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7. My Childhood Relics

The first toy in my crib was this clown that now looks like Satan's clown: The eyes are falling off, and he's this burnt-tobacco color. At some point, he was white. He's in a red and white polka-dot outfit, and his eyes are crossed, and he looks sick. I am a big lover of toys. I love the idea of being able to say, "This is me from when I lived in Germany, this is Mommy when she was dating and writing bad poetry..." All of those little things that show who the person was at the time, it's humanizing. I'm attached to them because they're mine, and because they remind me that I was once a little person, which I still find shocking. I still have a little bunny I had when I was about four, and it's got one ear left and the stuffing coming
out of the top.

I was also a great artist at four. I had a smock and an easel, and my mother framed my pictures. There's one I call "Elephant in a Fire." It's basically a big smear of red and a smear of black, with a gray blob in it. She put it in a gilded frame and hung it on a wall. People come into the house and ask, "Who did that? It's beautiful!" And on the back it says, "Sandra. Age 4." If the acting thing doesn't work out, I can always go back to my art!

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