From the time I was small I was fascinated by the ballerinas atop music boxes. I was sure that at night the small pink one would wake and dance her way across my room. I thought they met, somewhere secret with all the other small ballerinas and tiny walking toys to make plans to one day be real during the day.
Consequently I was somewhat frightened of marionettes because I thought it was harder for them to wake and that once they did they would be so angry at people for telling them what do do and making them dance, maybe when they didn’t want to. I thought they would be angry because the never had a choice.
I am still fascinated by automata. I spent many hours at the Musée Mécanique in San Francisco. Even as a young adult I dreamed they all would wake and inside there would be parties and discussions of how things used to be. I wanted to find a place to hide like Claudia and Jamie did in From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, to this day one of my favorite childhood books.
Here are some amazing, sad and beautiful. Be careful you don’t wake them.
