The best English class period of my schooling career was when we ripped up Walt Whitman.
Yes, we tore apart books. My English teacher and the English teacher next door tore apart
Leaves of Grass, and taught us how to make origami paper cranes.
The key is, don't read the poems before you start folding, or else the magic disintegrates, and the universe decides not to call you, and you lose the opportunity to receive life-shattering wisdom from the celestial bodies.
We folded and folded and creased and folded. And yes we folded. And creased. And folded.
When alas!
A message from the universe.
Now when I say message, I refer to the magic that happened when you were trying not to peek at the words within your fingers. That poem written back in the prehistoric age is transformed by the divine unknown to a message, a message to you. A poem, advice, gibberish enfolded between paper wings, obscure memos that may hold the meaning of life if you are truly committed to translating the universe's gift to you.
To the sentimental and poetically sappy person like me, this seemed an unabashedly beautiful thing! And so I folded and I creased and I tore up Macbeth and more Walt Whitman. And I began to hide these special messages all over campus-- in classrooms, in the cracks between cement pillars, in lockers, on chairs, in plants, in trees...
My peers called me obsessive, but I, I soldiered on doing my universal duty.
And I'll keep doing it, until I get bored. But I haven't gotten bored yet.
