Ginger and Blondie were our Christmas dolls that year. It was easy to give them names. My doll, Ginger had bright reddish hair (the kind that feels like toothbrush bristles in tight curls – you couldn’t comb it but you could get it wet!). Roberta’s, Blondie, of course, had yellow yellow hair. Back then it was sort of an unofficial tradition for little girls to get a ‘dollie’ every Christmas morn. Ginger and Blondie were extra special because they came with their very own baby doll clothes and a pink plaid metal carrying case. One side housed their wardrobe and the other was for strapping them in (apparently they didn’t suffer from claustrophobia or fear of the darkness?). We had many pleasant hours playing with our babies especially in the summer when our non air-conditioned house sent us outside seeking relief from the Texas heat under the shade of the front yard mesquite tree. One doll a year – that’s how it worked. Next Christmas would bring a replacement. I think that made me really love and appreciate Ginger, or the Madam Alexander ballerina the next year and each year’s doll until finally the time came when it was all over.
Claude dog arrived when I least expected it. Santa wrote that script, not me. I was still in ‘dollie’ mode. Was it 5th or 6th grade? No accurate recall but that year I awoke to a yellow shaggy dog with blue ears. I guess I needed a gentle transition into puberty and stuffed animals were somewhere in between??? Don’t get me wrong. I instantly fell in love and proclaimed him my Claude Dog (still have him to this day…) but I felt sad too. I knew instinctively that he came to tell me to move on.
I loved all my dolls and stuffed animals. They were a big part of my childhood happiness. The very word doll was equivalent to happy in my lingo. So when those Worry Dolls appeared sometime in the 1970’s I was confused. They were a big hit and so much so that they are no longer novel and have taken their place in our culture. I didn’t see how Worry and Doll could be put together? A kind of oxymoron in my opinion. And, anyway, who went around bringing attention to WORRY – that’s just wrong. Worry is something I did in private. Nothing to be shared publicly.
The way it works in my family worry is for the women – a female responsibility. We are good at it and it feels natural. I would almost venture to say that it is our birth right and like a vocation – our calling. To worry is to handle the situation. The more you worry the less likely to actually have to experience whatever is unwanted. Or so it seems to us gals. Logically and reasonably we know that our thoughts are not controlling the outcome. But worry fills that slot of time until things go our way. Maybe it just feels good!
It is certainly one of the hardest bad habits I have to tackle daily. I’ve come a long long way from being riddled with chronic anxiety and a constant physical verve pulsing through me – a reminder of uncertainty and the unknown. Too often there is no concrete problem or issue staring me in the face, and yet there it is, that nonspecific – generalized feeling of something awful is about to happen.
I had to take this bull by the horns a long time ago. It had gotten way too big and had taken over my life almost completely. This was back in the day (1975ish, to be exact) when nobody talked about anxiety but we were fine to say ‘worry’ in every other sentence So I was mostly just experiencing the discomfort of anxiety without the label… A rose by any other name… Slowly over the years I have learned to manage my anxiety and perpetual worry mostly by simply becoming very very aware of it. Hello. There you are my little friend. What have you brought me this fine morn? How clever and creative you are. Where do you come up with all these wonderful worries for me?
It is what today they call ‘staying in the moment’. The temptation is mighty to wallow around in all those juicy worries – dive into the future of scary possibilities. Nobody can keep me out of those ponds except me, myself, and I. The comraderie and solidarity of hanging with the Worried Dolls has to be traded in for the delight and freedom of Trust. If nothing else, my life has taught me that it only gets better and better…
***In the dolls’ original Guatamalan tradition, a local legend about the origin of the Muneca quitapena refers to Mayan princess named lxmucane. The princess received a special gift from the sun god which would allow her to solve any problem a human could worry about
In traditional and modern times, worry dolls are given or lent to brooding or sorrowful children. They would tell their doll about their sorrows, fears, and worries, then hide it under their pillow during the night. After this, the child will literally sleep over the whole thing . At the next morning, all sorrows are said to be taken away by the worry doll. (WIKEPEDIA)
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My World My Words 