Personal Narrative: Origami

Failure, the lack of success, the omission of expected action, is present in everyone’s life. It is that sinking feeling in your gut that doesn’t go away until you go home to wish it away with simple lively pleasures. This disappointing feeling doesn’t leave me at all, unfortunately. Defeat stares me in the face from my trashcan to the small bits of shredded paper scattered across my floor. There are occasional times where I see my misery resting on top of my bookshelf, demanding to be taken care of. The cause for this negative feeling is very simple, yet very complex. Origami has caused me more emotional pain than a failing class, yet more joy results from it than getting a new puppy.
Every hobby has a beginning, and the beginning for this

one was with my step-grandmother. Her and my grandfather traveled the world on business expeditions, and this time they came back with a simple gift. It was an Origami kit that was meant to be a beginner’s level. There was no beginning with this since my plump fingers refused to mold the paper to how I wanted it to go. I would say mountain fold, it would go valley. I tried to master the art of taming a single sheet of colored parchment, but I was only 9 years old. My temper was very quick to provoke, so there were many times where I crumbled up my sadness into a ball and threw it across the room in a fit of rage.
Practice makes perfect, though masters don’t practice.

It upset me to make cups and swans, but for two years that was all I knew how to make. It was a simple fold, really. You make the paper into a triangle, and then you fold the two corners to their opposite sides. After that, you open the piece up, fold the top down, and you have a simple paper cup that might not even function despite what the name may suggest. Swans were at least a bit of a challenge. No advances were made until every step was memorized (and they remain that way to this day). The look of awe were addicting, and I knew that other people were beginning to understand that my failure was becoming a thing of the fast. I craved to put more distance between me and it, but this gap could only be filled with time. I have all the time in the world, after all, and my time was put to great use. More practice. At the age of 13, I was making folding knives and cute scorpions. Small origami books lined my bookshelves, as well as copy paper-white lilies and tulips. Swans are now a thing of the past, nothing more than distant

dream.
My climb to glory (or possibly my rapid escape from failure) continues to draw the eye of others surrounding my pieces.

This new form of joy, otherwise known as 3D origami, has wiped away the past defeat better than any stain remover. It is such a simple process to create them, though it is a time-consumer. It requires for weeks going on to months to create the required pieces (16 from a piece of copy paper and 32 from a piece of cardstock), and all pieces look the same. The only part that causes gasps of astonishment is when I assemble them together following a simple pattern. It’s very similar to legos, considering the fact that one piece inserts itself into another piece so as to remain in place and become a small part of a larger picture. 3D origami even helps me to see things in a 3-dimensional perspective rather than be confined to the 2D world that is a common mind. It helps me to see through the eyes of an engineer, yet I have no desire to become one. All of these advantages, the attention, the new perspective, the presence of an actual hobby, all result from a single thing. Perseverance has guided me through a very troubling time that most would have avoided. Most would just follow the yellow brick road like everyone else, but the shining light at the end of the path was far too endearing for me to simply look the other

way.
It’s been a long way from the moment of failure (9 years to be exact), and I still can’t call myself a master of this magnificent art. I may be good, but there are still challenges ahead that demand for me to overcome them. A fold must be done, a design must be accomplished, and I’m the person that has to do them all. I’m the one with the perseverance and the motivation to tackling these challenges head on, and I intend to do so with hands at the ready until the last piece of paper is made into a glorious masterpiece even the greatest experts will envy.