For nearly five years, I hoarded condom wrappers. It was a ritual, an outgrowth of something I had been practicing for most of my life: filling closets, shelves and drawers with objects equally full of meaning. I kept the dress I wore for my first successful teaching job interview for eight years: A rayon blend of pastel colors with purposely mismatched buttons; funky yet formal, suggesting that I was mature enough to lead a classroom but fun enough to relate well to kids. I only wore it once, but I couldn’t bear to part with it. To give it away tempted fate, and I didn’t want to risk that.
There was also the First Day of School Outfit—silver silk shirt, black crepe pencil skirt, pearl necklace. My teaching equivalent of the Power Suit, telling the young crowd, whether seven, twelve, or seventeen that I’ve brought my A game and that they had better too. Every September, the donning of this outfit was a prayer, a plea for grace. A Please make everything okay – make me okay, please keep things good – make me good.
Beyond clothes, there were buttons, pebbles, seashells, ticket stubs, set lists, concert fliers, notes, and books from childhood—I clung to anything that could anchor me in who I thought I was.
In my early thirties, after an especially reckless summer of one-night stands and blackouts, I thought I had finally found The One. A fellow teacher, a former lawyer. Blond, blue-eyed, beyond parent-friendly. I couldn’t believe my luck—and acted quickly to guard it. I began saving our condom wrappers. I don’t know how it started, but there I was, scrambling around sheets and blankets every morning after, looking for the telltale blue and white of the Trojan foil. At first, I amused myself. It was a charming quirk, a funny habit. The One, when he noticed, rarely commented. Certainly he found it endearing. After our first year together, the cracks in our happily-ever-after foundation began to show, and my gathering ritual took on more urgency. A missing wrapper might usher the end, and I couldn’t face that. So shoeboxes and Ziploc bags were filled and shoved out of sight onto closet shelves and into dresser drawers. But no amount of wrappers could stop The One from still loving his ex-wife, and four years later, three months after we discussed getting engaged, The So-Called One left.
Our break-up coincided with a move from a one-bedroom apartment to a more modest studio. Storage would be limited. I had to purge. And with my faith shaken, purge I did. The good-luck clothes were the first to go, thrown into piles for Goodwill, and the random scraps of memorabilia were quickly recycled or tossed. I saved the condom wrappers for last, propping a paper bag in the center of my bedroom. From the shelf in the closet, from underneath the bed, from the back of dresser drawers, the plastic baggies and boxes emerged. As the pile grew, my face flushed. Here was my basis of faith: a mound of blue and white foil that threatened to topple the paper bag. With other break-ups, I found satisfaction in burning all the paper mementoes of the relationship. But I didn’t want to give the wrappers any more credence. With the drawers empty and all the boxes upended, the task was done. I rolled the sides of the bag closed and rushed outside to the garbage. As much as I wanted to end that part of my past, I didn’t want or need my neighbors as witnesses – I put the bag top-first into the can with the bottom facing out.
One key item remained, a stuffed animal given to me when I was six. A Steiff toy dog, made to look like a long-haired daschund, brought home from Germany, just for me, from my favorite uncle, Gary. Together, Gary and I came up with the name “Voldie.” I can’t remember how or why. I suppose we wanted something that sounded German, but “Voldie” doesn’t translate to anything directly. The closest word is “run”—and naming a stuffed animal that just seems cruel, it couldn’t have been our intention.
From the time I could talk, Gary gave me what my parents couldn’t. I spent weekends with him in his old city townhouse while my parents tried to save their marriage in the suburbs. And after the divorce, with a routine that I enjoyed already established, my dad would occasionally relinquish one of his weekend nights to Gary. Together, Gary and I filled our time with visits to The Carnegie, Pittsburgh’s largest library and museum. Patiently, Gary walked at a child’s pace and indulged my every question. After choosing our books for the week, we entered the museum through the architecture wing—standing among casts of Greek ruins, a replica of the rose window in Chartres Cathedral and the façade of Notre Dame. From there, we ventured to the natural history wing to examine the dinosaur bones. The two of us equally miniature as the T-Rex and brontosaurus loomed. We saved the modern art gallery for the end. George Segal’s tightrope walker sculpture balanced above us as we mounted the wide granite slab stairs that led to the gallery. Gary held my hand, and I held the railing, pushing myself up each step. Before visiting any other piece, we went to the panel from Monet’s Waterlillies. Our routine never varied—first walk close enough to see the brushstrokes and then go backwards and watch the painting begin to resemble a huge photograph. According to Gary, this practice of going forward and back was the best way to understand Impressionism. After Waterlillies, we stopped to marvel at Alberto Giacometti’s wet sand-like sculpture. Then, we descended the stairs and saved Jean Dubuffet’s puzzle piece-like motorized sculpture for last. No matter how long we stood before it, we never caught it moving, yet there was always a piece more to the left or more to the right or more high or more low than when we first approached it.
