To describe a Morality Tale as 'Tragic' probably is redundant to some extent. When I think of all the Morality Tales that have been written or told throughout the ages, I find that almost all of them ARE tragic. Whether it is the tale of the boy who was eaten by a Wolf after issuing too many false warnings, or a nursery rhyme involving a boy who kissed all the girls and made them cry only to be unveiled as an adject coward when faced with other boys, they tend to be dire warnings of one kind or another.
This Morality Tale is not only based upon fact but is unadulterated fact at that. The lessons it provides are practical prima facie, but like the best of Morality and Fairy Tales, it holds a deeper significance.
It starts during the time of the Millenium when people were collecting dolls and toys under the truly foolish impression that they constituted a good investment for the future. I never thought that was a good idea and told customers constantly that the only reason to purchase dolls or plush toys was if the buyer or gift recipient actually LOVED them and furthermore that the idea of keeping a doll or toy in a box forever was obscene.
In the World of the 'Collectible Investment', now blessedly defunct for the most part, the only way a doll or toy keeps its value or actually gains in value is if it is NRFB, aka Never Removed from Box. What this means is essentially that the buyer takes the box, stuffs it into an attic or closet and forgets about it until values soar a decade or so down the line. These silly 'collectors' believed somehow that values would increase and that, when the time was ripe, they could cash in all the little surrogate people and animals for cold, hard cash.
In fact, many partents were teaching their children to do that immediately after being given a 'collectible' gift. Boys and girls were bragging about having made a profit shortly after Christmas by selling the Beanie Babies or Holiday Barbie Dolls they had received as gifts. Needless to say, I did not bring up my daughter in this fashion. I taught her rather that dolls and toys should be treated with the same care and regard as real people and animals. When Freya dropped her doll, she would cry out, 'Heart, are you hurt?' and indeed, performed a very heroic if foolish act of heroism one day when Heart fell into a busy road as we crossed and she ran back instantly to rescue her. Thankfully, that did not end badly.. I was both horrified and proud.
In any case, I seldom kept any doll or plush toy in its original box, preferring to allow them to lead an existence outside of their dark prisons and believing that, if I liked a doll or plush animal enough to acquire it, I should display it somewhere. Unfortunately, limitations of space, the bane of any collector, ultimately made my displays more cluttered than I would have wished. Dust tended to land first on the dolls and animals at the back of the shelves and finally, everywhere.
There were a few dolls that I kept in their original boxes. One of these was a beautiful Christmas set made my Madame Alexander. It was a 10" couple who represented 'White Christmas', an iconic American film. During the Millenium period, all dollmakers tended to go wild in producing more 'limited editions' than usual. Rather than issuing one or two dolls for Christmas, theAlexander Doll Company issued almost a dozen. I therefore kept 'White Christmas' in the box for future display in some unscheduled 21st Century Christmas.
Well, as time passed and I became more disabled physically, the entire business of dragging out Christmas decorations for a month only to e forced to take them all back up the stairs after Twelfh Night became increasingly difficult and exhausting. I tended to use the same boxes of Ornaments and Decorations again and again rather than unearthing special Decorations from the furthest corners of the storeroom.
We then moved and I gradually began to move the boxes of Christmas Ornaments and Decorations and various other sundry items from the old house to the new. A year later, I still have not completed this daunting task, partly because I am disabled and partly because I no longer drive and therefore do not have my own car. It was only recently that I found the box containing the NRFB 'White Christmas' set and carried it to the new house.
So here is the lesson in this particular Morality Tale. I opened the box today, fully trusting that the two dolls would be as fresh and new as the day they were made only to discover, to my infinite rage and horror, that somehow the Worms with Wings, my eternal Enemies, had invaded and wrecked havoc with both dolls and the pink tissue paper that allegedly was their protection.
I do not know how the War with the Worms with Wings began but I suspect they were brought into the house in an antique camelhair rug from Kazakhstan. It was a gorgeous hand crafted piece that still smelled deliciously of wet camel. (Yes, I love camels and I love the scent of the animal as well! It is NOT a fetish, however.) To my sorrow, I found trails of moth holes throughout the rug about six months later and from that point onward, the situation escalated. I had to chuck out so many beautiful woolen and fur items. They are filthy little creatures as well and will nest even in items they cannot consume. It took me years to learn their various stages and to realise that the moment of flight is not the moment of greatest danger. I could write a book on the topic but I am heartily sick of it all.
When we moved, I made certain to scrutinise every single item I brought to the new house, even when they were made of materials moths could not devour. I found evidence of them in wooden bookshelves and books, silk flowers and leather handbags... in fact, nothing was safe from their invasions.
