String People, My favorite childhood friends.

Dolls would disappear.  She was relentless my mother and I couldn’t let her win.  I had to be cunning about my next move…to keep my insatiable desire for dolls going forward!  If my memory does me justice… I could see the beauty behind a broken shoelace.  I could see the uneven strands or beautiful string unraveled just a bit to show what I could see as…HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIRRRRR  delicious hair that I could make into the perfect being to play with.  I held her I started to create her…the one end was a plastic nobule thingy that was intended for young hands to thread through the lace loop on your shoe.  Ahhh but I saw it as a single high heel for my creation to walk oh so dainty…face face face ummmm have way down the shoelace I made a knot…now for the unraveling of the rest of that hair.  I would painstakingly and carefully fray the rest of the strings delooping them loop by loop till I reached the knot.  Then I looked at her in her beautiful know face…SHE LIVES!!!!  And I remember I named her Kristin.  I tore up all the laces I could find in my house.  I made a village of beauties.  A village of STRING PEOPLE!

I called them string people but yes they were all female.  In my young mind I viewed only females to have grace and long luscious hair. Having boy string people seemed useless to me since the boy people would only have short nub hair and what kind of fun would that be. Side note… I must confess… Some I experimented on, Terrible terrible I know I actually just remembered this with this never came to the forefront of my mind but yes I will open to you my reader…open myself to judgment, persecution… I deserve it.  Looking back at their tight knotted faces I sometimes had the idea that maybe they needed to look more elegant To always be camera ready  I mean they all had high powered public positions (or so I imagined) I mean they were competing against marylou retton, they were auditioning for Fame the tv series. Dallas cowboy cheerleaders AAAAAND being a NYC Rockette. It’s tough being on top and I recruited/created these girls to live up to my high standards. They all had a high person to live up to.  I swear it was for their own good.  How could I have put them through what I did?  As I said… I experimented on them, I took one of them at a time against their own will To step up their “LOOK”. Like my own cosmetic factory and held one.  One that I know trusted me and with the use of fine tipped markers I approached her face cautiously.  She had no eyes to see what was coming.  No mouth to scream (I mean the knot wass too tight), red lips and dark lashes but alas the marker would bleed into the fabric of the knot and spread looking like she had been shot in the face.   Disappointed and unsalvageable I had to lay my prototype to rest.  Sigh….Off to break more laces.
  I was selfish. I did  not care that I made more, I had to make more.  I was on a constant hunt like a rabid animal.  No lace was spared.  My laces, the laces of the others who lived in the house. I had this insatiable urge to keep making my people, my female people of string.  Kristin was the queen oh there were many kristins and a few crystals (after crystal gayle of course) and a few Olivias. (Olivia newton John of course.  The names were exotic to me and that was important.  Maybe my string people were of french origin.  Or Spain!  This kid village gave me confidence.  Confidence that I would be apart of a world that would be expensive and lavish.  I was already on my way I thought,  after all I taught myself how to count to 20 in Spanish watching a show on PBS called Villa Legre…I was 7 or 8 keep in mind.
 My loves.  They paved the way for so much happiness for my young mind to flourish.  My string people had very active lives being world class gymnasts as well as dancers for solid gold and dance fever but their favorite activity was swimming. Ok I admit it was my favorite activity for them. It wasn't easy for them to do so since there were a lot of disapproving eyes about my house.  Especially once they caught on to the new visitors that were now permanent residents.  I feared my string people would be the new vermin and would need to be exterminated.  But anyway.  Bathtime was my favorite.  I would sneak them in and spend as much time as I could guiding them through the water and watching the uneven strands swish swish through the water.  They dove most gracefully and as they dove faster into the water the more their hair swished.  But we all had to watch our backs, even as we played and enjoyed our activities. I recall mother in a fit of frustration flushed one of the string people down the toilet.  Devastation I felt for the first time.  That string person lived a short but good life.  I looked up at my mother as she towered over me thinking she broke me. Broke me of this unhealthy addiction.  I looked back at her…reached for my little sneaker…. latched my tiny hand on the shoelace and …”PLINK!” I ran off to make another.

---