A thousand cranes folded, being and sharing peace, a wish and a surprise

Susan Folds Peace Cranes, Jessi Helmrich, painter. Throwing a kiss to Jessi.

Three months ago I began packing for our trip to Cortona. I included in my luggage papers to fold peace cranes. I was just shy of a hundred to reach my goal of folding a thousand.

I began the crane-folding project four years ago after a call from Clare, Terry's sister, telling us that her breast cancer had metastasized to her lungs and bones.

I was not new to cancer. I was also in treatment and I'd been a caregiver to Terry through two diagnoses, one far-advanced. 

Clare's new diagnosis got my attention in a "wake-up, Susan" kind of way. I realized anew that I am a visitor on this beautiful planet for a short time. 

I can't remember the first crane I gave away. I just started doing it. I do know that I started folding to work with painful feelings around her diagnosis. As I fold, I use this sweet crane to become aware of my breath, breathing in and breathing out, giving attention to the gap between breaths. I think about all the people in the world who have cancer or love someone who is very ill. I'll breathe in my discomfort and heck, while I'm at it, I'll breathe in the discomfort of all others in a similar situation. I'll exhale comfort to them and myself. 

The last crane is for Clare. The legend goes like this: after folding a thousand cranes a wish is granted. I'll give the crane and wish to Clare.

So who is the giver and who is the receiver? Here's what I'm learning. Life is give and take. Not give or take. So this means, each time I give a crane, I receive. I receive things such as smiles, comments, and hugs. A thousand times. Just imagine the joy. Gandhi says, "The fragrance remains in the hand that gives the rose." 

Project Cranes for Clare ends here in Cortona with a gift-twist. When I arrived in Italy, I gave cranes to students. Jessi Helmrich was one of those students. A few weeks later she said, "I've thought a lot about this. I would like to paint your portrait folding the cranes and memorialize this gift."

She did and then gave it to me after we arrived home. 

A trip to Siena stokes my curiosity about the experience of resistance

Siena Cathedral Santa Maria Assunta, interior detail. 

Susan Michael Barrett, photographer

I dodge puddles as I walk to the Piazza Garibaldi bus stop (in Cortona, Italy) and arrive at 7:12 AM. We’re the only ones here. I start questioning Terry’s choice to be forty-five minutes early even though, logically, I understand. We almost missed the bus last week because we took the wrong via.

I notice I’m resisting what is: we’re early, it’s raining, a vista is in view.

I’m grateful to remember teacher  Pema Chödrön's words, “When there is time to wait, take a John Cage moment.” 

(Musician and artist John Cage did a performance piece for a huge audience. He sat quietly at a piano not touching the keys. For 4 minutes, 33 seconds. Here is a performance of that piece. People were outraged to pay money for this. If attendees were able to calm their minds, however, they heard that there is no such thing as silence. Now that’s something to listen to.)

I take a breath and look out over the Tuscan valley.

But soon I’m distracted by my cold feet. I begin to dread the day and start talking to myself: “Why rain? It’s so cold. Damn that early bird, Terry.”

I’m grateful the bus arrives. And for the warmth of Terry’s body as I scooch next to him looking out an expansive window on a curvy, hilly, scenic ride.

We head to Siena.

The bus stops about a mile from the first sight we’ll explore: San Domenico, a church honoring Saint Catherine, the youngest of twenty-five children born to wool dyers. Once inside, I see two relics. Her right thumb and her head. 

I cringe. Tighten up. Icky thoughts come to mind. (Like who cut her head off? And why?) And then a memory arises.

I think about a visit to my grandparent’s house as a young child when with my sisters we found my grandfather’s left index finger in a jar of formaldehyde. In the basement. (I later learned that he accidentally cut off his finger. He was a mechanic.)

I wonder if my grandparents knew about Saint Catherine. 

(Saint Catherine wrote letters to popes and heads of states pleading peace for a war-ravaged Italy. She is known for the saying, “The world is not a gift from our fathers, but a loan from our children,” something I try not to forget. I have a thought that the relic that ought to be on display is Catherine’s heart.)

I leave San Domenico and walk fast with our group for a couple miles heading for the Duomo (Siena Cathedral Santa Maria Assunta). A delizioso view and smell waft my way: a half-block-long window displays rows of leviti (literally "yeasteds" or "risens," meaning pastries with a yeasted dough), curd-stuffed pastries, eclairs, and fruit-topped tarts. Terry takes a photograph. With a smile, I call out to the art historian, “Is this pastry shop on the itinerary? I want to hear what you have to say about cappuccino and pasticceria.” 

It’s not.

We arrive at the Duomo. I stand outside and listen for a half-hour to art historical information about what I cannot yet see. I begin to form an opinion that this talk is not necessary. I long for quiet so that I can notice what I notice. I realize I have a choice: I can turn off my earphones. Instead, I keep them on and continue listening. 

I feel exhausted from listening and realize how much space and energy words take. I challenge myself to sum-up what I’ve heard as if each word costs ten dollars. (Let me get back to you on that. I’m unable to sift out a couple hundred dollars from the thousands spent.) 

I’m grateful that I’m aware that cognition is a field of study and that humans process information in various ways. Listening to historical facts about wars, this and that pope, this conqueror and that, this stylistic feature and that one, is not how I learn. I resist. Then, I realize I’m resisting and allow this thought—it might be how the person next to me gains awareness.

I remember things don’t always have to be my way. Oh my goodness, that’s right.

I enter the enormity of the Duomo. I feel small and insignificant. A thousand years of sculpted terra-cotta pope heads look down on me. Terry whispers in my ear, “This architecture is about power.” I think, oh, the size and scale are intentional. I know who has the power and who doesn't. I realize I’m subconsciously defending myself.

