(Sorry about 2022. I’m back now!)

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The basement floor was always cold. Pieces of old carpet separated my bony bottom from the concrete floor as I sat playing. I played for hours, all alone with my Barbie play house on the frigid floor. It was magical. My Barbie house was made of cereal boxes. Barbie was living in a custom built home brought to you by Kellogg's - specifically Shreddies and Corn Flakes. Shreddies because my brother loved them. Corn Flakes for the rest of us. Occasionally, a room or feature was added to the house, thanks to an occasional whimsical purchase of Raisin Bran. My best friend had the Mattel Barbie Dream Home, what some might call the real one. Two stories, balconies, different wallpaper in every room. I spent years believing I was jealous of my friend. The feverish building of my own version, the cereal box palace, was proof of my envy. Now I know that wasn’t the case. She had the second class Barbie house and I had the dream home, literally built from my imagination.

Hers came in a box; some assembly required. Each piece had its place, clicking and snapping into position. We built it together in under an hour, dizzy with anticipation. Barbie’s new life (sadly a mostly domestic one at that time) was just a page of instructions away. We bent the nearly unbendable Barbie and Ken at the waist and sat them down at a kitchen table (not included) to have pretend conversations that mimicked our version of adult life.

“I’ll just check the paper today. I hear lawn mowers are on sale.” said Ken, craning his plastic neck to look at Barbie.

“Oh that’s nice honey. I’m off to the spa with the girls.” replied Barbie, already picking out her outfit for the day. “We should have a baby when you get home from work.”

“Okay. One baby coming up.”

Thank goodness times have changed.

Evenings with the Barbie house were always interesting. In the empty basement, before I went off to bed, I scooped up the hem of my nightie and slipped downstairs to tuck in my dolls. The routine included a little dry humping; Barbie and Ken’s plastic ‘bones’ clacking together on the stiff bed made of Nancy Drew novels. Their long shiny molded legs were never quite covered by the stained blanket made from an old wash cloth. Even when playing at my friend’s house we managed to get weird and sneak in a little dirty bedroom scene with her dolls. In fits of giggles, between fake smooching sounds, we choreographed a little Barbie roll in the hay. Maybe partly to see each other’s reactions, maybe partly to see if we were doing it right.

I never let anyone see my Barbie house. I didn’t have friends over to sit on the cold floor to poke at the jagged cardboard doors swinging from a layer of crooked masking tape. I didn’t think they’d like it. It didn’t come in a box. It was a box. Several boxes. How wrong I was not to share the magic! Barbie didn’t have to sit (half lying down, half sitting up) on a tiny plastic chair in a nauseating shade of pink. I could make the chair taller, raise the ceiling to accommodate her statuesque, unrealistic figure. My chairs were made of mismatched Lego stolen from my brother and augmented with more expertly cut cereal box pieces. Overnight oats and avocado toast can’t compare to the endless gift of cereal in a box.

Not my actual doll house. This one is waaaayyyy better, lol.

I cut out windows with a giant Exacto knife my dad had safely stored in his tool bench, or so he thought. During construction, I kept one ear to the stairs, listening for footsteps so as not to get caught playing with a knife. I loved playing with the Exacto knife. I was a sculptor carving out a reality for my doll - for me. Mistakes never scared me because I knew there'd be another cereal box by week’s end for any changes or repairs. I was fearless.

I raced home from school on many occasions just to get back downstairs to cut and fuss, and tape and sometimes glue. I painted layer upon layer, cursing that stupid cheerful Corn Flake rooster that showed through the watery paint. Then I discovered White-Out - perfect for trimming windows and doors. I was resourceful.

