VANCOUVER, B.C. — Long before Paula Luther started decorating a public tree with origami-style cranes, her vehicle was seriously rear-ended while stopped in traffic.
“It was a crunch! Bam!” Paula recalls. “I can still feel that motion of moving forward and being snapped back.”
But Paula soldiered on and went to work.
“I thought I would be able to shake it off,” Paula says.
But the pain was crushing, her brain wasn’t working, and after visiting the doctor, Paula discovered her injuries were debilitating, which was devastating.
“I’m a strong independent woman,” Paula says. “I get stuff done.”
But now she couldn’t. Her sense of self was shaken, and over the next couple months, her mental health suffered. Until Paula had an epiphany.
“Well, the phrase ‘love is always the answer’ kind of came to me,” Paula says.
So, Paula decided to offer some love round her neighbourhood, by anonymously posting a sign on a pole with pull tabs on the bottom. It said “Love. Take as much as you need.”
The next day, Paula noticed someone approaching the sign.
“She walked over and I saw her kind of pause and take one,” Paula laughs, recalling how the woman smiled with delight.
Many others took more tabs, which prompted Paula to post more love signs around her neighbourhood. People responded by hand-writing their own messages of love on the signs. A child replied by posting a colourful drawing of a heart beside one of the signs.
“It sparked something in me,” Paula says, adding her mental health improved. “You know, my heart grew three times!”
So, over the next decade, whenever she’d face some sort of adversity, Paula found she could overcome it by offering some sort of love to others, from hanging hand-made heart decorations on the trees, to scattering heart-shaped leaves on the sidewalk.
“If you’re stuck, offer what it is you need,” Paula says. “If you distill it all down, don’t we all want to be loved?”
When Paula recently started feeling frustration and grief about the discrimination and violence she was seeing in the news, she decided to switch her creative offering from symbols of love to symbols of peace.
“I started hand-sparkling ‘peace cranes,’” Paula smiles, before hanging dozens of the folded paper-looking birds on a prominent tree in her community.
She hopes it provides an opportunity for people walking by to pause, reflect, and be inspired to be more peaceful and loving in their own lives.
“Sometimes we don’t know what people are going through,” Paula says. “And that kind word, that smile, that expression of love (and peace) can be transformative.”
