the bow. And then I went back to what I had been doing before. Calm. No anger. It felt really, really good.

Tomorrow I'll post a photo of my 500 peace cranes.

Self-consuming fire

Last night, the temperature dipped into the 30s for the first time this season -- a lovely, chilly fall night -- so we fired up the fire-pit table on our back porch. I pulled a chair close and sat there, watching the fire, for a long time.

I've always loved fire -- its warmth, the crackling, the musky smell of smoke, the mesmerizing effect of watching the flames. Somehow it quiets my soul. But until now (a period when I'm thinking a lot about anger), I never paid attention to how fire consumes itself.

We put a medium-sized log in the fire pit and before long, it was engulfed in flame. Awhile after that, its shape began to change. It got smaller and smaller until -- of course -- it was only a bed of glowing-red embers. And the flames were gone.

This is nothing new, the metaphor of anger as fire. But somehow I never really "got" it until now. I watched that little fire do its work of destruction and I couldn't help but think of my anger, consuming everything that feeds it. Leaving nothing but a cold pile of ashes. And afterwards, the inevitable clean-up.

Even worse, fire tends to spring up again. And again. It finds new fuel. Exhausted firemen in California put out one wildfire, only to have another spring up nearby.

What's the answer? How to prevent fire, or anger, from breaking out? I don't quite know yet.

That's why I keep folding these paper cranes, day after day. Almost at 500, by the way ... halfway to senbazuru.

Helpful enemies

For those of us who have a "special person" in our life who pushes our anger button:

November 12, 2008
Tricycle's Daily Dharma

Helpful Enemies

As Shantideva says, there are many beings to whom one can make charity, but there are very few beings with respect to whom one can practice patience, and what is more rare is more valuable. An enemy is really most kind. Through cultivating patience one's power of merit increases, and the practice of patience can only be done in dependence upon an enemy. For this reason, enemies are the main instigators of the increase of meritorious power. An enemy is not someone who prevents the practice of religion but someone who helps practice.

-The Dalai Lama, The Meaning of Life from a Buddhist Perspective

from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book

Candidates as cranes

Here they are, red and blue, on Election Eve 2008. Which one will win tomorrow?

The one with peace in his heart.

Dandelion for anger?

Eight hours of sleep later, I feel better. And more hopeful. A new day in which to strive for no anger attacks. (I know that lack of sleep contributes to my temper, no doubt about it. So eight hours can't hurt!)

Also, I just read a Yahoo news article by a doctor of Chinese medicine. He says that taking 500 milligrams of dandelion daily, for a month or longer, will "help release built-up anger."

Anyone had any experience with this? Herbs were the original medicine, so it sounds plausible. I'm willing to try...

The 300 mark

I've made 300 paper cranes now. That first 300-sheet pack of origami paper is gone. A large plastic shopping bag is full of the fruits of my labor. I'm nearly one-third of the way to my goal.

And today I lost my temper over some silly, small thing. Yelled not at my child, but in her presence. She got silent, as she always does. I felt guilty and sick at heart.

Makes me wonder why I'm even doing this.

Shall I give away the cranes?

I'm at 270 cranes now, and I'm already thinking about what I will do with 1,000 paper cranes when I'm done. I don't have even 300 yet, and they're about to fill one large shopping bag. When I get to 1,000, there are going to be a LOT of cranes.

Maybe I could give them all away. Have a little booth at some festival and hang up a sign: "Free peace cranes. One per customer." Would people take them in the spirit with which they're intended? Would they be happy to accept a small freebie with a deeper meaning -- a gift of peace? Or would they think I was some kind of nut case? Sad to say, people are suspicious of freebies these days. Somebody giving something away must have a hidden agenda.

After I give away the initial 1,000, I've thought about starting a habit of giving away one peace crane every day. I could carry my little pack of origami paper with me everywhere and, whenever the mood struck and I had a spare four minutes, I would fold-fold-fold and ... voila! present a peace crane to some unsuspecting person -- the waiter at lunch, the grocery cashier, the nurse behind the counter at my doctor's office. I'm already thinking of that nice, white-haired clerk at the post office; he's always so pleasant. He would understand instinctively what a peace crane is all about. I think he'd make a fine Recipient No. 1.

But grouchy people would receive a peace crane, too. They need them more than anyone. Like that girl who works the drive-thru window at Starbucks. She always seems so worn out; never cracks a smile. She needs a peace crane.

We all need a peace crane.