Even so, I never imagined that a box that never had been opened would carry moths inside it. And yet, I opened 'White Christmas' to find the discarded casings of hundreds of the foul creatures. The pink tissue paper had been chewed in some places. The fake fur that lined the velvet festive holiday clothing worn by the dolls was covered with their husks. I did not see any evidence of life, thank God, but it still was an unpleasant surprise.
I have learned how to clean items that have suffered from these invasions and afterwards, I discovered almost no actual damage had occurred to anything but the box and the tissue paper. The dolls now are displayed in a window and no one could tell they had endured such a horrid ordeal.
What then is the lesson in this Morality Tale? It is not a new one for me. My mother has been guilty of the same error many times, especially where food was concerned. She would save a wonderful chocolate concoction or cake for a future 'special occasion' only to discover it had become stale by the time she decided to eat it. I have done the same myself... but here, I was guilty of the Collector's Mistake, even though my reasons were quite different.
The moral therefore is to enjoy anything that is special or beautiful without attempting to save it for some unspecified special and possibly impossible future occasion. Furthermore, the Dolls and Toys that are displayed can be protected better than those that are locked away from sight. Moths do not like objects that are likely to be moved. They like to burrow into the cardigan at the very bottom of a stack, to find the darkest corner in a wardrobe, to find a box, like this one, that was never opened.
As far as any more profound significance is concerned, well... you can judge for yourself but I would say that where friendship is concerned, there is no point in waiting for some unspecified future occasion to renew ties. I have experienced so many deaths of my old friends to know that one never can count upon the future. I regret that I did not make more of an effort to spend more time with those friends, even if they lived hundreds or even thousands of miles away. The old adage: 'No time like the present' is very apt. Carpe diem. Make Hay while the Sun shines... etc. etc.
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Monday, December 1, 2014
Freya, Goddess of Love and War and Marital Arts Training
When I discovered I was going to have a girl, I decided to name her Freya. It's a beautiful name in itself and an unusual one, but beyond that, Freya was the Goddess both of Love and of War, strong and independent, a woman who was willing to do almost anything to save her race, the Vanir and one desired by all creatures.
When Freya was quite young, I enrolled her in a martial arts school. Tae Kwon Do was my own discipline and I therefore looked for the best Tae Kwon Do school in our area, hoping that we could train together. When I was a young girl, there were very few if any martial arts schools in the West and certainly there were very few girls who studied unless they were Asian. I studied fencing and specialised in sabre fencing rather than the epee. I loved being able to slash as well as thrust. I loved edged weapons and, drunk upon tales of warriors like the Three Musketeers and Cuchulain, considered a sword to be an extension of the soul. I never was a violent person but to me, the sword represented perfection.
When I went to University, I discovered there was a Tae Kwon Do club and joined it at once. One joins far too many clubs in the first couple of weeks at University. Many girls joined the Tae Kwon Do club at that stage, but most of them simply did so in order to meet guys. After the first rather grueling lesson, they all dropped out apart from two. I was one of the two who stayed and the other girl was Sue, who became one of my closest friends. Both of us found the philosophical aspect of martial arts as seductive as the idea of honing ones own body into a perfect weapon.
Although I loved the concept, it was not in order to fight that I wished to perfect the art, but for the sake of perfection itself. For some reason, martial arts always appealed to me far more than dancing, although I felt they both had the stame essential foundaton and structure. Both were physical art forms, but martial arts had the additional component of being practical and of giving the practitioner power.
I was not a 'tomboy' by any means as a child. I loved dolls as much as I loved swords and daggers. It was when I saw Angela Mao Ying explode into action, however, in cinema, that I realised how utterly feminine and still deadly a great martial artist could be. She was beautiful and dainty and yet an incredible force.
So why did I want Freya to study Tae Kwon Do? Well, for a start, I wanted to share something that gav me intense joy and satisfaction. There have been few activities in my life that allowed me to experience what is sometimes called 'bliss'. One was riding a carousel and another was Tae Kwon Do. I hated team sports in school. I loved fencing, almost every sort of folk dancing and tap dancing but I never liked ballet. In school, I was a bit of an outsider, different from the others and therefore subjected to cruelty. I was much younger than the other children in my classes. I graduated from school ultimately at the age of 15. While other girls were able to go out with guys, I still was treated like a child. It was only when I went to University that, despite my age, I was treated as an adult and the difference in age became irrelevant, apart from my own naivete.
In my academic circle, I often was resented, even at University for being too articulate, for having been a child prodigy (and still a bit of a prodigy on occasion). There was an edge of hostility often in the behaviour of guys who tried to chat me up. At Tae Kwon Do, however, I experienced a sense of belonging. The guys were my comrades. We struggled together and triumphed together. I always longed for a brother as a child but it was only when I joined the Tae Kwon Do club that I finally had brothers. It was wonderful.
