| Current mood: |  chipper |
| Current music: | Dido's White Flag |
following the paper trail
i spent the past few hours helping my sister cut pieces of paper money for a class project. it was a very soothing exercise: first, i folded the short bond papers in half, lengthwise. next, i folded the excess on the sides to make perfect rectangular bills. then, armed with a hefty orange cutter, i sliced and slashed through the papers till i had a neat pile of home-made currency.
i love paper. i love the scratchy rustling sound it makes as it brushes against anything. i love the pulpy-inky smell it emits. i love the sharp tearing hiss that ensues when i cut it up. most of all, i love running my palm down its surface, be it grainy or waxy. my favorite back-to-school activity, aside from devouring all the literature books even before classes begun, was to shop for paper. i would not let my mother rest until i found the notebooks and pad papers that would best facilitate writing.
it drove her crazy. i drove -- and still drive -- her crazy.
my grandfather has an aluminum and glass shop, and he always has an abundance of paper for wrapping his materials. when i was a kid, he would always give me all the extras, and i would happily fetch my pencils, pens and crayons and i would contentedly draw houses with chimneys, attics, mailboxes, trees, flowers and of course, a sun peeking out of a fat, curly cloud. other times, i would write nonsense, stringing together all the new words i learned.
but when i was feeling more challenged than usual, i would fetch my grandmother's rusty but trusty steel scissors so i can make my paper cut-outs. i never learned to make those hand-in-hand doll figures, but i had my own creation. i would fold and cut a huge piece of paper into a square. then i would fold the square two more times to create a triangle. taking the scissors and i would carve out various shapes -- zig-zags, circles, squares, hearts, cones, trapezoids, squiggles, thunderbolts. i wielded those scissors till there was no more space left to work on, till the fleshy wing between my pointer finger and thumb became red and indented with a half-O mark.
when i was through with my efforts, i would unfold my triangle back its original square. but it was not really a square anymore, instead, it was like a web. or rather, my kooky idea of a web. but instead of just boring lines, i would have all these cheerful, jagged shapes arranged in such harmonious chaos constituting my "web." i bet not even spiderman could have done this.
i started with blank newsprint as my main material. then i had a notion to color the paper first in a spectrum of hues before cutting it. however, not only did the wax from the crayon make the paper too stiff for easy cutting, but it also got smeared on my fingers, making it harder for me to maneuver the scissors. but then i discovered art paper. oh, paper that was smooth and already colored by itself! bliss.
the last time i made one of my webs was in high school. i used a sheet i tore off from my lined notebook. i noticed that i tacked on the inside of my closet door. it's been stuck there for around 12 years. and i can't even remember why i kept that.
but i can't ever forget how many quietly joyful hours i spent with just some paper, a pair of scissors and my imagination.
simple pleasures are often the loveliest kind of delight.
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