Peace in the mountains

I went to the mountains today, and -- as always -- found such peace there. It was a perfect autumn day. At one point, when the rest of the family had gone ahead on the trail, I stopped and just listened. The creak of afternoon peepers, the rush of cold water. Sunlight reaching the forest floor in broken patterns. Green and yellow scattered across the trail, and some red, though less than in past years because of the drought.

Surrounded by trees, I could feel the collective wisdom of these noble beings. I know how "out there" that sounds, but ... it's true. They are benevolent, noble, possessors of a silent strength. I am very attracted to that. I stand among them, with reverence, and give thanks. For whatever our small thanks means to them.

Anger seems far away in a place such as this.

What triggers your anger?

For a long time, I've known what my anger trigger is: control. When somebody is trying to control me in some way, or exert their authority over me, I get quite pissed off. My father was very controlling, and my childhood was spent under his authoritarian thumb.

Even though I'm an adult now, and have control over my own life, when someone tries to tell me what to do, my limbic brain kicks into panic mode. All it hears is "Daddy" giving me an order. And it reacts. Boy, does it react! Even if the person is someone who cares about me, and is trying to give me loving advice, I bristle. And I get mad.

This all sounds pretty simple, but it took me an astoundingly long time (years, decades) to figure it out. With Husband No. 1, I re-enacted all the scenes of dominance and control I had suffered through with Dad. You can guess how that marriage turned out.

Husband No. 2 is my polar opposite. Which makes him a great role model for me. If someone is trying to push him around, or tell him what to do, he doesn't lose it. He sits down and talks with them. Calmly.

In his quiet, gentle way, he has helped me own up to my problem. With him by my side, I first realized what it was that made me so mad. I'll never forget the first time. It was about 20 years ago, so the details are sketchy but I know it was in a Sears store and I know it had to do with a vacuum we had brought in for repair. The clerk was trying to, shall we say, redirect me in some way. My response? I exploded, like a volcano.

Well, no, not like a volcano. Volcanoes smolder a long time before they blow. This was more like an earthquake -- sudden, and vicious. I started yelling at that poor Sears clerk in a way that even I couldn't believe.

Hubby just stood there, watching me, aghast. I felt sick. But it didn't stop me from yelling.

Sigh...

Eventually I learned that my husband had his own anger trigger, though. In his case, it's inanimate objects. When a hammer hits his thumb, he becomes (briefly) irate. When a mower won't start or a grocery bag spills or his glasses disappear, he takes it personally. Me? I could care less about such things. Doesn't make me mad at all.

There's also the sports problem. As I write this, he's getting very upset at a batter who just struck out in the World Series Game 2. He's standing in front of the TV, muttering curses and sighing. But that is a whole 'nother topic for another time....

Everyone has their "sore spot," I guess -- the thing that pushes their buttons. Sometimes these things are shadows from our childhood. Or phobias we've developed thanks to the stresses of adult life. Or unresolved issues that have dogged us for years.

What's yours?

A purring cat

Is there anything more peaceful than a cat curled in your lap? The trust, the quiet, the silky sweep of fur under your hand. This is the way to spend an evening.

A series of tests

Another milestone today: 200 cranes. One-fifth of the way to my goal.

Meanwhile ... many tests in the anger department. It started Wednesday night, when some long-buried adoption issues erupted with two of my three daughters. Very heart-rending stuff, which I don't want to go into in great detail because that would invade their privacy. Their life history, which is troubled, is their story. It belongs to them, not me. But it's painful for all of us. When my husband got home from work, he found three of the four of us in tears.

At one point, I realized it was useless to try and reason with a very upset pre-teen, so I retreated to the kitchen to clean up the dinner pots and pans. My oldest daughter followed me in there and said -- and I quote -- "Are you mad?"

Which I consider a huge, massive step in the right direction, both for her and for me. For her, because she is usually very closed in her emotions and very shut down to me. It's the source of a lot of our most painful family dynamics. So, here she was, reaching out to me, COMMUNICATING with me, even feeling that it was safe to ask me such a provocative question.

I turned to her, started crying, and said, "No, honey, I'm not mad. I'm just sad. And kind of confused. I don't know how to help you and your sister. I have tried everything I know."

And as those words were coming out of my mouth, I realized what a great sign this was: Even though I was highly frustrated -- usually a red-button anger trigger for me -- I had kept my cool and walked away from the situation. And I'd kept my cool so well that she wasn't even sure I was mad. She had to ask. So obviously, I hadn't been raging or yelling or stomping around -- the usual symptoms of an anger attack, with which they're familiar.