Fabric scraps from old clothes became awnings and curtains, tied with wrinkled and worn Christmas ribbon. There was no need to engineer a toilet. With no real private parts this unsavoury part of everyday life could be skipped over. The first time I peeled Ken’s camo pants off to find nothing was a relief. The anxiety caused by the mystery was exhausting. “Men…so basic.” I thought. I covered the kitchen walls in white paper then drew tiny flowers all over using smelly markers ‘borrowed’ from school. Thankfully the grape marker smell never clashed with the smell of Barbie’s fake cooking. She ate a lot of cake and Smarties.

All the Mattel Dream Home had that mine didn’t was a balcony. I could never quite figure out a sturdy design. There were a few too many accidents that led to Barbie being covered in tiny band aids, like a fashion model in flesh coloured couture. Occasionally, I bandaged her slippery forehead in strips cut from patterned socks. Actual gauze seemed too plain for my girl. Safe to say she was Boho before Boho was a thing.

I never stopped planning, wondering, and playing in the realm of endless possibility. I never came home to the same toy nor did I ever have to wait for the next trip to the toy store before I could add furniture or a new wall. I just got to work, taping, cutting, drawing, occasionally sewing (but mostly gluing and taping). To avoid sewing I told myself, and the dolls, that frayed edges were all the rage - like I said, we were Boho first.

I slipped into a dream state every time I sat cross legged with my Exacto knife and old pillow cases. At least I think they were old? It slowly became less and less Barbie’s House and morphed into my house. I stopped mimicking the design of the ‘original’ and went for my own style. I stopped copying adult conversations I heard and began scripting dialogue that came from a secret place deep inside me - my true self. Soon, Barbie didn’t give two shits about having a baby. She was hosting her own radio show, acting in commercials (for cereal no less), actively designing her own clothes and explaining her choices aloud to suspicious, albeit less avant garde consumers. ”Of course it’s cool to wrap your body in deflated balloons.” I became the star of this world, not Barbie. More and more I left her alone on the cold basement floor, sometimes face down, waiting for me to pick her up. The house was animated instead by my giant fleshy hands wandering the rooms, rearranging stuff and talking to myself “Friendly Giant” style.

When my sister actually got the Mattel Barbie swimming pool I thought I had hit the jackpot. No construction involved! I could just drop my dolls in for a dip. I would fan their hair over the edge, imagining each shimmering strand drying under a hot August sun in the Barbie universe. The lightbulb above my head suddenly felt as warm as the summer sun. Then it broke. The pool collapsed in on itself. Water spilled out onto the floor leaving a wet spot on the cement floor like a blood stain marking the death of the good life. Luckily, the flood missed my house. I didn’t have insurance.

Instead of worrying, I set out to make a new pool. One large piece of a black garbage bag as the liner pulled tight and taped over a cookie tin and boom - I was back in the pool business. Yes kids, sometimes cookies came in a tin. That pool broke too - many times. But I knew how to fix it because it was mine.

My house, my daily practice of building now seems like the epitome of youth. Anything was possible (other than a balcony).The thrill of always looking ahead to a life yet to be lived is irresistible to many. If you’re just getting started, you can’t be disappointed or judged for what you’ve already done. That’s a nice space to inhabit.

I moved on from the Barbie house, forgetting all about the disappointment I carried for never having had the real thing. Eventually, I left my solitary world in the basement in exchange for the real world, a complicated place where the sun is not just there to warm me by the pool, but ready to burn me if I stop paying attention. I think about that Barbie House from time to time and why it was such a memorable part of my childhood, that heap of recycling and tape.

Actively making something stopped my thoughts and dreams from swirling endlessly inside my head, building pressure. Creating flushed those dreams straight out into the open where they could breathe, swell and take shape. I was the original 3-D printer. In that basement, my hands moved effortlessly as if following instructions whispered in my ear by a secret muse - the kind only a child can hear.

I don’t need to be young with endless days and years ahead of me to feel excitement for life. I need a cereal box, an Exacto knife and a little tape. Life isn’t better when you think outside the box. It’s better when you cut the box up and think…about anything you like.

By Carol Sloan

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Barb the Builder