Tiny Treasures.

I have always been so fascinated with tiny items--Mom's fairy roses, a tiny set of blue speckled dishes (bowls the size of my thumbnail), and miniature M&Ms.

I remember having three tiny porcelain animals from a glass case at Hallmark. I have a fawn, a tiny duckling, ...and maybe a Siamese kitten (I'm not sure). I rubbed the fawns smooth ear to calm down. The fawn wasn't much bigger than a quarter.

I love tiny beads, sequins, and rhinestones. Star rhinestones are my favorite since Mom sent me to school witha blue one and the hope that a fairy lived in the star, so I wouldn't feel alone at school.

Sticky flags are satisfying in their smallness, especially if they come from Girl of All Work.

I love charms, especially interactive ones, like purses that open. I like wearing tiny earrings (when I'm not wearing dangly ones), especially seahorse ones.

I love tiny gel pens. When I was small, I went wild over a set of tiny colored pencils from Sanrio Surprise. The whole set was about the size of a book of matches.

I get especially excited when makeup samples look just like the full-size versions, just tiny. Benefit does this with Porefessional primers. Fresh does it with Sugar lip treatment. Urban Decay does it with eyeshadow primers. The reality is probably just that I want to play with dolls!

Have you had petite fours? They are tiny, frosted cakes. Harris Teeter made some for one of my birthdays at home.

I have a set a shot glasses that look like mason jar mugs. I don't know exactly why since I don't drink...I guess they were just so cute.

Doll clothes and accessories are just exhilarating. Tiny snaps on tiny faux suede shoes. A plaid green coat with hat and mittens. A nib pen smaller than a match.

I don't know why I continue to love tiny objects so much. But I think I will always love them.

Purest Joys.

As a child, I often experienced such innocent and pure joy and anticipation. Exuberant excitement. I want to revisit that experience and maybe learn to bring it back into my life Some of these joys have stayed with me.

• Finding wild violets. They don't stay long, but they're my favorite flower.
• Paper dolls. I loved (and love) fairy tale and American Girl paper dolls. I think Mom got excited about them with me. I remember digging in a bin of coloring books and paper dolls at Davis-Kidd. I think I had one set of Victorian mice. The smallness and the tiny details made me swoon.
• Looking at Dolls. Mom and used to go to Lindsey's Doll Cottage in TN and a toy store in Charlotte primarily to get a close look at Madame Alexander dolls (and look for Tasha Tudor books...but that's a different post). I could gaze and gaze. I remember seeing a 10" Jo March doll with a loaded trunk. I've wanted it ever since, but I've never been able to find it. Still, I like remembering.
• Buying a new showtunes CD. I would save up enough money for the tape, and Dad would pay the rest to get a superior (and fairly new) CD. I always went to the showtunes or Karaoke section at Media Play. Many years ago, my supervisor at Borders teased me because I was so excited when the Broadway soundtrack for The Little Mermaid arrived.
• Shopping for stickers and rubber stamps with Nanna. Those were some of my happiest times. I thought about how I would decorate my school folders and my love letters. I still have a wonderfully outrageous sticker collection, which I usually use in my journals. I still get excited when I see stickers at a store, even a grocery store.
• Going to shows, though I think my wildest reactions had a tinge of mania. Those are some of the most important memories of my life.
• Using makeup. I first saw makeup as a way to hide my blemishes (so I could stand to be out in the world--at least everyone would know I was trying to spare them the sight of my face) or as a means of transforming, for example, into Aladdin's princess. Years later, I realized that makeup is a wonderful way to express myself, experiment, and have fun.
• Hunting for antiques. While this interest didn't really follow me into adulthood, I remember the thrill of musty antique shops. I looked for accessories for my dress-up play, such as a pair of white gloves on which I spent all my money. I loved antique school books. Josh shared that interest.
• Playing with American Girl dolls. Christmas was a time for doll clothes and accessories. And the dolls had stories, which I checked out from the library. I packed their bags when we went on trips, which we did often when I was around that age. I could look and look at the catalog, circling the codes for items I wanted most. And I still get the catalog! Mom has taken me to the AG store, and it seems so wonderful. I might have lost my mind (haha) if the store had existed back then.

I can learn from my childhood and teenage self. I can revisit old joys and seek out new ones.

Nourish/Challenge: Week 3.

I wrote a lot this past week. I responded to prompts I'd saved, some of which I may want to revisit and respond to again later in life.