That precipitated some deep, authentic communication, a few hugs and more tears. Over all, a cleansing experience.

A few days later, we were having a difficult Sunday afternoon. An overload of school projects and homework and other chores, and it was getting late and I realized the entire day was shot to hell -- no time for getting outside for exercise or enjoying the fall weather. My long "to-do" list was not going to get accomplished. So I started to lose it. And at about the point where I would usually start yelling, I just buried my head in my hands and said, "OK, I need to take a minute and breathe." To which, my youngest daughter -- she who is most sensitive to my anger -- said, "OK, Mommy, that's fine." And I could tell from her voice that it was fine. She totally understood and she didn't feel threatened that I was taking a time-out.

Maybe we're getting somewhere.

Working on it

Here they are ... 150 origami cranes, made by my own hands. Progress toward the goal of senbazuru (1,000 cranes in 100 days).

Believe it or not, those 30 minutes spent folding colored squares of paper have become a favorite part of each day. It's calming, it's simple -- and I just plain like doing it. The rest of my life is so complex, so rushed and noisy and mindless. But at least for that half-hour, I know I will have some peace. And I look forward to it.

As for anger, this project has it very much on my mind these days. So I've become a tiny bit more observant, I think, of the arising of anger. This is a core practice of Buddhist meditation, watching the arising of phenomena -- whether emotions, mind states or bodily sensations. And of course, the better I become at noticing the arising of anger's white heat, the better chance I'll have (theoretically) at catching it before it overtakes me.

I'm working on it ... just as I'm working on the cranes.

A good day

We're past the 100 mark now. Amusing, the little swell of pride I felt as I wrote "100" on the underwing of a yellow paper crane. (I'm numbering each one, for posterity.) Yep, I've made 100 cranes and I'm 1/10th of the way to my goal of 1,000. It's been awhile since I have been this consistent with anything in my life, and I'm glad and relieved I still have it in me.

Today I also returned to teaching meditation. In the six years since my husband and I adopted three children, my meditation practice has been next to nonexistent. And that had begun to hurt, more and more. Something that had been central to my life was shoved into a dark corner, and I felt powerless to do anything about it. A few times, I tried to pull meditation back into my daily routine, but was always too exhausted or too dispirited to maintain the effort.

Even though it might seem crazy (isn't life already too hectic?), I agreed to start leading a meditation group at the local Unitarian-Universalist Church, which has been very welcoming to this Buddhist (thanks, UUFC!). This morning, a little group of us sat and walked for an hour and a half -- and by the end of it, I was remembering what equanimity feels like. The peace of that followed me through the day. I was extraordinarily cheerful and patient, and -- nice.

Tonight, I sat on the floor by my open bedroom window, a warm wind stirring the trees outside, and did my half-hour of crane folding meditation.

So, today encompassed two full hours of calm and quiet. Miraculous. I am grateful.

The battle against anger

Here is another wonderful quote about anger. It's by Kenneth Kraft, author of "Inner Peace, World Peace: Essays on Buddhism and Nonviolence."

"One need not wait until war is declared and bullets are flying to work for peace, Buddhism teaches. A more constant and equally urgent battle must be waged each day against the forces of one's own anger, carelessness and self-absorption."

Backsliding

Fell off the wagon, so to speak, yesterday.

And now that I look back on it, I realize it was my typical anger episode -- all about control. I know that control is my big trigger. I'm going to write more about anger triggers soon, but for now I just want to describe the curious (and somewhat hopeful) thing that happened.

It was raining hard late in the afternoon and my two older kids were going to have to walk home from the bus stop in the rain, without umbrellas. I decided to drive and pick them up so they wouldn't get wet. I left the house a couple of minutes earlier than the school bus usually arrives. But as I pulled out of the driveway, I could see them about 50 feet up the street, trotting along getting soaked. The bus had dropped them off early, dammit. I drove up beside them and they just stood and looked at me like I was nuts. I said, "Do you want to get in the car?"

"No," said one of them. "I'll just walk the rest of the way."

And that was it. Simple. No big deal. No one's fault. But I had lost "control" of the situation; I'd driven halfway up the street for nothing. The bus had come too early. I went right into rage, popped the truck into reverse and slammed my foot on the gas pedal. Tires squealing on the wet pavement, surprised looks on my daughters' faces.

By the time I pulled back into the driveway, just a few seconds later, I was already realizing how absurd this was. How utterly UNworthy of an anger attack. Nothing had happened, really -- other than the situation turning out differently than I had planned/wanted.

