Rubato

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Rubato: Rhythmic flexibility within a phrase or measure of music; the temporary disregarding of strict tempo to allow an expressive quickening or slackening, usually without altering the overall pace.

Rubatosis: The unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat.

A Great Yogi

In my travels I spent time with a great yogi.
Once he said to me:

“Become so still you hear the blood flowing
through your veins.”

One night as I sat in quiet,
I seemed on the verge of entering a world inside so vast
I know it is the source of
all of us.

Mirabai (1498 - 1550*)
16th - Century Indian Mystic
Translated by Daniel Ladinsky
*Differing dates
suggested by various editors.
These wise words from the poet - princess - saint Mira / Meera brought to my mind some excellent advice that I was given years ago by another wise woman, my undergraduate major professor Connie Holt Jones. I believe it must have been as we were discussing Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence that she advised us to listen to our hearts:

"He came to consciousness again, hearing an immense knocking outside. What could be happening, what was it, the great hammer-stroke resounding through the house? He did not know. And then it came to him that it was his own heart beating. But that seemed impossible, the noise was outside. No, it was inside himself, it was his own heart. And the beating was painful, so strained, surcharged." (from Women in Love, Chapter 20)

If it seems that time is rushing by too quickly, Connie said, find your heartbeat and it will slow you down. On the other hand, if time is dragging unbearably slowly, put your hand over your heart until you find the beat and you'll discover that, in fact, you are moving right along. Your heart will always provide a constant center in the midst of panic or gloom, over - excitement or tedium.

Countless times over the years, thanks to dear Professor Holt Jones, I have exercised this small discipline, which I have only recently learned is called "rubatosis: the unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat." Or to borrow from the world of music, rubato. In life as in music, flexibility will allow "quickening or slackening, usually without altering the overall pace."

"Only from the heart can you touch the sky."
Rumi (1207 - 1273)
Persian Spiritual Sage
More from Rumi

Summer Moons: June (above) and July

Summer Tunes:
1965: "Baby, baby, can't you hear my heart beat?"
1973: "When you were young and your heart was an open book . . ."

Summer Runes:
From Reasons to Stay Alive ~ Matt Haig
See also ~How to Stop Time

One more from Mirabai:

O my friends,
What can you tell me of Love,
Whose pathways are filled with strangeness?
When you offer the Great One your love,
At the first step your body is crushed.
Next be ready to offer your head as his seat.
Be ready to orbit his lamp like a moth giving in to the light,
To live in the deer as she runs toward the hunter's call,
In the partridge that swallows hot coals for love of the moon,
In the fish that, kept from the sea, happily dies.
Like a bee trapped for life in the closing of the sweet flower,
Mira has offered herself to her Lord.
She says, the single Lotus will swallow you whole.

~translated by Jane Hirshfield

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Sunday August 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Eagles is Freedom

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Visiting the Bald Eagles at the Columbian Park Zoo
With my friend Nikki ~ April 25, 2016

Fly Like An Eagle
Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'
Into the future
Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'
Into the future

I want to fly like an eagle
To the sea
Fly like an eagle
Let my spirit carry me
I want to fly like an eagle
Till I'm free
Oh, Lord, through the revolution

Feed the babies
Who don't have enough to eat
Shoe the children
With no shoes on their feet
House the people
Livin' in the street
Oh, oh, there's a solution

I want to fly like an eagle
To the sea
Fly like an eagle
Let my spirit carry me
I want to fly like an eagle
Till I'm free
Fly through the revolution

Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'
Into the future
Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'
Into the future
Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'
Into the future
Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'
Into the future

I want to fly like an eagle
To the sea
Fly like an eagle
Let my spirit carry me
I want to fly like an eagle
Till I'm free
Fly through the revolution

Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'
Into the future
Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'
Into the future

~ The Steve Miller Band

Admiring the impressive eagles and measuring my own "wingspan" reminded me of a teaching anecdote posted by my friend Sandy's daughter Rachel a couple of summers ago:

July 4, 2014 · Bangkok, Thailand ·
Blech. I'm homesick. I don't want to be in Bangkok. I want to be in the States doing American things. You know what's weird? I haven't spent a 4th of July in the US since 2010 . . . weird.