I finished Louise Gluck's first book of poetry, Firstborn. I have a few more books of hers, so I'm now working on The House on Marshland. The new style is often a lovely challenge.

Going back through old issues of Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion, I was delighted to find the paper doll. I have always loved paper dolls. Several years ago, I was able to find and collect many of the fairy tale paper dolls I used to have. I want to look like that Snow White. I don't know what to do with them except gaze at them, and that's enough. But I would like to have a room wallpapered with beautiful paper dolls. Having these precious gems from my childhood nourishes me.

Bruce and I finished the Freakshow season of AHS. It does force me to think in new ways.

This past week, I kept up with my blog well. That was a challenge, but the required exploration and attention renew me.

On Saturday, Greg and Susan visited, and we had a good time. Social interaction with almost anyone is a challenge for me, but Josh's parents' warmth set me at ease. Plus, they gave a perfect combination: a candle and a journal!

On Ballet.

I like the word sugarplum. I love the sound and the images it conjures. I'd like to see The Nutcracker this year. I want to fill my head with those costumes and with that pretend snow. Ribbons, lace, satin-shine, tulle, glitter, ringlets. I would probably be one of the snowflakes. One of my closest childhood friends, Tracy, is a ballerina, and I got to see her in the show. Was she one of the girls at the party? I don't remember, but I was fascinated--craving performance myself at the time.

In my last semester of undergrad, my counselor told me I couldn't take any more English classes. So I took two beginner dance classes, modern and ballet. I was not good at ballet (despite a few good years of competitive Irish step dancing), but I enjoyed the feel of it. I pinned my hair up high, and I tried.

One of the first big shows Bruce and I saw together was a wild reimagining of the Sleeping Beauty ballet. The music was familiar since Disney used it. We saw black feather wings and some incarnations of vampires.

I'd like to see more ballet. I'm so amazed at what people can teach the body to do.

Scrapbooking.

I have so many lovely memories connected to scrapbooking. At first, I made cards and decorated photo albums with scrapbooking treasures. Later, I used the tools to add to my journals.

I remember the joy of wet ink pads and tiny dolls with pinafores on rubber stamps. Burst of stars, favorite words, fairies, and more were mine to put anywhere, over and over. Mom and I colored stamps with brush-tip markers.

My Nanna would take me to scrapbooking stores with walls of rubber stamps and giant rolls of stickers. I collected hearts and stars. I wish more of those stores still existed.

I cut sheets of cardstock in half and then cut the edges with patterned scissors. I added stickers and silver ink to make love letters.

Sakura's Gelly Roll pens have made me so happy since before high school. The pens come in metallic, glitter, neon, and gold and silver shades. I use them in my journals. My darling friend Melissa and I used the pens to take notes in class and to write long notes to each other. In Boone when I was an undergrad, I went to Cheap Joe's Art Stuff and bought pens from the mega display. Now, Charlotte has a Cheap Joe's, and even Michaels has a small selection of Gelly Rolls.

I used to make collages with patterned paper, magazine pictures and words, watercolors, glitter, rhinestones, paint swatches, stamps, and stickers.

I've never tired of stickers and wild inks.

The Princess, the Fairy, and the Mermaid.

How can one choose among such wondrous fantasy creatures? When I was little, I was astonished to find that princesses were real. I saw silks and royal blue and purple brocade. I saw Aurora disguised as a peasant, captivating Prince Philip nonetheless. Now, I love stickers of tiaras and castles, keeping my fascination alive in my journals.

Someone, probably my grandmother, gave me a book of gorgeous flower fairy paintings and poems by Cicely Mary Barker. Tiny creatures with wings? I was hooked. I looked for myself in the pages. I dressed up as one of the fairies and recited her poem to my parents and grandparents. Once, in high school, I saw a fairy. She hovered right over my desk in a kind of pink cloud. I just gazed until the vision faded. Her face was so tiny.

I've always liked mermaids, but I've been more attached to them lately, partly because trends have made the idea of mermaids more available. I like that mermaids are regal and fantastic but also have an edge. They thrive in another realm where humans can't survive. Mermaids are wild. Of course, princesses and fairies can be wild and fierce too.

I love all three. Some of my identity is rooted with these creations.

Joy and Hope.

Where joy is, hope is nearby.