At night, Gary tucked Voldie and me in and then either read to us or condensed more complicated novels into stories to entertain us to sleep. Before he left us, Gary did his impersonation of Gollum from The Hobbit. Leaning in close, he whispered: “What’s he got in his pocketeses, Precciousss? My Precciousss, what’s he got?” Thrilled and terrified, I screamed while clutching Voldie. Gary laughed too, teasing me that I requested Gollum all the time. In the morning, once I was old enough to boil water alone, I woke early to prepare Gary’s tea and brought him his insulin. To reach the kitchen from the guestroom, it was fastest to take the old servant stairwell with its faded plaster walls and worn linoleum, not the stained wood and carpeted main staircase. I loved that stairwell; only Gary and I used it. Not my dad or grandparents when they visited or even Gary’s friends. It was ours, a secret passage that connected us.
It took until my teen years to appreciate the irony that this gentle man was my father’s brother. There’s a photo from when I was seven that says it all: A candid shot, I stand between them. My father on my left. Everything about him bold—wide stripes on his polo, bushy hair and sideburns, big brass buckle on his leather belt. Though he was probably in his thirties at the time, you can still see the linebacker in him. Gary is on my right and everything about him slight—thin stripes on his polo, a modest buckle for his belt, his groomed hair closely cropped, no hint of an athletic career for him. Both men, equally important in my life, lean toward me, guiding me.
As a child grows from infant to toddler, pediatricians and psychologists encourage parents to introduce a stuffed animal into the child’s world. British pediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott is credited with coining the term “transitional object” in the 1960s. According to Winnicott, the stuffed animal allows the child “to experience [the object] as being in an undefined, ‘transitional’ status between the child’s imagination and the real world outside the child.” In other words, as the child grows, the transitional object assists the child in gradually developing a separate sense of self.
Until I was six, when my sister Maryll was born, I was an only child, and like most only children, I lived in a world where the line between the real and the imaginary was very, very thin. And populated with stuffed animals. I was Christopher Robin; Voldie was Winnie-the-Pooh, and my room, 100 Acre Wood. During the day, there were adventures in and around my canopy bed. At night, I chose who slept in the bed. Voldie was a given, but each of the other animals got a chance—and each one received an apology when they were left behind. Filled with stories and friends, the world of my room kept me from feeling the tension growing between my parents.
My parents divorced a year after Gary gave me Voldie. Custody and visitation were decided quickly—I would live with my mother and spend weekends at my father’s new house. Even with Voldie accompanying me, I struggled during these visits. My dad’s house was too new, too strange. Modern where our house was colonial; cold where ours was cozy; painted in earth tones of brown and blue where our house was covered in pinks, reds, and cream. My dad’s house didn’t feel like home. The first time I visited, I stopped after I got out of the car. While my dad walked ahead and into the house, I stayed stuck on the driveway, the distance feeling insurmountable. After a month or so, it was decided that Voldie would remain with Dad and then I could look forward to seeing him—and my father—every weekend.
But it didn’t work out like that. I missed Voldie and spent most of my time after school writing stories about him. With sheet after sheet of art paper brought home from school, I divided each into eight panels with the first panel always reserved for the title “Voldie and the Sunny Hill Gang” and an image of all my favorite animals with Voldie front and center.
The stories weren’t complex—quick, little adventures with Voldie as the hero and the solver of problems. Eventually, my parents relented, and Voldie returned home to make the weekend visits with me.
One distinguishing feature of Winnicott’s research on child development is his discussion of the “self.” Rather than depending on Freud’s three-tiered distinction of the personality—the id, the ego, and the super-ego—as was popular in the sixties and seventies, Winnicott saw the personality as a reflection of the “true self” or “false self.” According to Winnicott, a person with a “true self” has a “sense of being alive and real in one’s mind and body…This experience of aliveness is what allows people to be genuinely close to others and to be creative.” The “false self,” in contrast, is a “kind of mask of behavior motivated by a desire to please others rather than spontaneously express one’s own feelings and ideas.” For Winnicott, the presence of the transition object was key in developing the child’s “true self.” With the toy as companion, the child could safely learn how to relate to beings outside both the self and the parent-child relationship. The toy, then, offered an opportunity to practice independence, empathy, and care.
