Sometimes when we feel very small we go back to things that made us feel safe, or the little child in us cries out to be comforted.
I don’t have a dolly anymore but I do have a tiny girl pug in my lap and I got a small mug of organic milk. I am not really a milk drinker, you know, to just sit around and have a glass of milk, I have it in my lattes, but tonight after a very long day and finishing up some very frustrating web work that made me want to bang my head against the wall I felt like curling up in a little ball. I got up and went into the kitchen and Delilah, startled that I got up and put her down, trotted after me and stared up at me.
“I don’t know what I want Li-Li,” I said looking down at her.
I shoved things around in cabinets, did that standing-in-front-of-the-fridge-with-the-door-open business, when you fervently hope that something fabulous will appear but it’s just leftovers from dinner tonight, some fruit and vegetables, sigh…
And then I spotted the milk, and like some little girl dragging her dolly behind her I poured a small mug of milk, scooped Delilah up and we came back so I could do my post.
It’s thrilling isn’t it? I feel sure you are on the edge of your seat.
Sometimes that’s what being mindful is, just being with your life, the not-much-going-on nights, the lulls in the day when we can kind of drift off and let our mind wander. I decided to sit here with this glass of milk, feel how cold and silky it feels in my mouth. And then the thoughts go running through my head, “But nobody I know drinks real milk anymore and people say it’s bad for you, and…”
Well, I’m going to have my milk in peace. I am sitting here feeling good about myself, tired, but kind of pleasantly happy. It’s such a nice thing to be happy. I have been so angsty and depressed and screwy headed for so much of my life that to sit here at 1:15 a.m. with a tiny girl burrowed into my lap, her soft fur and warm body snuggled against my bare skin, I just want to sit here and feel it.
I’m not likely to be chosen for the commercial with milk on my upper lip but I can sit here and just smile and think of the days when I did play with my dollies and yes have little tea parties. It’s nice to have lovely memories to hold onto when so many of your early memories were of unpleasant things. I look for the good memories. I want to build on those.
I had a Tiny Tears doll. I loved her. You gave her a bottle and she wet her diapers, for real. And I had a doll I just adored called “Poor Pitiful Pearl.” I don’t know why some company made a doll with that name for a little child but I believe it predisposed me to always pick the runt of the litter or some little creature with something wrong with it. Give me a whole litter of champion bloodline puppies and I’d be looking for the Poor Pitiful Pearl in the group.
I had a Chatty Cathy doll and Oh! I just remembered the doll I was greatly enamored of. Her name was Patty Playpal and she was about 3 feet tall, or so it seems when I think about it. Life-sized for a little girl. My dolls and my dog, those were my friends. I was a frightened little girl and I clung to the things that made me feel safe. I remember a glass of milk as being comforting. I had Barbies like all the other girls but when I think back to dolls that I love it’s the ones that I mentioned here that I think of.
Sometimes being mindful is just sitting with tender memories, and holding them close, and rocking your wee pug in your arms, and being so grateful that you are finally safe, and to feel how sweet that feels, well, it was something I hadn’t imagined feeling.
It’s nice to just kind of toodle along writing nice little things and not feeling like you have to go all deep, or have Big Thoughts. Tonight I’m just a woman feeling like a little girl and imagining a tea party with her dollies while snuggling her tiny pug in her arms.
And that’s okay, it’s just fine, and I am grateful for this moment. In this very moment I feel blessed, I feel serene. I feel soft and gentle. I feel love, just kind of a soft little thing to lean into.
I think I will stop now. I will pick up my wee girl and put my empty cup away, and get the little boys up who are asleep in their beds all around me and the little boys and tiny girl and I will head to bed. I guess my dollies are in dollie heaven. I hope they are having a tea party.
Sitting here, with Åskar purring in my lap, thinking of you – and remembering all my dolls, I still have them. Thinking that I should blog about them – I actually did once (http://bastmattan.blogspot.se/2009/01/s-hr-sg-hon-ut.html), about Lily, who was a forerunner to Barbie. I never had a Barbie – and I didn’t like Lily. Guess I was too childish, and still am, I never wanted to get older, get bust, boyfriends and high heels.
love and hugs,
Margaretha
Ah sweet Margaretha, the childhood memories. Despite it all they do linger, don’t they?