I remember being 9 or 10 years old and feeling scared and guilty about the fact that I was not joyful. I was shy and sullen without my team of friends and sometimes even with them. I decorated a binder with the theme of joy. I wrote down scriptures, hymn lyrics, and sermon notes related to joy. I meditated on these, and I prayed.

What was wrong with me? I felt happy when I played and sang to showtunes endlessly. I felt a tremendous energy when I bossed my friends into putting on plays and lip-sync musicals. Nothing really turned off the deep-seated, quiet terror that something was wrong with me, that I was somehow bad or broken.

I learned to cling to joy as I grew up. The fear in me was still present but was not a stomach-crushing boulder. I fell in love with Irish step dance after seeing Riverdance with my friend Kendall. I took lessons and competed for 3 years. I felt joy--using my energy well, discovering a talent.

This gave me hope--joy could exist for me, safe places existed, and safe people existed and could perhaps handle the emotional and mental weight of me. I could be or become okay.

Childhood Loves.

"What one loves in childhood stay in the heart forever."

~Mary Jo Putney

My childhood was rich with theatre--the showtunes, the occasional show (like my dad taking me to Sunset Boulevard), and some of my own acting. I gave up on the acting, but theatre and its music are more a part of me than ever. Daily! I feel that I'm honoring my childhood self.

I still love dolls and tiny things. As a little-little, I adored a set of tiny colored pencils. Many of my favorite tiny things are on my necklaces--little charms like keys and fairies that help me stay connected to my early self.

I read books for older children as well, and I've read some of them aloud to Oliver. I want him to have a childhood full of sustaining joys that he can carry with him into adulthood.

Why Dolls?

My mama and I share a still-vibrant love for dolls...because they're awesome! They represent a small, calm, orderly world. They seem alive if they are very special. I love Emily in A Little Princess--all the description of her perfect little wardrobe and accessories. Dreamy!

I can still see myself dressing a doll, putting her to bed, worry about whether or not her coat were warm enough. Some people may think I'm regressing or working through the face that I'll never have a baby girl. Maybe. In some ways, I need to regress, to find and use childhood comforts.

I wish more dolls with full wardrobes and accessories existed. I'd love to have a Madame Alexander 10-inch Cissette. But of course, the Jo trunk set I want most is just gone. Mom could probably make clothes for a 10-inch doll. The doll could be anyone I wanted her to be.

If she wanted to, Mom could also make more clothes for Anastasia, a dark-haired beauty. A nightgown with lace, dresses in pink and purple...though she'd look lovely in red. Some American Girl accessories might not be too big for her. I could display the doll on my desks. I'd love to just to see what Mom would come up with. It wouldn't all have to be princess-worthy. It could include little T-shirts and jeans.

Mom has talked about our going to doll shows. Maybe I'd find a perfect doll that I never would have seen otherwise. And Mom could haggle.

I do love tiny, perfect things. I've wanted to be one.

The Jewel.

"I held the jewel of my childhood up to my eye...."
                                                                       ~Neil Gifford

This caught my attention, and I wondered what it meant. I guess it means letting one's loveliest or best memories influence one's perception of the present...or the present self.

I think about playing Harriet the Spy when I was eleven. I took a notebook everywhere. That was kind of my precursor to Natalie Goldberg, queen of constant freewriting, of write everything down, of The Notebook. So I often feel that I ought to be writing something down, huddled on the edge of events and places, eyes wide open and hand moving rapidly across the lines.

I also remember my reading self--my eagerness to check out library books, Mom's quick and wholly absorbed journey through a stack of hardcovers, my tastes of romance and horror through certain special edition Babysitter's Club books, my grandfather buying me a Nancy Drew book for the flight home.

So I guess I look at myself and my life through that jewel: Do I write like that? Do I read like that?

What jewel do you hold up?

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So Very Tiny.

Tonight, Josh had taken Oliver to his crib and was sitting on the floral couch while I read and ate peanut butter fudge cookies in the big green chair.

Josh said, "You are a tiny mouse sitting on a book, eating cookies and cheese."
I answered, "But what if I'm cold?"
"I will give you a tiny shawl. I will put it on your shoulders and stroke your head, and I will give you a bottle cap full of Dr. Pepper."

This filled me with such a delicious sense of joy and safety. Then, I remembered sitting on a bench with my grandmother. I don't know where we were or exactly how small I was. But I must have been discussing my obsession with smallness. Independently or with my prompting, she began to tell me how she would care for me if I were Thumbelina-sized. I think I asked countless specific questions to keep this going. The only specific part I remember is her saying that she would carry me in a box, which she would line with velvet to keep it soft. My then-imagining of a green velvet-lined chamber and the coziness inside yet beyond the muffled sounds of the world is still so vivid in my mind.

