Qualities of True Compassion

This is another writing assignment done a couple of years ago exploring what compassion means to me.  After rereading it more recently I've wondered again about the true meaning of it and how we each show it to one another and, most importantly and often forgotten, to ourselves.  

True Compassion: The Pinocchio Experience

I think compassion is a quality that is both taught and experienced; changing with time, age and self. When I was a child, like most little girls, I was expected to play with dolls, a metaphor for life and self if ever there was one. Now, some of my first dolls that I remember my aunt gave to me. A Raggedy Ann and Andy set of dolls that had cute gingham clothes that came off of them so you could learn to tie the bow of the apron or zip the zipper or button the buttons on them, very educational and fun, kinda like her. And, if you took off all of their clothes, they had a perfect red heart where there heart was supposed to be. For some reason that was the coolest thing, their maker giving these dolls a heart, something only a real girl or boy would have. I think these were some of my favorite toys that were ever given to me as a child. My aunt always did seem to know what I’d like. Even with cut off yarn hair and colored on fabric skin, I loved those dolls unconditionally. But, like many things, they got lost in the shuffle of growing up and moving to and fro and were lost, first Andy and then Ann.

My Grandmother gave me the next doll I remember well, a baby doll that I kept at her house. A simple, soft and cuddly one that came in swaddling and drank from ever emptying and replenishing baby bottles. No bells or whistles came with this baby doll, but the bottles were cool and my grandma even gave me a dress for it she bought at the church bazaar. It was an ugly bright green hand knitted thing that smelled like Tupperware. I both loved and hated that doll because it reminded me of my grandma, with her seemingly ever replenishing cookie jar and soft cuddliness mixed with a home spun, kitsch flair, but in a baby doll form. Sadly, by this age, I could never get passed the dress.

But the doll that affected me the most was one my mother gave to me. I think I was five or six when my mother bought for me the latest thing, the most expensive baby doll that both walked and talked. The ultimate Christmas present if ever there should have been. No mothering necessary for this hard plastic, batteries not included, not so cuddly baby doll. Just stand her up and watch her go according to the shiny, new packaging. So, after supplying her with batteries we went to try her out. My mother seemed so proud of this gift and I had high hopes because it seemed to make her so happy. I always wondered if it was the fact that the doll was supposed to be self sufficient and already came pre-trained that that was what my mother loved about this gift or if it was the fact that it cost a lot and was popular that made her think it was going to be perfect for me.

After setting the baby doll down on the floor and turning her on, she would take a couple of wobbly steps with her arms outstretched and then a hollow sounding recorded, “Mamma,” would be uttered from her non-moving lips. Perfect, in my mother’s eyes until, ironically, after those first couple of steps, my mother’s doll would inevitably fall down but creepily keep moving her legs, crying for “Mamma” never knowing or understanding that she’d fallen. After it did that time after time my mother was so frustrated, she ended up taking it back to the store and getting a refund. I remember feeling sad for that broken doll, never able to walk without falling. I think that was the first time I remember feeling compassion so strongly for something, first for the doll who would always stumble and not be able to pick herself up again, and then for my mother who seemed so upset and embarrassed that her shiny new gift for me just wouldn't work like it was supposed to. That experience changed me somehow in both scary and lovely ways. After that, I never looked at dolls the same way again.

As for myself, after saving up my money from birthday cards and Christmas checks, I bought myself what I thought was the creme de la creme of girly dolls: a Barbie. A fully grown up, completely independent doll that had tons of accessories and her own car and penthouse to boot (all sold separately of course). I loved my Barbie, with her long hair and perfect smile. You’d think that a brand new doll with tons of accessories would make me happy, and it did for a long time. But, after a while, ironically it wasn't the fancy newer Barbies that held their sway with me, it was the broken ones that I liked the most.

My Barbies, and I had a few of them, were as abused and tortured as any child’s dolls that are truly loved. They were the subject of hair cutting experiments (I swear I was just trying to give her the Sabrina bob off of Charlie’s Angels), broken chewed on legs (the result of misplaced kitty aggression), dislocated arms (an experiment to see how she was put together), and random tattoos of permanent markers and pens (I was bored and thought new makeup would do her some good). But instead of abandoning these broken dolls for new ones, I think my previous experience with the baby doll who couldn't walk changed my view and priorities on the subject. I felt sorry for them so I would try to fix them, help them. Or, maybe, I just felt guilty for having broken them in the first place, I don’t know.

My first acts of true compassion as a child may have been towards these inanimate, pathetic creatures of imagination. I bought an accessory pack that had both wigs and boots in it so as to fix the balding Barbie as well as the Barbie with the chomped on leg (it’s amazing what a pair of knee high boots will cover up and help with). I traded some shoes and an outfit for an arm from a friend who wasn't as in to “saving” her Barbies and had a completely ravaged one but with the correct arm still intact. You could tell I already had aspirations of being a doctor by this point because of the elaborate “operation” I held for her. The fact that the arm was a little off in color was inconsequential and was gotten around the same way I got around the permanent markers and pen marks. I made them superheroes by stealing my mother’s old eye makeup and completely coloring them blue as though they weren't human, but some half alien being turned super hero that made looking weird and exotic okay. It was an imaginative solution to a problem that I think was more in my head than in reality. But that was how I dealt with life back then, if it wasn't perfect looking, fake it or come up with some other plausible explanation as to why it was just as good if not better than the norm.

I thought I was being compassionate for these poor, abused, sometimes neglected dolls. And at that stage of life, I think I was. I didn't expect anything back from them, so I wasn't looking for something in return other than toys to play with once more. I used this line of reasoning later in life as well. If someone was hurt, I’d help them. If someone was being made fun of or yelled at, I’d stand up for them. To be honest, in part, I did this because I thought I might get something out of it, whether it was a new friend or just to feel better about myself, but ultimately I don’t know if I always thought about it at all. I just did it, because that was the right thing to do. I was much better at being compassionate with others rather than myself. So much so, I think my friendships have always seemed to be filled with characters from the island of misfit toys rather than seemingly normal people, and I still the unlucky reindeer who never had a redeemable nose to work with. I never tried to change my friends, just to help them when they needed it. If only I could have been that compassionate with myself.

I think, growing up, I tried so hard to not think about what I was going through, I became one of my own dolls, always “fixed” to look okay or seem better or unbroken. To some extent, I've still kept that unfortunate practice going to this day. Not all of us should be the tortured Pinocchio, striving to be “real” boys and girls, sometimes being who we are, doll or not is okay, too.

Until well into adulthood, never did it cross my mind that the ultimate form of compassion I could have had for my broken dolls, or for myself, was acceptance, and that by trying to fix them, I was actually doing them a disservice, and limiting them and myself to a set of standards that could never be met. Nor should I have assumed that anything should, could or would be gained or lost by my actions. Just that the act itself is the point, nothing more and nothing less. That connection between without conditions is sometimes all that is needed for true compassion. Now, that doesn't mean that if I see a doll that is broken or fallen, I shouldn't help it, it just means I should do so without expectation or without preconceived notions about what is broken and what is fixed. And that sometimes the best thing I can do for a “broken” doll is to just let it be broken, because what is “broken” is okay, too.