Creative writing submission from the Rest Less community – submit your entry here.
A close friend of mine sent me a link to a website about a shopping centre and art installation in Korea. Before opening it, I thought, Why has she sent me this? but as soon as I opened it, I was in love!
A giant Willow, stretched out in full slumber with its little silver harness. It’s animatronic so that it quietly breathes, its whole, soft, furry body gently rising and falling in slumber as its ears occasionally ripple, as if from a passing breeze. It’s beautiful! It absolutely looks real, and it’s so like my little Willow that it could be her sister, her big sister, admittedly, but I would love to see it in real life.
I don’t travel these days, as I have become claustrophobic and find it all too stressful. Add to that the thought of a 12-hour flight, and it wouldn’t even be a fleeting thought in reality. But how much would I love to stretch out my hand and gently stroke that velvet nose, or run the tips of my fingers over those upturned pads.
I learned many, many years ago that there’s a part of my brain that instantly believes when it wants to. If a furry sock puppet or a teddy bear is carefully manipulated, I’m there, believing it’s real! Utterly convinced in something that my logical brain knows is an impossibility, I literally feel my heart melt, the pleasure endorphins rushing through to make me laugh or cry (and I often cry, even if I’m laughing).
This is exactly the same emotion as when I’m faced with a real puppy; the gentle push of a dog’s nose in my palm or the warm breath on my cheek as it gently sniffs my face. In fact, almost any small, furry animal blessed with cuteness can do it. I’m guessing it’s because I had quite a lonely childhood despite three siblings and a vivid imagination, which allowed me to escape easily through literature and ‘make believe’. We had very few toys, but of those we did have, the doll’s house (made by my grandfather, who I never really knew) and soft toys my mother made were always my way of disappearing into another world, a kinder world.
At Christmas, we had a stocking with nuts, love hearts, oranges, etc, but only one present each. Being very poor, that present was always a handmade soft toy made by my mother from felt or plush fabric scrounged from an old coat at a jumble sale.
She had been a tailoress for Hardy Amis before the war, and there was nothing she couldn’t do with an ancient treadle, Singer Sewing Machine, a needle, thread, an ironing board and a whole host of irons. Oh, and pins! There were always boxes of French chalk and pins everywhere, hence we were never allowed to run around barefoot.
Those toys she made us were amazing, better than anything you could find in Hamleys. I remember giant teddy bears the same size as us with jointed arms & legs, a felt costumed duck, a toad with wire in his legs so that they could bend and move, and dressed in a check three-piece with spats and a cap and a life size furry black and white cat on a wire frame so he could stand, sit, and lay down. There were so many that I simply can’t remember them all, but there were never any dolls, just beautiful, lifelike animals, oozing personality.
She taught my sister and me how to make pipe cleaner people, too, and dress them ourselves from leftover fabric. I had a whole family, including grandparents and a baby, for the dollhouse. She also taught me how to make furniture from matchboxes (both my parents smoked in those days), and we would make tables, chests of drawers, chairs, etc.
I remember once finding a simple wooden doll’s house bed at a jumble sale and not having enough pocket money for it (we got threepence a week if we washed up and dried after dinner). My mum saw me stroking it and came over. It was sixpence. Silently, she slipped another threepenny bit into my hand and whispered: “Shhh, you can do the hoovering on Sunday!”
Never had anything meant so much to me; a real piece of doll’s house furniture. I was so grateful that I cried. I remember my mum smiling, pulling me into the folds of her coat and saying: “Silly girl, hush up, or I’ll make you do it the week after, too!” I did do the hoovering the week after, without needing to, just because I wanted her to know how grateful I really was.
We always knew how tough things were, not just because of the constant rows over money after we’d gone to bed, or the fact that my mum worked three jobs late into the night just to put food on the table, but because we just didn’t have what other people had.
We lived in a flat at the top of a very old block with four girls sharing a small bedroom, no bathroom or inside toilet, no heating except for an open fire in the sitting room, and no running hot water. We washed at the kitchen sink from a kettle boiled on the stove, and had to do everything in two small rooms. That said, thanks to my mum, we were never hungry and were always clean and beautifully dressed, as mum scoured jumble sales and used old coats, blankets, curtains, whatever fabric she could find, to make all of our clothes, even our underwear.
My mum was one in a million, resourceful and safe. She had a really tough, sad, unfulfilled life with several skeletons floating about in the closets, but she was highly intelligent, incredibly gifted and always very loving and caring!
I digress. So, back to my giant weiner. How wonderful it would be to see her wake up, gently open one eye before shaking off her sleep and trundle out of the supermarket for a pee, though perhaps I wouldn’t want to be too close as it might carry you off like a river. And would she be well-trained? I hope so, as if she were another Willow, we might all be deafened by her yipping! Still, I’d risk it.
Ah well, let’s hope Korea sends her to London as part of an installation and I can take Willow and Bear to meet her, I can but dream…but I’d be the first on the next train.
Are you feeling creative? We are proud to have a hugely talented community on Rest Less, which is why we’re so excited to open up a section of the site dedicated to showcasing the wonderful and diverse writing of our members. If you have a piece of creative writing that you’d like to share with the Rest Less community – you can do so here.