The Dollhouse

This was my first published writing.  The poem was for my college literary magazine.

The Dollhouse

Dad gave it to us, an apology gift.
The polished picture showed a three-story
southern plantation mansion with
protruding window seats into a wrapped
porch and peaks of gables crinkling the roof.
So much possibility for little people with
imaginary lives.
Heidi and I visited the dollhouse in the garage,
and peeked into the cracks of cardboard.
Examining the pieces, she playfully
clicked them on top of each other
like ticking time.
She stacked a wooden house of cards as my
fidgeting nails pressed smooth the fuzz-like
quills of the wood, unfinished.
Maybe Dad knows how–we’ll ask next time he calls.
Arranging the wooden slates back in the box,
we abandoned it.
Unassembled in aged cardboard,
covered with a dusted picture:
the perfect home.

-G.R.

This dollhouse has moved around with every household move, unassembled, since I was less than 10 years old.  A few years back, my sister let me have it, as she wanted the vanity from our room.  Right now it’s sits on a high shelf in Silje’s closet.  It’s beautiful, and still a dream.  In fact, looking at the pictures of it I think it was bigger in my mind when I was a child.  I didn’t have a picture of it in front of me when I wrote the poem, and when I see the wrinkled picture on the box now, it seems smaller, but still pretty.  I think a sweet man from our church (growing up) started a wall of it.  Other than that, I’m not sure how long it will take to assemble.

Knut and I talked about the dollhouse again last night.  I told him that in a few years Silje may not like playing with dollhouses.  The time for it is now.  Like so much other baggage of mine, he has inherited this dollhouse project, and wants to keep it on his list rather than mine.  I asked him last night if I should try to put it together myself, but we finally agreed that maybe he could assemble it, and I could paint it.  Once again, God is using him in great ways to heal so many hurts.

We discussed who it would go to, as I want to keep it in this house after the girls grow up.  I want them to play with it, but I want it to stay mine.  Knut thought maybe the gift could be addressed to the ladies of the house…me being the head lady.  I like that idea.

I think I may start assembling/collecting furniture for it.  My sister and I have been collecting scraps of wallpaper for decades for it.  I’m not sure how much of it is still good.  I know that my mother-in-law saved a bunch from our house as well that may work if my childhood scraps turn out unusable.  I saw some nice pieces of dollhouse furniture at an antique shop in town, and way too many expensive items at the Hobby Lobby.  Like our current house, there’s no reason it has to be completely furnished right away.

I’m not much for holding onto things, and try to be fluid with “stuff.”  I feel silly spending my discretionary money collecting doll furniture for a play house.  I wonder in the back of my mind if there isn’t a better use for it.  Somehow this feels right.  It feels weird bringing it all out again, but I think that it needs to get finished and I need to see completion of this project.

My girls may never understand.  They’ll hear the story, and they’ll play with the beautiful house, but they’ll never understand.  I’m so thankful for that.