Jamie meets Ken.
“My dog is lost! Have you seen her? She’s a poodle. Grey. Very friendly.”

“Check out my new vest! Let’s go dancing!”
“I need to find my dog. Plus, I’m going to the ballet tonight.”

“Hmmm…what should I wear?”

“I love this dress. So nice of Karen’s grandmother to make it for me!”

“Now girls, don’t be getting into my things while I am gone.”

Like all little sisters everywhere, they got into her things while she was gone.

My husband didn’t understand about Barbies. He thought they were dolls.

My eyes squinted. I stared him down. “They were NOT dolls,” I insisted.

Barbie was something different. She had style.

And allure.

She had long eyelashes and painted fingernails. High-heeled everything.

There were no diapers or crying children in Barbie’s world. No need for housedresses or curlers. Barbie could wear pearls when it was not Christmas. A fabulous fur jacket with a matching hat for shopping.

Barbie – or rather, her friend Jamie — had a French poodle. Who ever heard of anyone having a French poodle? We had a German Shepherd of questionable lineage. Our neighbor had an overweight Black Lab.

Barbie conjured my mother when she left the house: The diamond rings on her left hand, the oh-so-lovely almond-shaped stone on her right. Hair brushed to shiny, bouncy waves. Lipstick. A pantsuit and low heels. Or the red jumper with the white blouse beneath. Sometimes the long, green, drop-waisted coat with the shawl collar made of fur. Or the floor-length gowns she wore to attend weddings.

Barbie was as beautiful and unburdened by laundry, cooking, scrubbing floors or wiping noses or bums.

I don’t recall the precise moment – or even the year – that Barbie came into my life. But I remember sitting on the pink tiles of my parents’ bedroom arguing that Skipper was not Barbie and I knew this because Skipper looked like me. Barbie had bubbies and wore pretty shoes.

Barbie was glamour and all of its possibilities.

I learned patience trying to drag red leggings and fish-net stockings over rubberized legs. I developed small motor skills fastening hooks-and-eyes, tiny snaps and the maddeningly small buttons on Barbie’s clothes. (Admittedly, more than one head or arm was removed to get her into a cute outfit and the occasional seam ripped.)

Standing in front of pink boxed displays at Woolco or K-Mart or Zellers, I learned yearning and longing. I learned to save for the things I wanted and that sometimes by the time I had enough money, I preferred something else.

Barbie taught me negotiating skills. We traded outfits and accessories. Karen had a rainbow of dresses made by her grandmother – all with the same skirt that swirled when Barbie danced. Karen longed for store-bought things; I wanted what she had. But it wasn’t until she touched the purple gown edged with faux fur that she overcame her fear of death at the hands of her mother and I got the yellow dress.

But more than these practical skills, Barbie taught me creativity – the ability to look at ordinary things in new ways.

My best friend and I played with Barbie and her entourage long after others had quit.

A man by the name of Charlie Miller worked for my dad. He came to work one morning bearing a gift – for me — even though it wasn’t my birthday. His wife had built a Barbie-sized sofa and two chairs that she thought I might like. Constructed from cigarette packages disguised with gift wrap, they opened a new world of imagination.

I had a Susy Goose wardrobe. And now living room furniture.

What Barbie needed now were rooms.

It rained every Saturday in Cape Breton and half the summer. My Barbie furniture moved to my friend’s house. Cathy had a room of her own, plus her mother was more relaxed about putting away toys at the end of the day.

The floor of Cathy’s bedroom became our queendom: Room upon room, upon room that we configured and re-configured into mansions or smaller homes. Mostly we built things from cardboard but we weren’t beneath scavenging our fathers’ domains for bits of wood and there were plenty of rocks to be used as tables. Toothpaste caps became cups; our mother’s shallow earrings became plates or bowls; a square of gingham was a tablecloth.

Barbie taught us perspective and how to look at everything differently. If we were the size of Barbie, what would this be?

Cathy and I spoke in character as we developed storylines that continued like a soap opera day-by-day, month-to-month.

Ken showed up one Christmas. Ken wrecked everything. With his flashy shirt and orange satin pants, he didn’t last long. He destroyed the narrative. He had to be someone’s boyfriend. And a boyfriend meant an engagement and a wedding. A wedding meant children and there was no room for a crib in Barbie’s world.

Ken of the plastic hair was relegated to the “World of Barbie” travel case. (Besides, Barbie was more interested in a guy named Joe who did rugged things and never wore fringe. But Joe was unattainable and frankly, hard to find in all that camo, though more than once she stole his horse.)

We taught ourselves to sew to make outfits for Barbie. Cathy scoured her mother’s scrap pile and I rummaged through our rag barrel for material. Pearl buttons or a discarded slip edged with lace were treasures.

We designed and sewed with her mother’s machine. And one rainy day at the cottage when Cathy’s aunt invited us to tidy her massive sewing basket, we reached a new plateau of Heaven. She told us each to take a couple of things we’d like. Lengths of crocheted lace and sparkly buttons and beads fueled our imaginations.

By the time we were real teenagers, Barbie, her friends and her wardrobe went to live in a cardboard box. The box arrived – unannounced — via Canada Post thirty years ago during one of my mother’s cleaning sprees.

“So, that’s why you still have them?” my husband asked.

“That’s why I still have them. Look at this detailing: the real eyelashes, the separation between the fingers… And the fashions. Look at these dresses! And the teeny tiny shoes…”

“You’re not thinking of keeping them are you?”