And just that quickly, I was done. I didn't need the anger anymore. I had the sick, guilty feeling I always have after blowing up. But I also knew that at least this time I caught it just a little bit sooner than normal. And I didn't yell at the kids, thank God.

That's something, right? A slight improvement? An ounce of hope?

Faster than I thought

I must amend the last post.

Last night, I made 10 paper cranes in 35 minutes. So I'm a bit faster than I thought I was. At this rate, I'll complete my act of senbazuru in a mere 58.3 hours. Well, actually, it has taken me about a week to get up to this blazing-fast speed of 3.5 minutes per crane. Those first few days were a lot slower going. So --- let's round 'er off and say 60 hours, total.

Not bad!

It's all about time

I'm now at the point where I can make a crane in about 5 minutes. So each day's 10 cranes take me 50 minutes or so. I'd like to get that down to about 45 or 40 minutes. At an average of 45 minutes a day, I only have left ... (pause while I get out the calculator) ... about 69.75 hours of paper folding. Whoa.

My total time investment: 100 days X 45 minutes per day = 4,500 minutes = 75 hours. That's ... what? ... three full days and three hours.

Dalai Lama on anger

Today's "Daily Buddhist Wisdom" quote, from Beliefnet:

"If we live our lives continually motivated by anger and hatred, even our physical health deteriorates."

-- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

The first 50

The total now is -- tah-dah! -- fifty. I'm 1/20th of the way to my goal. Impressive, eh? Well, let's put it this way: I have, without fail, made 10 cranes every day for the last five days. And that is something.

Deciding to do this blog was hard because I really didn't want to go public with my, um, anger problem. It's always been my dirty little secret. People don't know the seething cauldron that lies beneath the surface. And I liked it that way. I raged in private, but in public I was calm and smiling.

But it always felt shameful. And toxic. So I tried, also in private, to deal with it. I tried to get rid of it before someone "found me out."

Finally, after trying and failing so many times, I admitted that if I were really going to do something about this anger, I needed to find a way to make myself accountable. I know ... someone already discovered the principle of accountability. Bill W., the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. (Isn't that his name?) He knew that addicts need support and they need someone to report to when they're on the road to recovery. That whole "sponsor" thing.

Keeping this blog -- and admitting to you that I have an anger problem and I want to do something about it -- will (I hope, anyway) keep me accountable, just as weekly weigh-ins keep dieters honest and 12-step meetings make addicts fess up. For I am, sadly, an addict. My drug of choice? My habit? Anger.

And I really want to kick the habit. I want it out of my life.

So I keep folding these little paper cranes, day after day. Looking for the peace I hope this will bring me.

If you're out there, if you're reading this, please speak up. I need to know that you're watching me, that you're expecting me to keep at this.

So far, so good

Four days into this, and all is well. Forty paper cranes are crowding my desk. Gotta find a "place" for them pretty soon, as they continue to reproduce. Some of them are a little wrinkly and some refuse to stand up properly. Obviously my technique still needs work.

But at least I'm sticking to it so far. And the even better news is: Taking on this project seems to have created a little "something" in the back of my mind that helps me moderate my temper. I have been markedly calmer the last few days. There have been situations where I KNOW I normally would have blown up or, at the very least, spoken sharply to someone. And I didn't.

Day One of 100

Ten little paper cranes, in all colors of the rainbow, perch next to my keyboard as I type this. My experiment in senbazuru has begun.

I started this afternoon, when the house was quiet and I was alone. The first sheet of paper to come randomly out of the pack was -- aha! -- red. Deep, fiery red. The color of anger. Couldn't have scripted this better, myself.

I thought, after several practice sessions, that I was ready. I'd whip out Crane No. 1 in a flash. Just like I'd been doing this all my life.

Nuh-uh.

I hate to admit it, but that first crane took me 30 minutes to create. A full half-hour. (By contrast, the people in the how-to videos whip one out in about four minutes flat.) Jeez, how humbling. My fingers were totally illiterate. What started out as a nice, smooth wafer of origami paper quickly turned into a wrinkled mess.

As my frustration grew, I could feel my heart beating faster. I got so hot I had to get up and turn on the ceiling fan. I was muttering under my breath.

And then it hit me: This is what anger feels like in the body. The books all tell you to stop and examine your symptoms, to observe (and defuse) anger before it takes you over. But I'm usually too busy yelling, right from the get-go. By the time I "notice" that I'm angry, the cat is, so to speak, out of the bag -- claws unsheathed and fangs bared.