The thing that I find fascinating is that even those who say they never really much cared for dolls still seem to have at least one doll they remember. Interesting to me, although odd that I should wonder about this really I suppose, but I wonder what the idea is to give little girls dolls. I mean I loved them, they were company for me as an only child and a frightened one, but I still wonder. Is it because little girls are supposed to be trained from young on to have a baby to care for, early conditioning? I had 3 children that I adored but I can’t say that having dolls to love had anything to do with it. For me they were more friends that made me feel less alone. That’s an interesting question, what did the doll(s) you remember mean to you in your childhood? I think I will be thinking about that for awhile.
And I don’t mind getting older, in fact I find it comfortable and comforting, but my mother was always trying to push me into being a proper girl, go to dances and football games. I never wanted to go and the last time she tried to force me to go I got so upset I threw up. She stopping trying to make me but let it be known I was a real disappointment. No wonder dogs and dollies were my friends. I could confide in them. I guess I still do… 🙂
Much love to you angel…
Maitri
Good morning/good night Maitri,
That’s a good question! I think you give dolls to girls, without thinking much about it, because that is supposed to be a proper gift for girls. But I had cars and other “boy-toys” too, and I don’t remember that I liked one toy more than another. I think I was more interested in making clothes for my dolls (and paper dolls) than playing with them.
Margaretha
ready to start the day
Margaretha,
I think it’s wonderful that you made clothes for your dolls. That is an activity that I would think led you forward into fiber art, would you say? And OH, I forgot about paper dolls, I loved paper dolls. Sigh, such sweet memories. Did you have a favorite activity with boy-toys and things of that nature?
I want to thank you so much for visiting here and sharing your thoughts, it means the world to be, as do you.
Blessings dearheart,
Maitri
I don’t remember any favorite activities – but I played more with boys than girls my first six or seven years, and as girls seem to adapt to the male will, I was probably a tomboy, even if I don’t think of myself as such.
Reading was and still is my favorit activity.
I’m so happy that I have the opportunity to follow you, day by day!
hugs,
Margaretha
So beautiful Maitri….you brought back such fond memories because I had those same dolls! I loved them so. My dolls were my family at times…they helped me feel safe.
Thank you for filling my heart with beautiful, simple memories.
Have a glorious day!
Donna
Oh Donna! I love that you had those same dolls. There are so few people these days that know the cherished things of my childhood, I just love talking to someone who does. I’m so glad that you do.
And isn’t it the beautiful, simple memories that mean the most? You know it is a real practice for me to take time to recall the sweet memories that I can remember. The extent of my abuse was so profound there are whole long stretches of time I don’t remember, I don’t remember a lot of gradeschool, teachers, that sort of thing. But I remember my dolls, and my books, and my dogs, and other pets, and my horse. The things that are in my life today are the things that helped me survive those years. So yes, my dolls helped me feel safe too.
May we always carry those sweet memories inside.
Blessings to you dearheart,
Maitri
i was never much of a doll person – i was more of an athletic tom boy and a book-a-holic (already), but when i was about 8, my mother made me a doll that was exactly my size and she had long brown braids (made of yarn) just like my braids. i named her dorothy (probably after the wizard of oz girl) and she and i loved to dance together (i’d twirl her around), cuddle up while i read, and i could always hug her if i felt like it. when my daughter alana was about the same age, my mom brought her a dorothy-look-alike she found in an antique store, and alana always had all of her dolls propped up in dorothy’s lap on her bed. dorothy was the mother-hen greatest doll of all.
thanks for the memories!
katya
Oh Katya how wonderful! I can’t understand from what you’ve written if you still have the original Dorothy? And I love that Alana has one of her own. My mother wasn’t sentimental and passed everything of mine down to younger cousins and it really upset me when I got older because I would like to have had my things to pass on to my own children, but alas, I still have the memories.
How special your mother was to make Dorothy for you, I’d love to see a picture.
I am just so happy that you are coming here honey, you just don’t know.
Blessings and a big warm hug. I love you angel…
Maitri