Also, there was this conversation in tutoring yesterday . . . appropriate for the eve of July 4th? I think so. (Talking about carnivores vs herbivores, which led to a discussion about birds of prey. We were in no way talking about the US, the Fourth, or anything like that.)

Varit: What win when fight? Eagle or hawk?

Phonpisith: Eagle! Because it strength and FREEDOM.

Me: ??? Where did you even hear that? I never taught you that and your homeroom teacher is English and didn't teach you that.

Phonpisith: I know about freedom. And eagles is freedom.
[ellipses in original; emphasis added]

Could it be that these young Thai students had heard John Denver sing:

The Eagle And The Hawk
I am the eagle, I live in high country in rocky cathedrals that reach to the sky.
I am the hawk, and there's blood on my feathers.
But time is still turning, they soon will be dry.
And all those who see me, and all who believe in me
share in the freedom I feel when I fly.

Come dance with the west wind and touch on the mountain tops.
Sail o'er the canyons and up to the stars.
And reach for the heavens and hope for the future
and all that we can be, and not what we are.

These two songs are connected not only by vivid imagery of flying eagles but also by the mysterious passage of time. For John Denver, "time is still turning"; and for the Little River Band, "Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin' / Into the future."

Even more important, perhaps, is their shared theme of social justice:

LRB ~ "Feed the babies
Who don't have enough to eat
Shoe the children
With no shoes on their feet
House the people
Livin' in the street
Oh, oh, there's a solution"

JD ~ "And reach for the heavens and hope for the future
and all that we can be, and not what we are."

Come the Revolution! Happy Bastille Day!

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday July 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

The Shadowiness of the Still House

A LONE HOUSE BY THE ROAD
WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Childhood Paintings by Gerry McCartney ~ late 1960s

The Listeners

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest’s ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller’s head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller’s call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
’Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:—
‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,’ he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.

Walter de la Mare

The Sea Gypsy*

I am fevered with the sunset,
I am fretful with the bay,
For the wander-thirst is on me
And my soul is in Cathay.

There's a schooner in the offing,
With her topsails shot with fire,
And my heart has gone aboard her
For the Islands of Desire.

I must forth again to-morrow!
With the sunset I must be
Hull down on the trail of rapture
In the wonder of the sea.

Richard Hovey

*Sam recited "The Sea Gypsy" at St. Peter's
Poetry Declamation ~ 4th grade ~ September 2002

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, July 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

In a Museum!

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Glass Miniatures at the
Asian Art Museum in San Francisco
Museum Connections:

A couple of months ago, on my Quotidian blog, I posted Sam's favorite paintings from the Guggenheim, along with a throwback reference to one of our favorite childhood movies Don't Eat the Pictures. I turned again to this Sesame Street favorite, about an overnight visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, on my previous Fortnighlty blog, "Light as a Feather." One of the subplots for Big Bird concerns finding an answer to the all - important question: "Where does today meet yesterday?"

Can you guess the answer? "In a museum!"

Last summer (August 2015), Gerry and I visited several museums in Lincoln, England. We were lucky enough to be there for the octocentenary of the Magna Carta (1215 - 2015). Of all the awe - inspiring documents and artifacts that we surveyed as part of this town - wide octocentennial celebration of today meeting yesterday, what made the most lasting impression on me was an ancient jar of ancient pennies on display in The Collection Museum.

I couldn't help thinking of the ancient family (probably Roman) and all of the household items they might have valued, even treasured: an ornamental vase or wall hanging? a headdress or some jewelry? the best tableware or even the second - best. Of all these items, could they have ever guessed that what would survive would be the unused pennies, the most humble currency? Of all their arts and crafts and labor, is this what they would have chosen for us to remember them by, 800 years hence?

Certainly of all the things in my home that I consider beautiful or useful (see previous post), it is not the souvenir jar of nearly worthless pennies that I would send as emissary to the future. Yet, as it turns out, that's where yesterday met today, and where today might meet tomorrow.

