My Glass Menagerie
My doll collection, albeit small, is confined mostly to Gone with the Wind (purchases dictated and limited by space). Somehow, this idea of miniature things remind me of another work of literature, Tennessee Williams' Glass Menagerie. The story of escape through a collection of glass crystals by a young crippled girl who lives through them. Unable to live with the world (crippled); her feminine allure disabled. The doll collection is my "Glass Menagerie". It is my escape from the real world and it is also that which helps me cope with it. At the end of the day, nothing is more comforting than to take each doll in your hand, repaint, restyle, photograph and immortalize them in a portrait. You might be saying: "Oh c'mon get a life!" But by whose standards do we "get a life"? I have kept this collection almost a secret only known to those nearest me and to you, whoever is reading this blog. The truth is our lives are our own. We should stop living them by the standards of others but our own, that which makes us complete and happy. In that we cannot be judged nor looked down upon.
Had it been photography or some other hobby, others would have accepted, but doll collecting for a man can often border on sissiness and silly-ness. Oh I've received weird looks whenever I speak of it. "Oh there he goes again buying another doll" kind of a look. It is not ours to make others accept who we are. My belief is, whatever makes us positively happy, makes us complete. No one in life and in this world has the right to take away that state.
We all have our glass menageries, our little collection. Tennessee Williams speaks of a girl whose future is dictated by the obsessive dreams of her mother for her to be wed, as it was in the past. Laura is crippled and perhaps so is her future, if she allows being crippled to be an impediment.
In a world that thinks less of a physical, mental or psychological disability, a glass menagerie can be therapeautic. In this case, my dolls have saved me from many a stressful and crippling moments big and small. Though not made of glass, they are as fragile as hope.
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