It would appear that I am embodying several of the seven dwarfs today. I’m crampy, feeling hung over even though I only had half a beer yesterday at the Sunlit Lane Block Party, plodding and dim-sighted, not to mention grumpy, dopey and bashful. Oh wait, the first three weren’t dwarfs, were they?
So why am I trying to write a post, then? Because this is also a part of me. I’m not just the perky, cheerful, thoughtful personas that I try to present to the world. There is also Grumpy-Nancy, and Dopey-Nancy, and Breakable-Nancy.
Breakable Nancy reminds me of Breakable Barbie.
Panda, when she was about 6, had many, many Barbie dolls. That’s a tiny story all in itself. When Panda was about three, a mother said to me “Isn’t it sad when little girls get Barbies when they’re young, because by the time they’re 8, they aren’t interested in them any more.” And I thought to myself, “Great! Sign me up! Let’s avoid the 10 year old looking at Barbie and thinking, I’m never going to look like that. . . I must be a failure.” And so I did. I let all of her grandparents buy her as many Barbies as they wanted to.
It was all so pink. I had no idea what that much pink would do to my psyche, but I digress.
The Barbie she loved the most wasn’t even a Barbie (registered trademark). It was some cheap, Barbie look-alike. The intriguing bit about this Barbie was that her arms, legs and head all came off and went back on, sort of like pop beads. It was perfect for my clothing-creating daughter. It meant that she could create clothes for Barbie that didn’t have to include functioning closures. That’s the toughest part about clothing, making sure that the buttons and zippers work properly and trying to do that for something that is 6 inches tall is nigh on impossible for a just-learning eight-year-old.
Santa had brought Panda a 1950s Singer 99 sewing machine when she was 8. It’s a handcrank. The beauty of a handcrank and an 8 year old, is that you really can’t get that needle going very fast, so she never once sewed her finger through, for which I am eternally grateful. I don’t know that I could have handled the blood.
Anyway, Panda would make clothes out of my quilting scraps, and then pop the arms, legs and head off of Breakable Barbie (for that became her name; she had no other), slide the new creation on, pop the arms, legs and head back on, and voila! Fashionista Breakable Barbie!
Panda had so much fun with Breakable Barbie. In fact, now she’s got a dress-form and is designing (from scratch!) her own renaissance costume for the Ren Faire coming up in September. I wonder if she sometimes longs for Breakable Barbie, so that she won’t have to put those closure bits on.
I, as Breakable Nancy, sometimes just want to pop my arms, legs and head off and go to bed.
I think that’s what I’ll do today.
Here’s hoping that someone will help me pop the appendages back on for rehearsal tonight.
I’m rehearsing for a concert called “Baroque Obama.” More about that later.
Songmom