The riddle of Don't Eat the Pictures -- "Where does today meet yesterday?" -- can also be found in the following two poems. Underlying their sophistication and elegance is the same conundrum. In "Museum," Wislawa Szymborska observes that "Since eternity was out of stock, / ten thousand aging things have been amassed instead": plates, weddings rings, fans, swords, lutes, hairpins, crowns, gloves, shoes, dresses. Ten thousand artifacts! Some quite impressive, others merely as silly as a jar of pennies. Her closing image of the determined dress is particularly timely and of interest, since I've recently learned that clothing in any way unusual -- not only vintage styles, but also novelty fashions and passing fads -- may be donated to the Purdue Theatre Department. Such garments might be used onstage or studied in the classroom -- where today meets yesterday.

The second poem, "In the Museum of Lost Objects," is Lindenberg's tribute to "the magnitude / of absence," all the long - lost relics, jewels, and documents that we shall never lay eyes upon. For every thing that we can see, there is so much more that we never can. For every heirloom or rustic jug retained, how many more disappeared in the landslide? How many were crushed in the landfill and have now disintegrated beyond all existence? As with cemeteries, for each loved one commemorated, there are millions more whose bones and names we shall never know. The Terracotta Ghost Army remains 8000 strong, but where are the citizens of the realm? "Gone to feed the roses" -- that's where. Their lives too would fill huge vacant fields, huge vacant rooms -- but we have "ten thousand aging things . . . instead."

Four Salon Walls from
Frye Museum of Art, Seattle

Museum

Here are plates with no appetite.
And wedding rings, but the requited love
has been gone now for some three hundred years.

Here’s a fan -- where is the maiden’s blush?
Here are swords -- where is the ire?
Nor will the lute sound at the twilight hour.

Since eternity was out of stock,
ten thousand aging things have been amassed instead.
The moss-grown guard in golden slumber
props his mustache on Exhibit Number --

Eight. Metals, clay and feathers celebrate
their silent triumphs over dates.
Only some Egyptian flapper’s silly hairpin giggles.

The crown has outlasted the head.
The hand has lost out to the glove.
The right shoe has defeated the foot.

As for me, I am still alive, you see.
The battle with my dress still rages on.
It struggles, foolish thing, so stubbornly!
Determined to keep living when I’m gone!

Wislawa Szymborska

In the Museum of Lost Objects

What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee;
What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage.
Ezra Pound
You’ll find labels describing what is gone:
an empress’s bones, a stolen painting

of a man in a feathered helmet
holding a flag-draped spear.

A vellum gospel, hidden somewhere long ago
forgotten, would have sat on that pedestal;

this glass cabinet could have kept the first
salts carried back from the Levant.

To help us comprehend the magnitude
of absence, huge rooms

lie empty of their wonders—the Colossus,
Babylon’s Hanging Gardens and

in this gallery, empty shelves enough to hold
all the scrolls of Alexandria.

My love, I’ve petitioned the curator
who has acquired an empty chest

representing all the poems you will
now never write. It will be kept with others

in the poet’s gallery. Next door,
a vacant room echoes with the spill

of jewels buried by a pirate who died
before disclosing their whereabouts.

I hope you don’t mind, but I have kept
a few of your pieces

for my private collection. I think
you know the ones I mean.

Rebecca Lindenberg

Into the museums they go, so that today may encounter yesterday: bones and paintings, helmets and spears, classic books and curios, wonders of the world, unfinished manuscripts. Sensing how elusive eternity can be, we save what we can. As T.S. Eliot (and later Joan Didion) once said: "These fragments I have shored against my ruins."

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, June 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Light as a Feather

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful,
or believe to be beautiful. ~William Morris

Beautiful and useful: my favorite china pattern
~ Chinese Legend (pastel Blue Willow with red accents) ~
which looks perfect against red silk elephants from Thailand!
Thanks Sandy S-K!

Or this exotic white / gold / silver summer bedding ensemble
from the United Arab Emirates. Thanks Vickie Amador!

*******************

For one thing,
there is too much luggage,
and you’re truly lugging it —
you and, it seems, everyone.

What is it, that you need so badly?
Think about this.

from the poem "Logan International"
by Mary Oliver
in her book Thirst
Now, what to do about all those items that are neither beautiful nor useful? Somehow it seems that life has become a perpetual project of sorting the wheat from the chaff, trying to ~ simplify, simplify, simplify ~ by donating or throwing away. Mary Oliver's question ~ "What is it, that you need so badly?" ~ reminds me of the old Egyptian rule that you could only enter the afterworld if Osiris weighed your heart and found it to be lighter than a feather.

