My Life is Stories

My Life is Stories

Many years ago I bought myself a set of paper dolls, an extravagant and expensive set, that I justified to myself because I can display them in my high school classroom. The dolls represent “Beauty and the Beast,” which I used in my doctoral dissertation because it illuminates the mystery of female empowerment. I also screen the exquisite and enlightening film, Cocteau’s version, La Belle et La Bete, in my film class. The book was filled with beautiful period costumes, some for coloring, and some for cutting out to dress Beauty in. I experienced a rush of delight just looking at this gorgeous set of paper dolls, one I would have loved to have owned as a child (but which certainly were not available in the 1950s when I grew up.)

One of my happiest memories of childhood consists of the times my mother would take my younger brothers and me to the dime store downtown to let us choose a new coloring book or set of paper dolls. I remember the overwhelming joy of anticipation I felt as I watched her put them up in the cupboard, and how I longed for the moment she would get them out to entertain us that night. These occasions happened on the nights she and my father gave bridge parties. At that time, before television, my brothers and I, already dressed in our pajamas, would sit back in our den with our new books—theirs invariably of cowboys, mine of glamorous movie stars, to color or cut costumes out of. We would play all evening, totally absorbed in the alternate reality for which these characters provided a threshold.

I spent many hours subsequently coloring my books of Betty Hutton, Elizabeth Taylor, or maybe Esther Williams, dressing and undressing them ushering them through a never-ending procession of glamorous and dramatic situations. I imagined buildings with doormen in New York, careers in publishing or on the Broadway stage, sophisticated cocktail parties, and trips to Paris---all fed by my relentless passion for the Technicolor extravaganzas of the fifties which I saw at the local movie theater weekly.

I think back very fondly of those times spent alone in my room, though I remember complaining at the time that I had no one to play with (my brothers would have never understood!). But now I am grateful for the energy I spent dreaming and imagining, creating realms of fantasy and romance because, as an English teacher, I see the relationship of this play to my work. Throughout my life, then, runs the thread of my love of stories and my willingness to suspend disbelief—to involve myself in another realm of experience. I do everything I can to entice my students into these realms, into the other spaces known as fiction, drama, and poetry.

A friend told me recently, “Your life is stories, all kinds of stories,” and I like that depiction of myself. While I was debating with myself whether to buy those fairy tale paper dolls in the little store in Jacksonville, Oregon, a nine-year-old girl appeared beside me. She confided that she had enjoyed playing with the set her grandmother had bought her. For a moment I felt nine again, too, and shared with her the intimacy and enchantment of make-believe. Then I knew I had to have one more set of paper dolls. For me they are a celebration of the stories of my life.