Being in the Duomo stokes my curiosity about the experience of resistance. My resistance. And how resisting makes me feel stuck. Sticky-stuck solid as the terra-cotta heads and marble statues.

Pema says—and I sum up her thoughts as if they’re mine while standing in the Duomo—standing with uncomfortable feelings in my heart and mind is a chance to just experience. Of course, feeling and experiencing what is doesn’t make the discomfort go away. But it removes the resistance. 

So, if I experience and feel my discomfort (Pema calls it weather, which is perfetto for today’s rainy day), I’m not solid like those statues. I’m not constrained by the Duomo’s domed ceiling. I stop fighting the cold, the rain, the information, the relics, the power-over, my thinking, whatever is happening that is not what I want or like or my habitual way of being in my life. I just stand in this moment of this day getting friendly with every part of it. I flow with what is right now just as it is.

And guess what? Flowing with what is helps: I don’t feel separate and caught or needing to maintain “the big ME” (Pema Chödrön).

Instead, I’m part of life. Wait, that’s not quite it. I’m here. I’m really here.

Walking uphill in Cortona

Susan (in town, after the walk uphill). Terry Barrett, photographer.

It was much like that bike-taxi ride in Amsterdam when I found a sticky situation funny, and Terry didn’t.

Let’s see if I can describe this.

Some context. We have chest colds. I feel better. Terry feels worse. I’m warm enough. I found an Italian hand-knit hat and mittens at the local Saturday outdoor market. Wearing three sweaters with my coat is comfortable. I’m less cold.

Terry has a faculty meeting at the college. I go with him to get a tour of the grounds and see where I might find Internet access.

So we left our apartment on Via Maffei to walk to the college for the first time. 

The locals say, “You’re halfway up the hill from your place. Keep going up. It will take about fifteen minutes the first time. As the weeks pass, it won’t take so long.” 

So we begin heading uphill from our place. 

When we reach a church, Terry says, “I think we go right.” I say, “I think it’s left.” 

He listens to me. We go left, a steep left.

Without a map or the name of the college’s street, we just head uphill. “Cortona is a small town. You don’t need a map,” locals say as they gesture directions with their hands.

The roads are made of cut stone. The incline is steep, and the stone slick. I turn my feet sideways, just as in skiing, to get down or up a steep incline. Tiny steps. A light snow falls.

Oh. Important information to this story: Terry’s knee is inflamed from the miles we walked in Rome. It especially hurts climbing or descending.

At the first intersection we come upon, we stop. Terry is visibly upset.

“We’re lost.”

Then we continue. We stop frequently to catch our breath. I occasionally rest against a wall. I look skyward and think of my cousin, who invited me to run a half-marathon with him in Tampa, Florida on February 22. (With relief, I tell him, “So sorry, I’ll be in Italy,” but he replies, “Run there.” I agree with that.) I feel bubbles of laughter arise and begin talking to myself: “So I thought I’d be running in Cortona? Ha! It's a struggle to walk.”

More steps.

A woman from the Italian post office approaches in a car. I waved her to stop and ask, “The college?” And then, oh yeah, hidee-ho. We’re the only ones who speak English. She points ahead making a peace sign, or maybe it means two streets or look for a v in the road?

We continue.

It’s now apparent that Terry will be late for or altogether miss his first meeting. He’s anxious, curt, and irritable. “We should have gone right,” he says.

“Right, Honey,” I say, and those two rights so close together flame my chuckle undercurrent. Terry predictably ignores my behavior.

I hear, then see a small bird with a red and burnt orange underbelly, one I’ve never seen. 

“Terry, look!” 

He doesn’t. We continue.

Leading the way with strong knees and a comedy-hour attitude, I round a corner and see a vast sweep of the Tuscan valley (Valdichiana) for the first time when it’s not raining: fertile and immense rolling hills of olive groves and vineyards, Lake Trasimeno where Hannibal defeated the Romans (elephant bones are said to lie at the bottom of the lake), clusters of terra-cotta homes, one that is probably Frances Mayes' (author of Under the Tuscan Sun), and a snow storm in the distance between peeks of the Sienese Mountains. 

Glory be. I sigh and motion him to come over, “Terry, you have to see this.” 

Focused on his steps and in full-responsibility-mode, he says, “No, Susan, no, no, no. I don’t want to. Don’t start that.” The “that” he’s talking about is my spontaneous distraction to do what I want when I want. Especially if my want is in a magnificent realm. 

“I have a meeting and we don’t know where we are. Come on.” I imagine his sore knee and sense of responsibility. I have the giggles. 

He’s lucky. We see a few colleagues.

He goes ahead. And I stop every few steps and look out over the valley below. 

I don’t care if I’m lost. (Nor do I have any commitments.) 

I cannot contain my laughter. I laugh and laugh. We are in one of the most beautiful places in the world. I am seeing a stunning panorama for the first time. Terry is serious and trying to get to a place he does not know, too responsible to arrive on time to pause and look with me. I laugh some more. This laughter is not at Terry. Well, some of it is. I’m laughing at myself, too. Too often, I’m serious and hurrying and forget to be awake to the moment. But not now.

I now understand what teacher Pema Chodron meant when she shared a personal dream. In it, Pema is readying for a visit from her teacher, doing this and that, making her room just right. Her teacher arrives later that day and asks, “Pema, did you see the beautiful sunrise this morning?” 

“Why no, I didn’t see it. I was too busy fixing things.” 

Her teacher laughs and laughs saying, “Too busy to live life!”

Too busy to live life.

Later that night in bed as Terry and I hold each other to fall asleep, thoughts of going up the street return. Remembering, my body begins to shake silently. Terry whispers, “Are you crying?” 

“No. I’m still laughing.”