This ancient legend received a new twist in the 1983 Sesame Street special, Don't Eat the Pictures (which I mentioned last month on my Quotidian Blog). Cookie Monster and friends spend the night -- In a Museum! -- the Metropolitan Museum of Art -- and meet a little Egyptian prince who haunts the Temple of Dendur because he is under a spell that prevents him from joining his parents in the afterlife.

Big Bird, Mr. Snuffleupagus, and Prince Sahu
Snuffy offers Sahu a ride, and Big Bird sings a hopeful song::

"You're Gonna Be a Star"
Shining in the sky
Bright and proud, way up high.
You're gonna be a star
Somewhere in the blue
There's a spot just for you!

The moon will be there beside you
When everyone's counting sheep
A fluffy white cloud will hide you
Whenever you go to sleep

A shiny little star
Is what you're gonna be--
Just you wait and see!

You're gonna be a star
Shining in the sky
Bright and proud, way up high.
You're gonna be a star
Somewhere in the blue
There's a spot just for you!

At night when the sky is clearing
You'll talk with the other stars
I bet you'll be overhearing
What Jupiter said to Mars!

A shiny little star
Is what you're gonna be--
Just you wait and see!

Standing Before Osiris With a Heavy Heart

*******************
My heart was not lighter than feather twelve years ago, when we made the big move from Philadelphia back to Indiana (in Spring 2004). When we first moved out to Philly (from Indiana, in Spring 1993), we didn't have so much to take with us, but we managed to accumulate a lot in our eleven years there, and it couldn't all come back to the Midwest with us. When packing, I tried to put all of our belongings to the "light as a feather" test. If they failed, then they did not get to accompany us to our next life!

In preparation for that move, I bid farewell to stacks of old bedspreads and beach towels (including two big black garbage bags full to our vet, who was collecting nesting material to make snug winter beds for the pets), tons of books (some via amazon used), a couple of poorly made small bookshelves and scratched up end tables, video cassettes, Sam's outgrown clothes (previously worn by Ben), Christmas decorations (yes, I was able to part with one large shopping bag of the cheaper, plastic variety -- none of my treasures, of course), a few puzzles and games and toys that I didn't think Ben and Sam would ever play with again. One way or another, it all made its way out the door -- over to St. Peter's School (some, that I knew the little kids would like, went straight to the Pre - K; some to the basement for the next year's annual rummage sale), or to our local Goodwill equivalent -- a store called the Second Mile Center, or to the curbside -- an extremely efficient market for the transference of goods in Philadelphia.

It's true, I cried real tears over some of the special toys, like the wooden zoo that had simply never appealed to the boys, even though to me it had represented the ideal hands - on childhood experience that I dreamed of creating for them. I guess that's the hard part -- not just boxing up the stuff, but passing on the dreams in hopes that someone else will find a use for them. It wasn't easy at first, but once I got going, I felt good about the idea of not bringing so much excess baggage back to Indiana! It's always tough for a sentimental fool like me to part with my belongings but always nice to lighten the load. When we arrived in Indiana, more things had to go; despite our heavy - duty downsizing, we realized we had still brought too much.

We've now been back in Indiana for as long as were in Philadelphia (a year longer, actually), so it is definitely time for another purge. A few of my friends swear by the latest trend: Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing; but I think between William Morris ("beautiful or useful") and the Tao of Big Bird ("lighter than a feather") I have all the inspiration I need. (I have also been intrigued by Kate Bingaman-Burt's Obsessive Consumption: What Did You Buy Today? -- a kind of "pain of payment" awareness - raising project, like the practice of meticulously verifying every credit card purchase or, better yet, using cash instead of credit.)

I like what my friend Len wrote a couple of summers ago about growing lighter and lighter as he gave away his earthly goods:

I enjoyed clearing out my closets of all the clothes I haven't worn since I moved to this house three years ago: sports jackets, pants, ties, regular jackets, shoes obtained online that never fit well, the ugly, the old-fashioned, the back-up administrating garb, the inexplicable purchases. I dropped these off at the donation center and then went back to give them the bicycle. In this mood, I began clearing expired foods (making an emergency batch of tofu-tidbits just six hours away from expiring--my name is Danger!). I plan not to go beyond my house and backyard tomorrow: there is so much more to cull, clean, and clear out, now that I am in this groove.

