It is said that the first doll maker began working flat on her back in an old sleigh bed—tired with recent illness and the prospect of having another bald-headed baby—at least probably.  And then finally, upon wheedling the doctor for permission to do something, anything, she gave birth to a doll of sorts.  And forever thereafter, she was always sewing them up into the wee hours of whatever she could escape from.

But was she really ill at all?  A mother-to-be or a mother even?  And what was she doing with so much time, all that time, on her restless hands, to begin a small clan of dolls such as these?  Some say it wasn’t time at all—not the time on her hands at least—  No, rather, it was—what was not on her hands.  You see, she was sewing gloves, when the right-hand one begot a life of its own, quite entirely, fanning out like a creature in water, and stretching long-ways into legs, arms, a circle head—a doll blank and waiting instead.  The evidence of a body, or the body of evidence; in this case, they shall be the same.

Elsewhere, ancient clay and wooden dolls were being studied as religious objects—even as other dolls were found in tombs with mummies—and other dolls, jointed, were discovered in temples, devoted to Demeter and Persephone—and on and on, dolls were stumbled upon, are stumbled upon, even now as we fancy our own dolls, how far they’ve come along, too far perhaps, and yet the distance is always forthcoming.  O, so much is there to say about them, and each one, so smooth and silent to herself.

I must say though, it’s odd how I can still hear the doll maker; hear her indeed, her voice and the noon bells in rain, the sound of it flush against sirens, under the owl, and over my breathing: “The doll bug had bitten me.  There was no returning!  Now I would really make dolls!  Let my imagination run wild creating fanciful and beautiful creatures of all types and designs despite ulcer or prospective baby.”  And hearing her, well, I don’t think she was meant to be trusted; no, I don’t think she could see what she was doing exactly.  New moon in the coming storm.  So I’m glad we’ve picked up where she left off; after all, we don’t create despite—  We create with and through and because of—  All along, how I knew she would let us down, as anyone else—anyone like her—might.

And even as we do this work, we must ask: are there as many ways to make a doll as there are to think of a doll—as many ways for her to be made?  And somewhere—the carpenter with a slab of wood, carving the face of it, pulling the form from lines and rings and contours in the very moment that it might emerge and suggest itself, calling the spirit of the wood as they say—  No, no, I don’t consider myself a doll maker at all.  It must be something else altogether perhaps—totemic, expressive, a cry that can’t emerge otherwise—something sought.  Something looking back at us, with us.  Our own boo!

Still, this search for our history, so often an outrage; don’t you think?  She was creating little lady dolls and referring to her child as her own live doll.  Once day, she even alluded to a friend how, indeed, it was a wonder she didn’t stuff some silk or kapok (instead of the bottle) into her child’s tiny and precious heart mouth.  Then again, in such glorious days as those, anything and everything really was a wonder—a WONDER!  A believable tremble, a trembling thing…  How I yearn for other creation myths, join the others now, who have seen (and must see) all this yearning through.

But maybe our doll maker began even earlier, perhaps in another life of sorts; I mean, maybe we have the wrong doll maker entirely.  How can we know?  Even as we trace her patterns and steps and make them our own; even as we re-invent her dolls and dub them the Doll Soul Baby Angels, even as we work with instead of from our inspirations, work with instead of from this form, we are torn from her in some way, aren’t we?  We are torn, even as our dolls are—utterly, finely, and inevitably from another cloth or tree or foil!  (All of this, says the reformer softly, an atheist, the youngest infidel, and our eldest—all of us in chorus—)

It is still strange though: how I am always haunted by the longest part of her life, when our doll maker worked on faces, in faces, with faces.  She saw faces everywhere—in the marble of a table, in a clump of soap, in frost patterns on windows—faces.  And of course, OF COURSE, the faces on the dolls themselves, where such features took shape.  O, how the miniature glances came into such being.  Really, they were so curious, almost dear—each one seeming ready to chirp.

And meanwhile, there is her echo, the whole arc of it: “My doll hands!”  Then frantically in the interview: “I still shudder when I think of all the claws I crafted in attempt, my clear obsession, to perfect a graceful hand.”  It was something she’d say upon waking too, mechanically, and yet, what was on the other side of it, in her mind, what back-stories, and from whence?  What havoc, please?  She even drew a sketch as to how her own hands should be positioned in the coffin one day.  Of this, she was terribly shrewd and specific.

We must also consider the people who loved her dolls, who requested them, unusually, from the depths of their hearts at the lowest points of their lives—in tragedy and aching, in mourning and wondering.  Too often, these are the people who turn to the Doll Soul Baby Angels today, and yes, this is how the dolls themselves become omens of good fortune, charms to combat abandonment, symbols of something un-uttered, un-utterable, unalterable, and sometimes—our only protectors therein.

Even our doll maker began to believe that the dolls could answer and were answers to her prayers—to our world of prayers—that their very presence might be associated with peace, serenity, grace—that their role in our lives far outweighed that of a plaything, or an intrigue, or an artifact.  She saw them as so much more and a dream all their own, larger than hers, though really it was all her own.  You know how this works, I think.

—Yet what I really love are the days when, today for instance, the Doll Soul Baby Angels just glisten with light and contour in all of their armor, a notable zeal to their lacquered bodies, and then—how soft (like pillows) they are as well.  A doll really ought to be made of what’s left (scraps, fragments, litter, wrappers) because, in a way—in every way—they’re made of what hope we have left for that realm, so fond, of dolls (dreams) and also—for any conceivable encounter with that which is intimately vast and—possible, somehow, to hold for a while.

Eventually though, everything goes awry before long, and yes, you’ll have days when you don’t even look at your dolls at all; you’ll stay busy until you need one—some reverie.  Until then though, a phase of preoccupation; you can imagine.  For example, I recall how our doll maker dressed herself, and even her family, just like her dolls.  And O, the permission taken and blown!  Her daughters ate butterflies all afternoon, and she, well, she had a party.  It was altogether exactly what you’d expect…

Nonetheless, in the end, it’s always been most important to know the difference between our world and a doll’s world—to exist in ours (maybe imagine hers) and to let her exist in hers.   And we shan’t bring a doll to our madness; sure, there’s really no avoiding a bit of dreamy fantastic play and fun, but we must remember that it has, indeed, been deemed unlawful on behalf of the Doll Soul Baby Angels, according to their declaration.  Indeed, historical precedent hath made such a declaration not only imperative but also revolutionary and pivotal to the ongoing survival of the Doll Soul Baby Angels as Doll Soul Baby Angels.

And really, a declaration ought to be the difference between one history and another, between one possibility and all the rest, and so, I refer you now to the Declaration of the Doll Soul Baby Angels, and I leave you, dear reader, dear doll, dear soul, and dear DEAR baby angel, to the very future of our story.  Together today, and indeed from now on—O, how we love your eyes!