Freya was an only child. I did not want her to be awkward with boys. I wanted her to be able to have friends who were boys as well as friends who were girls. I felt that Tae Kwon Do would give her the opportunity. That was another reason I wanted her to study martial arts.
Many women either study martial arts themselves or enroll their daughers in martial arts in order to give them a source of protection from attack. I myself experienced abuse at the hands of men but that was not part of my reason for studying martial arts or for wanting Freya to study. I did want to 'empower' her, to give her a sense of confidence in life, but it was more of a spiritual sense of empowerment that would encompass every aspect of life.
Freya now has her third degree Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do and teaches at a Karate studio. When I watch her, I see in her all the beauty and power of the Goddess Freya. I know she is far more humble but even so, I hope it has given her a sense of her own grace and beauty as well as power that should be second nature now.
Originally, I had hoped to be able to train with Freya, but I became physically disabled and was unable to take that journey with her. I always did try to distinguish between my own goals and those of my daughter, to try not to impose my own desires and ambitions upon her. I am really happy that she chose to continue with the art but I know that her vision may be entirely different from mine.
When Freya was quite young, I enrolled her in a martial arts school. Tae Kwon Do was my own discipline and I therefore looked for the best Tae Kwon Do school in our area, hoping that we could train together. When I was a young girl, there were very few if any martial arts schools in the West and certainly there were very few girls who studied unless they were Asian. I studied fencing and specialised in sabre fencing rather than the epee. I loved being able to slash as well as thrust. I loved edged weapons and, drunk upon tales of warriors like the Three Musketeers and Cuchulain, considered a sword to be an extension of the soul. I never was a violent person but to me, the sword represented perfection.
When I went to University, I discovered there was a Tae Kwon Do club and joined it at once. One joins far too many clubs in the first couple of weeks at University. Many girls joined the Tae Kwon Do club at that stage, but most of them simply did so in order to meet guys. After the first rather grueling lesson, they all dropped out apart from two. I was one of the two who stayed and the other girl was Sue, who became one of my closest friends. Both of us found the philosophical aspect of martial arts as seductive as the idea of honing ones own body into a perfect weapon.
Although I loved the concept, it was not in order to fight that I wished to perfect the art, but for the sake of perfection itself. For some reason, martial arts always appealed to me far more than dancing, although I felt they both had the stame essential foundaton and structure. Both were physical art forms, but martial arts had the additional component of being practical and of giving the practitioner power.
I was not a 'tomboy' by any means as a child. I loved dolls as much as I loved swords and daggers. It was when I saw Angela Mao Ying explode into action, however, in cinema, that I realised how utterly feminine and still deadly a great martial artist could be. She was beautiful and dainty and yet an incredible force.
So why did I want Freya to study Tae Kwon Do? Well, for a start, I wanted to share something that gav me intense joy and satisfaction. There have been few activities in my life that allowed me to experience what is sometimes called 'bliss'. One was riding a carousel and another was Tae Kwon Do. I hated team sports in school. I loved fencing, almost every sort of folk dancing and tap dancing but I never liked ballet. In school, I was a bit of an outsider, different from the others and therefore subjected to cruelty. I was much younger than the other children in my classes. I graduated from school ultimately at the age of 15. While other girls were able to go out with guys, I still was treated like a child. It was only when I went to University that, despite my age, I was treated as an adult and the difference in age became irrelevant, apart from my own naivete.
In my academic circle, I often was resented, even at University for being too articulate, for having been a child prodigy (and still a bit of a prodigy on occasion). There was an edge of hostility often in the behaviour of guys who tried to chat me up. At Tae Kwon Do, however, I experienced a sense of belonging. The guys were my comrades. We struggled together and triumphed together. I always longed for a brother as a child but it was only when I joined the Tae Kwon Do club that I finally had brothers. It was wonderful.
Freya was an only child. I did not want her to be awkward with boys. I wanted her to be able to have friends who were boys as well as friends who were girls. I felt that Tae Kwon Do would give her the opportunity. That was another reason I wanted her to study martial arts.
Many women either study martial arts themselves or enroll their daughers in martial arts in order to give them a source of protection from attack. I myself experienced abuse at the hands of men but that was not part of my reason for studying martial arts or for wanting Freya to study. I did want to 'empower' her, to give her a sense of confidence in life, but it was more of a spiritual sense of empowerment that would encompass every aspect of life.
Freya now has her third degree Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do and teaches at a Karate studio. When I watch her, I see in her all the beauty and power of the Goddess Freya. I know she is far more humble but even so, I hope it has given her a sense of her own grace and beauty as well as power that should be second nature now.
Originally, I had hoped to be able to train with Freya, but I became physically disabled and was unable to take that journey with her. I always did try to distinguish between my own goals and those of my daughter, to try not to impose my own desires and ambitions upon her. I am really happy that she chose to continue with the art but I know that her vision may be entirely different from mine.
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