2003 Story Set
| Date: December 30, 2003 I had become engaged in my freshman year of college. Not the wisest thing to do. But then, I had been raised in near isolation socially, commuting to high school and jr. high, a bus ride in and a bus ride home. Sixty minutes each way and a long day in the middle. I had church, and Girl Scouts and then 4-H, but saw no one other than at these events. I was the eldest in a basically country home which meant I could chop wood and steer the tractor when required, and did haul feed sacks to the poultry barn. And frozen hoses. I remember wrestling with the frozen hoses. So I was engaged, through the turmoil of a dysfunctional family, and through whatever hardships living from hand to mouth can bring. I held my scholarship. He made the Law School entrance exams and was accepted at UCLA. We married weeks before graduation and packed up a 64 VW bug, the one dead in my driveway, and a small U-haul trailer. We suffered the warped sense of humor of people who put exploding fireworks inside the engine of the new and on-payments beetle, scaring me witless, ha ha just as we were leaving. We left behind wedding presents we could not pack. I had an electric skillet. A few hundred dollars. And no job. It was a terrifying ordeal I was undertaking. The marriage was already uncomfortable. He was already no longer a lover. But we had plans and I had my hopes. And as we left all this behind, as we pulled out of his parent's driveway, I saw a doll on the side of the road, in a pile of trash. His aunt ran a bakeshop, and the doll had been in a cake. My mother had stolen all my dolls and most everything else as vengeance for my engagement and they were not, at this point, returned. Most of them never were. I wanted that doll. She called to me. I made him stop. And retrieve her. A naked doll with remnants of cake decorations on her. I wrapped her up and she came with us as we drove from Connecticut to Los Angeles, to his law school and my future job. I had my wedding gown and the remnants of the fabric for I had made it myself. You can tell in the photos. No hairstylist. No proper fitting bra. No help. But I had lace and satin. I had saved up and bought it. I had it with me. My first Christmas, I had found a job fast enough after literally setting foot in the Pacific Ocean and gaping at the palm trees, but we were living hand to mouth still with the tuition payments. We had slept on the floor for six weeks until we could buy a bed. We had a cheap $5 tree. A string of lights. And I made ornaments out of aluminum foil. I strung popcorn and cranberries. I cooked my first turkey. We ate at a card table. We had one chair and a toy box. We did without a phone. We walked to a payphone to call back home for Christmas, counting minutes and coins. And I dressed the doll in satin and lace from my wedding dress. I made her aluminum foil wings. She graced the top of my tree. That was 1964. Two divorces, two children, and forty years later, it is not Christmas if the doll is not on top of the tree. Her hair is loose. But her arms still work. The satin and lace are fading a bit. Her wings disintegrated a few years back. Over the years she acquired and lost a halo, a staff made of pipe cleaners and a second set of wings. She sits regally in a nest of small twinkling lights every year. The VW was rebuilt once and will be again. Someday. Or I will crush it into lawn furniture. I refuse to part with it. It was running fine until my teenager broke it. I keep it with me anyway. I also keep meaning to get the doll repaired, but I don't let her get far out of sight either. I have a large, beautiful angel now, with fiber optics. She sits on the bookcase and smiles benevolently across the room even though she is intended to be at the top of the tree. She is a swirl of changing color, delicate, fur trimmed, ornate, fancy. I fear she never will be on my tree top. It just isn't Christmas to my boys or to me if my old Christmas tree angel isn't up there at the top of the tree, arms out, reaching, giving her blessing. |
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