Day 12 - A prized possession
My father made these for me for my first Christmas. It's a little wooden Walrus and Carpenter from the poem in "Through the Looking Glass" and a penguin. Why also a penguin? I do not know. Because penguins are cute?
Family legend has it that I when I opened them up, I stuffed them back in the wrapping and I was terrified of them. To be fair, I was only something like nine-months old. I'm sure I had never encountered something like this before. I have no recollection of ever fearing them, I just remember playing with them endlessly as a child. Walking them along my window sill, carrying them around in the pocket of my little play apron, going on adventures under my bed.
I'm fairly confident that if there was a fire, these are part of only a handful of things I would actually make an effort to save or seriously mourn the loss of.
They have always been with me. In Boston, all the way across the country to Berkeley, across the ocean to England, back to Boston... I love them.
The carpenter has lost the tip of his nose, the penguin no longer has the little felt red hat he used to have... I rubbed that off long ago with my thumb... but that just gives them character, makes them more precious to me. Mostly because they were made for me with all the hope one has for their little girl on her first Christmas in an effort to make it magical... but mostly because they have become an essential part of the fabric which makes up my life and who I am.