My sister and I played with dolls. We also played with the mop, the hot water bottle, and any other item in our household that our imagination could transform into babies, houses, horses, cars. “Play like” was an invitation to enter into a shared fantasy. Some of my emancipated women friends have proudly told me they never played with dolls. One even said she decapitated the only doll she was ever given. I still have my first doll, Toni, who came with a miniature Toni perm to curl her red nylon hair. I make a new dress for her on significant birthdays. Recently I ordered a little stand to hold her upright so she no longer sits on the sidelines of my life. I like to think that my imagination was trained by those intricate stories my sister and I acted out with our dolls and with the red rubber hot water bottle that magically turned into a newborn. In my adolescence, Toni sat neglected on her shelf and my imagination went underground. Sometimes a daydream was so beguiling I turned down opportunities for real life adventure. Daydreams were a buffer between me and an unhappy homelife. And it wasn’t the time waster you might think. Daydreaming was to this someday novelist what practicing scales are to a budding pianist. I still daydream, turn on my computer and play like.