So little Crane No. 1, an angry red, offered me the very first lesson of this experiment. Amazing. When I finally got him finished, he didn't look too good. I set him on the desk and he promptly fell over. Still won't stand up straight.

Even so, I predict he'll be my favorite, out of all 1,000.

My first crane

I know it's not pretty, but ... at least it's a crane. And for that, I'm thankful.

After an embarrassingly high number of tries (and failures), on the final day before starting my big experiment, with mild panic beginning to set in, I finally managed to make a passable origami crane. And here it is, in all its glory. (Don't laugh!)

To celebrate my accomplishment, I went to Michaels and bought a $9.98 pack of origami paper -- 300 sheets. I figure I'll need 3.5 of these packages to make 1,000 paper cranes (allowing for some mistakes, because my crane-making skills aren't exactly Olympic caliber yet). That means the whole thing will cost me about $35. Not a bad investment. Especially if, at the end of 100 days, I feel any different. More peaceful, maybe. Less angry. Calmer.

We'll see.

Never saw this coming!

OK, we're not even at Day One yet, and it looks like I'm in trouble.

I cannot make a paper crane.

I've been trying now for the better part of an hour. My desk is littered with crumpled scraps of paper -- none of which look anything remotely like a crane. Help!

This is the wrinkle I never expected. I figured I'd spend half an evening learning to fold an origami crane, and then I'd be off and running on my 100-day experiment. The worst obstacle I expected to run up against was boredom ... or maybe guilt at using so much paper.

Now I'm defeated before I even get out of the starting gate. I tried everything: written directions; how-to videos; Wikihow. At one point, you're supposed to open your already-many-times-creased paper square into a boat shape ("a canoe," one helpful video lady said).

I tried. And tried. And tried. Nothing doing. That damn piece of paper wasn't gonna cooperate. "At first it will seem impossible," chirped the directions, "but with patience you'll get the hang of it!"

Oh, yeah. Patience. A virtue we angry people have in abundance. And mine just ran out. I'm going to bed.

What this is all about

I have a problem. A problem millions of people have. It's called anger.

I received this gift from my father, who received it from his mother, who received it from her father. And so on. You get the picture. This is nobody's fault. It's just the genetic stream that flows from one generation to the next -- a long bloodline of heartache.

For half a century I've carried this millstone, and for many of those years I've searched for ways to defeat the demon and pull it out by the roots. Hundreds of hours of therapy. Antidepressants. Reading every book on anger that I could find.

I think I even chose my spiritual path (Buddhism) because it offered some hope of inner peace. Maybe if I meditated long enough, and ardently enough, I would become the saintly, calm person I longed to be.

Nothing worked, really -- not in the long run. And now that I'm a parent, I realize the frightening potential for passing this on to my children. I try mightily to contain my temper around them but as any parent knows, kids will test your patience to the max. My children have seen me rage, I cannot lie. And the other day my youngest daughter told me something very painful: "Mommy, when you get mad, I get scared." I was driving the car and she was in the back seat, for which I was grateful. She couldn't see the tears streaming down my face.

I didn't sleep well that night, and sometime during the long, slow hours an image took shape in my mind -- a white paper "peace crane." I'd read about them long ago. It's a beautiful part of the Japanese art of origami, or paper folding. The crane is a sacred bird in Japanese culture, symbolizing long life. Traditionally, if you make 1,000 origami cranes -- an act called "senbazuru" -- your wish will come true. If you give your senbazuru to a sick person, he or she will be healed.

The paper crane became a worldwide symbol of peace after a young girl who survived the nuclear blast at Hiroshima made an intention of folding 1,000 paper cranes. She died of leukemia before she could complete the task.

So I decided: I'm going to fold 1,000 paper cranes. My own act of senbazuru. Each crane I make will be a whispered wish to let go of my anger. As my fingers create a bird out of a piece of paper, I will ask for the peace I lack.

I have no illusions that after I've completed this exercise, I will be instantly cleansed of anger. I know that making 1,000 paper cranes can't magically wipe away decades -- generations -- of a character flaw. But I also know that intentions are strong. If I can focus my mind and heart on the act of folding these cranes, day after day, if I can open to the power of such a simple, mindful act ... maybe something will happen. Something not exactly miraculous, but at least better.

If anger is a problem for you, too, or if you're fascinated with the legend of the 1,000 paper cranes, please join me on this journey. I'll begin October 1.