About Betty

I once had a doll named "Betty".  I have no memory of how she got the name.  Unlike today, when I know several women by that name,  it wasn't one I identified with back then.

Anyway, "Betty" had fair skin and curly dark hair, big blue eyes that blinked and the cutest clothes I could fashion out of scarves and safety pins (till Mom waved her magic needle). "Betty" and I spent many happy hours together before "Barbie" arrived.

What  made me remember Betty?

A simple photo sent by an old friend.

I am not one to take pictures, and I have precious few. But there are moments when time stands still...when a childhood friend sends me a picture that remarkably resembles my cached memories.

In an instant, I was eight years old again, happily content with my hoards of inanimate friends. Hours on end playing 'house' or 'beauty pageant' or 'boyfriend'. Too young to understand what sex was all about, too little to have an ego of our own, we projected our fantasies into miniatures of ourselves that were beautiful beyond words and successful beyond our dreams.

I wish I hadn't given up 'Marjie' or 'Betty', 'Barbie' or 'Tiny Tears'. It would be so lovely to be rich or poor, glamorous or trivial at one's every whim. Imagine if our innocence could stay forever; if we could fly; if we could subsist on nothing more than  being happy!

I think back on the stories we played out. They were unscripted. They had no moral at the end.  There must have been something real in the staging--it couldn't have come from the baby inside, could it? The laughter was real, the drama was real. 

I don't remember when I put my friend away for the last time.

A little girl came into work the other day (clutching an iPod)  and I asked her if she would like to color. She may have been eight or nine, but she rolled her eyes like a grown-up. That's for babies, she said, way too cynical and snotty.

Well, I told her about another childhood friend who kept a coloring book and crayons on the coffee table (I don't know, but suspect, that her present canine probably ate the last one). Every friend who came to visit colored a page. The little girl didn't take the crayons I offered, sort of snorted, and preceded her mother to their table. A few minutes later their server came for  a child's menu and crayons. When I peeked at her, she was stoically concentrating on the picture. Maybe she learned a thing or two about how good it is to be a child. She had no idea that she was making a memory.

Small memories, be they of a doll named 'Betty', or a first kiss, or a special friend make everything better. I think that tonight I will color instead of playing computer games, and if I can find a curly-haired, fair skinned doll with big blue eyes I think I'll name her 'Betty'.