My parents’ divorce launched my mom into the workforce and into first wave feminism. Suddenly, at seven, I became well-versed in the importance of independence and self-reliance. I was told not to “depend on a man” and to “learn how to live on my own.” I filed this information to access when I was older, but these talks were also meant to prepare me for moving from Pittsburgh—our family’s longtime home—to Harrisburg, where my mom had been hired to work for the newly elected governor, Richard Thornburg. So at eleven, I left my dad, Uncle Gary, and all of my grandparents to start a new life with my mom and my sister.
A year after our move, Uncle Gary died. On Christmas Eve. I swear I felt the exact moment. It was night, and suddenly, I went from a deep sleep to being startled, and knowing that Gary was ill, I was convinced that something was wrong. But the next day began in the typical Christmas way—Maryll and I surrounded by presents and after each one had been opened, breakfast with Mom. By noon, the car was packed, and we drove the four hours back to Pittsburgh to spend the rest of the holiday with our extended families.
Since Gary’s hospital stays had increased and grown longer, I wasn’t surprised when he didn’t arrive at my dad’s house with my grandparents, Poppy and Garney. But the decision to eat in the kitchen rather than the more accommodating dining room alarmed me. There we sat huddled elbow-to-elbow in a tight circle around the glass table. Rita, my dad’s girlfriend, sat closest to the oven so she could serve the food. Garney was to her right, then Dad, then Maryll, then Poppy, then me. Everyone ate more than talked while Maryll and I bounced in the steel S-shaped chairs as we chewed. Poppy waited until all of us were done eating and then looked over at my dad and asked, “Have you told the girls about their uncle?” My dad only shook his head. Then Poppy cleared his throat, “Girls, your Uncle Gary died last night.” Routine was easier than eye contact. Someone initiated clearing the dishes, and the rest of us, even little Maryll, followed suit. It was decided—given the holiday—that there wouldn’t be a funeral. I hadn’t seen Gary since Thanksgiving, and now he was gone. As the night went on, I grew inconsolable. But, I had Voldie.
Many child psychologists side-step Winnicott’s work on the self and instead, focus on the role of the transitional object as a source of comfort during extreme circumstances. The psychological security offered by the toy is the reason why the Oklahoma City Memorial Foundation sent thousands of teddy bears to the families of 9/11, why police officers and EMS workers often keep teddy bears and other stuffed animals in their vehicles, and perhaps even why human-size “comfort pillows” are popular among overworked businessmen in Asian countries.
Nineteen months ago, I left my teaching job and abandoned my sixteen-year career in education. In many ways, it was a divorce. I walked away from the one consistent role I had known, loved and believed in, and like the spouse who files for separation, I left because it felt like something had ended. I was no longer in love. I no longer knew who I was. The label “teacher” was no longer enough to satisfy or hold me. I craved space to see myself in a new way—though I had no notion of what that could be. There wasn’t anything I was going toward or running to. I only knew I had to leave.
As he accompanied me into my adult life, Voldie took on yet another role: litmus test. With burnt orange matted fur, empty eye sockets, a rubbed off nose, and a body worn so thin in the middle that he bends limply like a U when held, Voldie’s charm isn’t as immediate as it was in his early days. How prospective lovers responded to his presence on my bed often revealed their true intentions and in my mind, their ability to love. The ones who ignored Voldie, who sat on him, eventually neglected me too. And the ones who tossed him onto the floor came to treat me just as carelessly. But the test isn’t perfect: The So-Called One gingerly picked Voldie up and thoughtfully placed him on a chair—though my heart swooned in that moment, it still broke later.
Psychologists aren’t the only ones who examine the role that objects play in our lives, of course. Ethnographers, sociologists and anthropologist all do too. The word “talisman,” for example, can be traced back to the Greek root “telein,” meaning to “initiate into the mysteries” and to the Arabic word “tilasm” which has a similar derivation. Both cultures agree that such an object is imbued with magical or supernatural powers that offer protection. Shamanic traditions focus on animals as spiritual, symbolic objects that provide humans with the powers they specifically need. Within this animistic tradition, dogs, specifically, are seen as capable of healing emotional wounds, of giving love and protection, and of representing the duality of doubt and faith.
When I walked out of my classroom for the final time, I prided myself on only carrying two boxes. I left behind a career’s worth of curriculum, books, posters, and furniture. Though I didn’t know what was next, I knew I no longer needed anything from that part of my life. I was ready to let go of being superstitious and scared.
Winnicott’s research focuses on a child’s development from infancy to three so it’s easy to conclude that’s it—that we only get this one narrow window of time to construct our true selves. But perhaps what he means is that from infancy to three, there is a legitimate need for the transitional object and then once past three, it’s up to us to develop the self beyond a dependency on things. That, until we are ready with our true self fully formed, we will reach outside ourselves when we can’t create what we need on our own.