Tabula rasa: I had to replace my old, dying cellphone; the young technician supposedly copying the contacts and calendar and other information from my old phone suddenly panicked when he saw I did not have a "cloud app." He had to make a call to someone and kept trying. After five attempts, he handed it to me in triumph and said it was perfect; he said I should have told him I had deleted my contacts! In keeping with my general cleaning and emptying, I took the blank phone as an opportunity: gone were all of the people and places I had for short-term purposes, from different places I had lived, from my administrative work. Gone were the retired, the moved, the unpleasant, and the dead. It was as if a great cleansing religious ceremony had been undertaken and my contacts now were made pure. I start from this beginning and add as needed. . . .

Plus Some Witty Facebook Responses:
Denice Laws Davies: "I felt that way after giving away my teenage record collection."

Diane Prokop: You are a brave man.

Leonard Orr: "Bravery does not enter into it. There was not much that could be done. I think the best analogy is Leopold Bloom's rising above the adversities of his life through "equanimity," before he goes to sleep at the end of Ulysses."

Diane Prokop: "I am a stranger to equanimity these days."

Andrea Livingston: "I like the idea of deleting all "unpleasant" contacts from my cellphone's memory and sending them to a "cloud" somewhere, similar to what happened in the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."

Kitti: "My favorite: 'inexplicable purchases'! I also like this list; there's just something about it that I keep returning to: 'Gone were the retired, the moved, the unpleasant, and the dead.' "

Leonard: "Separated out, it does sound idyllic (or an echo of the end of Dubliners)."

Kitti Carriker: Or the preface of Edwin Mullhouse
(see Comment below)

P.S.
Here's an even better way to decrease our accumulations
and the task of ridding ourselves of them --
don't buy them in the first place!

"Look at your own mind.
The one who carries things thinks he's got things,
but the one who looks on sees only the heaviness.
Throw away things, lose them, and find lightness."
~ Ajahn Chah ~
SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, June 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ Willow Willow Willow
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST ~ The Swedish Death Cleanse
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Bonnie & Barbie

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

My Cousin Dodie's Bonnie Doll

A few months ago, my sweet cousin Dodie posted the above photo of her doll with a note to me: "Kitti, this is the outfit you made for my Bonnie doll when you were about 12, I think. The summer that I spent 2 weeks at your house, I think I was 10."

All I could say was, "Wow -- I did that? Precision detailing! I'm impressed with my former handiwork! And you've kept it all these years -- that is too sweet!"

Dodie elaborated, "I was impressed back then and even more impressed now. This doll is a special doll for many reasons and the outfit that you made is one of them. Aunt Judy gave me the doll; she is an 18" doll named Bonnie. I have two mentors / guardian angels in my life whose names were Bonnie. So I have always kept her in my sewing area. I guess it is one of those things a person keeps around as a reminder that they are well loved and their life is full of blessings."

Thanks Dodie!

In fact, here we are in Summer 1970
when Dodie came to stay for two weeks:
in back, my younger sister Di and me;
in front Dodie, holding our black cat Samantha
and my little brother Aaron, holding our white cat Phhht

A few years ago (2008), I was paging through one of Ben and Sam's high school English anthologies and discovered this gem from Sandra Cisneros, the perfect retrospective for anyone who ever loved a Barbie but was always a little bit behind the trend! The detailed outfits and ensembles took me right back to the Sears Christmas Catalogs of the 1960s.

BARBIE-Q
For Licha
by Sandra Cisneros

Yours is the one with mean eyes and a ponytail. Striped swimsuit, stilettos, sunglasses, and gold hoop earrings. Mine is the one with bubble hair. Red swimsuit, stilettos, pearl earrings, and a wire stand. But that’s all we can afford, besides one extra outfit apiece. Yours, “Red Flair,” sophisticated A-line coatdress with a Jackie Kennedy pillbox hat, white gloves, handbag, and heels included. Mine, “Solo in the Spotlight,” evening elegance in black glitter strapless gown with a puffy skirt at the bottom like a mermaid tail, formal-length gloves, pink chiffon scarf, and mike included. From so much dressing and undressing, the black glitter wears off where her titties stick out. This and a dress invented from an old sock when we cut holes here and here and here, the cuff rolled over for the glamorous, fancy-free, off-the-shoulder look.



