Today marks the 16th anniversary of the day we officially moved into the cottage. Wow! For two people who thought the dream of owning our own place might be unattainable, that dream came true. We are ever grateful and never, never take this for granted. We have too many years of living in rentals, sometimes – in my case – very, very small rentals – behind us. We know how lucky we are.
Speaking of small, I’ve been thinking a lot about how, as I get older, my life and the things I collect speak to childhood and whimsey. I was talking about it to Don this morning. It all started in 2002, when I began to collect figural eggcups with chickens and ducks and geese and bunny rabbits. They spoke to something deep inside of me – a yearning for simpler times, perhaps, a love of the whimsical, and a love of the small. In the course of the past twenty years, I rescued two baby dolls. I made a cloth bunny rabbit. I’ve knitted bunny cozies for my egg cups. I started to collect thing from Vintage by Crystal – the queen of whimsey. I decided to try renovating a used dollhouse and look where that led me! I collect dollhouse miniatures. I collect putz sheep. I collect miniature pottery. I collect dollhouses.
The evolution of my collections – the change from art deco Fiesta Ware to the charming and whimsical designs of McCoy and Roseville (which were the beginning of this new focus) is fascinating to me. There’s something that draws me more and more to my childhood, which wasn’t idyllic, but was full of imagination and toys and making dollhouses out of shoeboxes.
Is there a comfort in the small? In the detail, the designs, the sweetness? Yes, the sweetness – that word just came to me. There’s a sweetness to dollhouses and wee bits of furniture. There’s a sweetness to dolls and eggcups and putz sheep and stuffed bears. A longing, perhaps. A yearning.
Yesterday, after dithering about it for days, I ordered a Blythe doll. I don’t know if you know what Blythe dolls are, but I see them all over Instagram and I have become entranced with them. There’s a whole world out there of Blythe collectors, people who make clothes for Blythes, people who modify the dolls to have distinct features. It’s like walking through a secret door and discovering a new world. The doll itself is not particularly attractive; it’s the way it has been sculpted and modified that can transform it into something darling.
Anyway – and I trust you will understand – I’ve been looking and I found a Blythe that spoke to me yesterday. (I think you have to fall in love with a particular face – it’s very personal.) She will be winging her way to me from England. I plan to slowly accumulate a wardrobe for her. I’ll take her with me to NYC for company, just as I used to take my stuffed bear and bunny with me when I went away for coaching jobs. (Maybe I’ll take all three!) I find myself yearning to play dress up with my doll. Maybe it goes back to my beloved Tiny Tears doll, with a wardrobe handmade by my grandmother – I can still see her pink corduroy coat and bonnet, which my mom disposed of without telling me. I still miss that beautiful doll. So I’ll have a new doll that I can play with.
A little bit crazy? No doubt. But I strongly believe that play and whimsey keep us young at heart. I ran across this quote from my adored George Bernard Shaw this morning:
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”
That says it all.
Stay safe.
Happy Monday.