I Dream of Genie only captured my attention because of the cushioned and peach-tinted bottle room. Thumbelina's walnut bed and tiny dresses were dreamy. I loved the tiny sparkle of the tiny ring the nervous mouse carried in one The Rescuers movie.

I began a collection of those tiny porcelain animals one used to find on little mirrored shelves in Hallmark stores. I only had three: a fawn with a chipped ear, a Siamese kitten, and a yellow duckling. I remember the smoothness of their painted heads under the pad of my right index finger. 

Of course, the American Girl Collection provided endless wonder: a detailed deviled egg, a nib pen as long as a needle, a pencil box, palm-sized wire-rimmed glasses, miniature pennies.....

My mother bought a Robin Woods doll with thick black curls and painted blue eyes. She sewed a gauzy, pale blue princess gown with white glimmer trim and a royal blue velvet cape with silver trim and lining. She had numbered the packages that Christmas morning. The package held a wooden box she had painted with scrolls and a keyhole and lined with plush silky silver. The accompanying gold key was almost as exciting as the silver and opal rhinestone tiara inside the treasure box. That day, my uncle gave me a set of tiny books. I remember one was an old-fashioned alphabet book; reading it was a thrill.

Someone...maybe one of my grandfather's (not the one belonging to the grandmother) girlfriends...bought me a package of bitsy colored pencils smaller than matchsticks. I was so overcome with joyous delirium that I would, at random, squeal, "I love my tiny little pencils!"

I had a set of mottled blue metal dishes: plates, bowls in which I could barely fit a bit of my fingertip, teacups. I imagined whole stories around the tiny meals.

One Christmas, I tore at the paper around a large, lumpy shape and uncovered my mother's dollhouse: white with blue shutters, a doorknob I could barely grasp, and three stories of wonders. I endlessly studied the thin velvety carpets, the wooden ice box, the black water pump, the little hard-ribboned presents I could never unwrap, the hair-fine candy canes on the Christmas tree, the cushioned burgundy velvet sofa, the brass bed with pink coverlet, pink plush blanket, and lace-edged sheet, the wardrobe with modest white nightgown, the tiny candles and tinier candle snuff, the canopied green bed, the chip of soap on the pedestal sink, the narrow claw foot tub, the delectably fragile roll-top desk, and the Goldfish-sized books with real blank pages that fluttered out if I wasn't gentle enough. I wondered what invisible words could have filled those pages.

Now, I sometimes buy mini gel pens, and I gaze longingly at Madame Alexander trunk sets with their little worlds of selective luxury. I wonder how a designer can choose just three or four outfits and a literal handful of accessories to build the doll's life portrait inside that gold-hinged trunk. My Madame Alexander Anne Shirley doll sits above our kitchen cabinets in her tiny-snap boots and cardigan with unfathomable small blue buttons.

So, mouse reference aside, I wanted to start asking Josh a thousand questions, testing his ability to imagine and wrap me in the cozy glee of tininess. He does always say, "Out in the world and at work, you have to be big and brave. But here, you can be small."

The family Easter basket Mom made for Josh, Oliver, and me this year contained a special gift for Oliver to enjoy when he's a little older: a set of itty bitty colored pencils.

My Sleepy Bower.

When I was younger, I sometimes imagined my bed was a white boat on a calm ocean. The soft rocking and assurance of some tranquil destination would help me sleep, especially during those early adolescent boughts of insomnia. (Image: http://mfsavannah.wordpress.com/2011/04/27/take-me-there/)

The bed I have now, which I've already described as one of the possessions of which I'm most proud, is tall and firm with a layer of softness. I always resist practical purchases like sheets, but last year, I outfitted this bed wonderfully with a colorful, blossoming forest-themed duvet cover from Pottery Barn, perfectly silk-soft but durable sheets from Target in dusky purple and grass green, and a matching green bed skirt. Our previous white bed skirt was hopelessly coated with dust and cat hair. This one probably is too, but it doesn't show!

Whatever else you do, have a wonderful bed. Have it even if you have to save and buy piece by piece. Life is too short for scratchy sheets or a depressing and decidedly uncomforting comforter. Make your bed a place for daydreams as well as night dreams. Make it, truly, your dream boat.