Every time the same story. Your Barbie is roommates with my Barbie, and my Barbie’s boyfriend comes over and your Barbie steals him, okay? Kiss kiss kiss. Then the two Barbies fight. You dumbbell! He’s mine. Oh no he’s not, you stinky! Only Ken’s invisible, right? Because we don’t have money for a stupid-looking boy doll when we’d both rather ask for a new Barbie outfit next Christmas. We have to make do with your mean-eyed Barbie and my bubblehead Barbie and our one outfit apiece not including the sock dress.

Until next Sunday when we are walking through the flea market on Maxwell Street and there! Lying on the street next to some tool bits, and platform shoes with the heels all squashed, and a fluorescent green wicker wastebasket, and aluminum foil, and hubcaps, and a pink shag rug, and windshield wiper blades, and dusty mason jars, and a coffee can full of rusty nails. There! Where? Two Mattel boxes. One with the “Career Gal” ensemble, snappy black-and-white business suit, three-quarter-length sleeve jacket with kick-pleated skirt, red sleeveless shell, gloves, pumps, and matching hat included. The other, “Sweet Dreams,” dreamy pink-and-white plaid nightgown and matching robe, lace-trimmed slippers, hair-brush and hand mirror included.



How much? Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, until they say okay.

On the outside you and me skipping and humming but inside we are doing loopity-loops and pirouetting. Until at the next vendor’s stand, next to boxed pies, and bright orange toilet brushes, and rubber gloves, and wrench sets, and bouquets of feather flowers, and glass towel racks, and steel wool, and Alvin and the Chipmunks records, there! And there! And there! And there! and there! and there! and there! Bendable Legs Barbie with her new page-boy hairdo, Midge, Barbie’s best friend. Ken, Barbie’s boyfriend. Skipper, Barbie’s little sister. Tutti and Todd, Barbie and Skipper’s tiny twin sister and brother. Skipper’s friends, Scooter and Ricky. Alan, Ken’s buddy. And Francie, Barbie’ MOD’ern cousin.

Everybody today selling toys, all of them damaged with water and smelling of smoke. Because a big toy warehouse on Halsted Street burned down yesterday-see there?-the smoke still rising and drifting across the Dan Ryan expressway. And now there is a big fire sale at Maxwell Street, today only.

So what if we didn’t get our new Bendable Legs Barbie and Midge and Ken and Skipper and Tutti and Todd and Scooter and Ricky and Alan and Francie in nice clean boxes and had to buy them on Maxwell Street, all water-soaked and sooty. So what if our Barbies smell like smoke when you hold them up to your nose even after you wash and wash and wash them. And if the prettiest doll, Barbie’s MOD’ern cousin Francie with real eyelashes, eyelash brush included, has a left foot that’s melted a little-so? If you dress her in her new “Prom Pinks” outfit, satin splendor with matching coat, gold belt, clutch, and hair bow included, so long as you don’t lift her dress, right?--who’s to know. ~Sandra Cisneros

Naturally, I had to share this essay with my cousin Dodie, and she wrote back to share the most astonishing coincidence -- she really did have a burned Barbie! -- and so many other insights as well:

"Thanks for sharing the Cisneros essay! You know Barbie and I are the same age -- she came out in 1959. The first time I ever saw a Barbie doll was when I was 4 or 5 and visited Aunt Judy. Our cousins Glenda and Carrie had them and I was enthralled! I loved them so, that they sent me one for Christmas. I got so few new "cool" toys that I was thrilled. I swear I would still have that Barbie if she had not burned up when our house burned when I was 10. She had dark "bubble" hair. Barbie's were always my favorite toy.

"These days, girls have tons of Barbies. I had one Barbie and one Ken when they burned. I got one more, maybe two after that. My girls have, and I am NOT exaggerating, at least 15 if not 20 different Barbies. And they really play with them, really love them. Miranda will close her room door and forbid any of us to disturb her, while she plays out elaborate stories or something in there. I would love to set up a video camera so I could see it all!

