Like Francis Ponge, who advocated solidarity with objects,[1] I hereby advocate solidarity with dolls. Actually, I propose to go further. Dolls should have a day dedicated to them, and only to them. We who celebrate so many things, a panoply of saints, madonnas and all our dead, should also have a day dedicated to dolls. Dennis Silk[2] proposed a Day for Dead Objects, after the Day of the Dead and All Saints. So I propose All Dolls.
I feel that this is the only way we can show them the respect they deserve. I dedicate it to all the dolls I ever spoke to and expected an answer from, imagined an answer from, or in whose stead I ever spoke. I dedicate it to the dolls I broke, burst, ripped apart in search of their soul, all the dolls I left behind years ago, to whom I spoke for days and nights on end before putting them out of mind, all the dolls who comforted me during winter nights and whom I carried with me everywhere, from morning till evening, the dolls I exchanged, discarded, buried, lost and mourned …
The day will come when I will walk in a procession, candle in hand, in memory of all the dolls I ever had, still have, for all the care they gave me, for all the times they sat in my lap in place of my children, my friends, hand in hand…
The day will come.
The day will come.
[1] Le Partipris de choses by Francis Ponge, 1942.
[2] The Marionette Theatre, by Dennis Silk. In: On Dolls, ed.Kenneth Gross, 2012.
