The Polly Diaries #5: Recesses of the Heart
Why have Polly Pockets come to mean so much to me during the pandemic? Susan Stewart writes, “Occupying a space within an enclosed space, the dollhouse’s aptest analogy is the locket or the secret recesses of the heart; what we look for is the dollhouse within the dollhouse and its promise of an infinitely profound interiority” (On Longing, 1984). As both a dollhouse and a locket-like container, the Polly Pocket is doubly symbolic of housing a person’s deepest, truest self.
As the child of working-class immigrants in New York City from the late 1980s and throughout the ‘90s, I had very little domestic space of my own. There was absolutely no privacy for me. Aside from the kitchen and bathroom, our tiny apartment had only one room, a hub that had to accommodate multiple generations. We shared mattresses. Every wall and corner served as storage space, piled high from ceiling to floor. We even had a mattress stacked up against the wall during the day which we took down at night to sleep upon. There was no room to claim as my own.
Privacy and secrets are alluring to children in general, but to immigrant children objects that encapsulate privacy and individuated selfhood are inordinately desired. My childhood longing for my own private corner of the world where I can indulge in activities apart from others has formed deep grooves in my heart—so much so that as an adult I spend much of my power and resources trying to secure conditions of profound solitude and autonomy. If an immigrant child can’t have her own space and privacy in the context of a household, at least she can have a toy version of it that nourishes these states of being. I can place a representation of my truest, fullest self into a little clamshell, keep it secure with the click of a clasp, and bring it with me wherever I go. This was what Polly Pockets symbolized for me as a child—it symbolizes this for me still.
In this period of quarantines and lockdowns, large political systems and world organizations don’t seem to have a grip on order and certainty. The mundane routines I follow in my home bring me a sense of comfort and security. As an adult living in the midst of this pandemic, my home life is analogous to what Polly Pockets meant to me when I was a kid. It’s a sacred little corner of the world where I can both safeguard and release my whole self. The clamor, crowdedness, and undifferentiated chaos of the surrounding environment remains outside. Even more so when I hold a Polly Pocket in my hand: it is a private space housed within a private space. This doubly enfolded interior holds enough safety and privacy to give me enough courage and motivation to endure another day with a sense of calm and order.