"I too remember the mean eyes! Thanks for the stroll down memory lane!" ~Dodie

Even without daughters, I knew what Dodie meant about the plethora of Barbies, because I had seen them everywhere at my friends' houses! For Ben and Sam, not so much, but there was the summer (1995 - 96) when we went to the store to pick out pool toys and I suggested Sparkle Beach Barbie and Ken. Whether or not they were waterproof, they were perfect for going to the beach or floating around in the pool or the bathtub:



As early as 1st grade I had my first Barbie, but she was a fake version of mean - eyed Barbie. Of course, Barbie never meant to look mean, it's just that her eye makeup was so badly drawn; and, believe me, however mean real Barbie looked, fake Barbie looked even meaner! By 3rd or 4th grade, I had upgraded to a new, improved fake, at which time my sister Di received a fake Midge as well as a real Skipper, both with red hair to match her own. Over the years, Barbies have become so accessible and inexpensive ($3 at the grocery store) that no one really needs a knock - off version, which I'm sure we had only because they cost less.

Skipper & Stacey

When we were a little older (5th / 6th grade), I got my first and only real Barbie and Di got a real Stacey (another one of Barbie's cool, modern cousins, I guess). We never did have any Kens; as Cisneros says, that would have been a waste of resources! But sometimes we did borrow a couple of GI Joes from my brothers and squeeze them into some of Barbie's pantsuits (cross - dressing!) and make them get married to Barbie and Stacey. Oh what fun!

Here is my beautiful, kind - eyed 1969 Barbie in her wedding dress, made by my mom, from the same fabric as my sister Peg's highschool graduation dress. And again in a pink vintage ensemble, created by my grandmother in 1965, based on a skirt and blouse -- same fabric and similar design -- that she had sewn for my mother in the 1950s. You might also notice that my Barbie Case features the same "Red Flair" Ensemble worn by the Barbie of Cisneros' friend:

A few closing thoughts after reading "Barbie-Q":

My friend Diane to me: "That's a great article - it does bring it all back! I think I only had one Barbie (and probably a hand-me-down) that I dressed up in hand - made clothes that my grandmother made for us, and I built her houses out of wooden blocks. I remember building houses WAY too late in my years to be "normally" playing with dolls. And I seem to remember my younger sisters getting many more dolls and accessories than I did. But I'm not bitter. Sure wish I had some of those hand-made outfits now -- bet my grandmother had fun doing that!"

Me to Diane: "I know my Barbie years lasted throughout 6th grade (with my friends Cyndee and Kathy) and probably into 7th & 8th. While I remember very well all the store - bought outfits from seeing them in catalogs, we didn't own any of those things. Instead, like you, we dressed our Barbies in outfits made by my grandmothers. I marvel now over the tiny stitches they made for us. How did they do it? They were way older then than I am now, and already my eyesight is so far gone, I can barely get the mending done!"

For the love of Barbie!

I sent this Barbie to Diane
after we saw "Wicked" in 2006.
Some of the subsequent Elphaba Barbies
had mean eyes, but not this one!


Other favorites:
Liddle Kiddle Kolognes from Little Brother Aaron
Honeysuckle for Me and Rosebud for Di


Liddle Kiddle Lockets from Grandma Carrie
and Penny Brite Dolls from Grandma Peggy


Disney Watches from Big Brother Dave
Alice in Wonderland for Di & Snow White for Me

Postscript from my sister Di: "I loved that Little Rosebud Kiddle. I remember smelling it constantly. Held it's scent for a long time -- maybe still -- just don't know where it got to."

My response: "Me too Di! I feel sad that I don't know where our originals are -- I copied the pictures for our perfume & locket Kiddles and the Penny Brite and the Disney watches and figurines from the internet. It's almost as good to go to google and have a walk down memory lane, looking at all the old treasures that are no longer with us in person -- but not quite. Heaven knows I've hung on to enough old stuff, but sort of wish that I'd hung on to just a bit more (a topic to be explored in greater depth next time)!

And from another Diane: "I think you may have tagged me in error, but I am glad you did. Here is my Kiddie Cologne - Lily of the Valley. It was always precious to me because it was a gift from my godfather whom I truly loved. I love lily of valley to this day b/c of this gift. As for Barbie Dolls - I had my share and would play with them for hours. I used Dixie cups and other household items as furniture.

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, May 28th

Between now and then, check out THRIFTSHOP BARBIE
and take a look at THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com