alex the girl

It used to be a rather shabby house with an overgrown yard, paint peeling and various spiders as tenants. But several months ago, after almost a year of being for sale, someone purchased that shabby little house and began to transform it.

Each day I would walk to the post and pass the house and each day I would notice a slight change in it. One day curtains were up, the next day a new door was put in, the next day new lights went up. After a month of changes, that shabby little house was becoming rather charming.

I wrote on a small piece of paper, 'I love watching you transform this house into a home. You're doing a beautiful job,' and slipped it unnoticed into their mailbox.

Over the next couple of months, more and more changes were made. Lately, they've been putting in a yard; yesterday the grass went in, and today it was roses.

When I did so, a woman probably several years older than I popped out from a bush and said hullo. Startled, I said a hullo back and asked her about the garden she was putting in. We shared tips and ideas and then I told her I had been watching her transform the house.

That's when she asked me if I was the person who had left the note months ago. I told her I was.

"You must understand something," she began. "I have never had a house. I grew up in one project after another. I was shuffled between family and friends, lived out of a suitcase. I remember my grandmother once telling me that success is having a home. I've been trying my whole life to find a way to get one. For 8 years, I have worked two, sometimes three jobs to save money for a house and then I found this one. I thought I could bring it back to life, we could transform together. After living in it for awhile, I wondered if it was a home. I didn't know because I hadn't had one. It didn't have fancy furniture or a china cabinet, and I thought all homes had to have that. I didn't know if I was doing it right, if I was crazy to buy a house without having a family or kids. I was afraid I had been wrong. After worrying all morning, I went and checked my mail and there was your note. And then I knew. I knew that this was my home because I was pouring love into it. I realised that's what makes a home and boy do I have one."

I was amazed by this and hugged her back. I thanked her for sharing her story with me and then headed on my way home, smiling with the thought of how writing one simple note made a difference.

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August 21, 2003

To my nieces, who are 2 and 4, I am simply �Auntie.� I am by far the favourite. When I go to visit I am treated like a rock star; there is yelling, screaming and lots of hugging going on. I never buy them toys, I don�t spoil them and I don�t talk like a little kid. All I do is simply listen and play with them.

I love to play.

I can spend hours playing hide and go seek, even though they watch where I hide. We can sit in the tree house and talk about how boys are sometimes yucky. (No boys allowed in the fort, except Uncle). We can sit and play Barbies for long periods of time; I usually do the clothes because I am the only one at this point who has coordination. Sometimes we take long walks together on the beach and scream when we find something. Sometimes we just scream as we run around the backyard. Sometimes we pretend to be in a royal palace as I serve them real tea and talk very fancy-like.

I think why I am the favourite with them isn�t because of what I buy them or because I let them get away with murder (I don�t), but because I haven�t forgotten how to play. I haven�t forgotten what it�s like to be impressed by the world, how fun repetition is (try doing Ring around the Rosie for 1/2hr � see if you can make it fun each time. We can!). I don�t forget what �special� means like how it�s special to have a bed put out for Auntie and how it�s even more special to be able to eat toast in it at 6AM. I don�t forget how important it is to want to be heard, to want to share a discovery, to want to learn everything you can. I don�t forget about the wonder. I don�t forget what it�s like to be four, when you want to be important and sometimes are made to feel like you aren�t. Heck, that can happen at any age.

I think these are the reasons why children are instinctually attracted to me. Wherever I go children stare at me or want to talk to me. I once met a 5 year old girl who didn�t talk to anyone, yet when she saw me she came running over to me and just talked a mile a minute while her mum looked on completely stunned. I think I bring this out because I am willing to listen, I am willing to be impressed and I am willing to believe in their world.

Tonight, my mum told me that my 4 year old niece said to her, �Auntie isn�t a grown up to Marcy (her 2 year old sister) and me. Only to you and mummy.�

That was the sweetest thing I had heard in a really long time.

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August 05, 2003

When I was twelve, which was 1986, punk was the rage as was those jelly bracelets, jelly shoes, hell, jelly anything. Big hair, bright blush, suits for women, if you had those, you were hip.

I was not hip.

It was at this age that I went into a rummage shop with my mum and discovered the dress of all dresses. (I should mention that at this time I had a huge obsession with Little House on the Prairie and the stylings of Mary and Laura. I thought those girl's rocked.) This dress was something you would find on the prairie and, unless it was 1895, you'd most likely want to leave it there.

I, however, wanted it more than anything.

Trying it on it was a perfect fit. I can't tell you how beautiful I felt in this dress that was mostly a smock type thing that went down just past my knees in a straight, flowy fashion. I rushed over to my mum, begging her to buy it for me.

A fashionable Danish woman, she looked at me with rolled eyes. She knew I was a strange dresser but this beat all. This could cause problems.

"If you wear this," she told me, "People will make fun of you."

"I don't care," I replied.

"I need you to understand that if you wear it, you're going to get comments, and laughs and teased. And I don't want you running home crying if that happens. People are going to see this dress on you a lot differently than you see it on you. Do you understand?"

I did and wore the dress home.

Wearing it out, I did get teased - a lot. Not just from children but from teachers, adults and anyone who knew a good prairie joke, which surprisingly there are a lot of.

When I tell you that none of those comments bothered me one bit, I am telling you the truth. Even as an awkward, strange twelve year old, being made fun of for being different had no effect. In fact, most of the time I never even noticed the teasing because I felt beautiful with that dress on and nothing else mattered.

What should it matter, I used to think, what others thought? Who are they to say I can't feel beautiful or be happy or change my name to Laura? Who says they are it and get to define who I am. It wasn't that I thought I was better or more beautiful than they were, on the contrary, it's just that I was OK with liking what I liked. I knew I was here to live my life and not the imagined one of others. Wearing that strange dress gave me joy more than conforming ever did.

Looking back at a photograph I see how much I stood out amongst my peers and really, how sad I looked in that shabby little thing. But it didn't matter; all that mattered was that I liked it.

I share this because people are so afraid of what other people will think all the time. What people will think of their careers, their partners, their home, their dresses that there is very little enjoyment to any of these things. Worry of others overtakes us and robes us of the pleasure that we are so entitled to. Even if it's in a pitiful little dress.