“Just for today…

… l will be free of two pests: worry and indecision.”

There is very little I am certain of. But I was sure on Saturday that I was going to do something for Japan.  The weather was beautiful. When I stepped outside, it became clear to me that my seven-year-old daughter and I needed to set up a table on our town’s pedestrian mall and fold origami cranes. We’d sell them for $1–or however much anyone wanted to pay. The money would go to Global Giving‘s tsunami relief efforts.

I loaded a desk from my office into the back of our car. Inside the house, my daughter made signs explaining our purpose. “Cranes $1. Please help Japan!”  With an ease that could only be divinely-derived, I found a stash of pristine origami paper, two folding chairs, and a jar with lid. Just like that, we were in business.

On the mall, hundreds of people strolled by, basking in the springtime sun. Many were out-of-towners, attending the Virginia Festival of the Book. My daughter and I set up our table half-way between two ice cream shops. Heads bent, we began folding.

Two creases into our first cranes, a young family approached our table. They watched and waited as our squares of patterned paper morphed into triangles, diamonds, kite-shapes, and finally, cranes. A little girl pressed a dollar bill into my hand, then skipped off with her paper bird. As I listened to my daughter unscrew the metal ring of our money jar, something uncorked in me. It was a symphony of relief and hope. However faint, I heard a sacred note of control.

For the next two hours we were greeted by a steady stream of visitors of many religions, races, ages, and nationalities. Some wanted simply to donate; others requested orgiami lessons which we happily gave. All conveyed warmth and generosity for the Japanese people.

Just as we were about to pack up, a Japanese family visiting from Maryland came by our table. They were drawn by the Japanese & American flags my daughter had made.  I explained that I’d been a high school exchange student in Japan and wanted, in some small way, to help those so desperately in need. The wife shared that they were from Osaka but living in the D.C. area for a year’s work. She began to weep when she saw the cranes and the collection jar. Together we huddled over a map of Japan. Out of the mothballs came my lame Japanese, splotched with nouns and verbs from the wrong languages–the French and Italian I’ve studied but never mastered. The wife embraced my efforts and offered up what she could in English. While we talked, our daughters busily creased paper, then exchanged creations: a heart and a crane.  My husband and son arrived a few minutes later to help us load the car.  We snapped a photo of our two families: four parents and four children.

Between the hours of 2 and 4 p.m. my daughter and I folded thirty cranes. Generous donors gave us one hundred and fifty-one dollars. At 5 p.m., through the wireless whisper of the internet, the money we collected flew around the globe to a gentle and grieving nation.