Creative Writing Piece
Refurbishing
Inspired by “Sticks” by George Saunders, and for a dear friend who has refurbished two hearts plus many tiny scenes
The sunlight lands on the wooden floor of the dollhouse, only about the size of a postage stamp. Of all the sun, these are the only rays to make it through the tiny window. They had to pass through my larger window before that, through the thickening trees outside, and the parting clouds. A cat whose coat is made of gray velvet permanently sleeps near the light, unable to move herself into it. She was built to be curled up forever. She rests on a felt rug that I glued a dinner placemat under so that it wouldn’t slide when I redecorate the bedroom. The hallway has a runner I made from a scarf for the little fringe at the ends, and the stairs have carpet swatches folding at every crease that I hot glued down. Even the bathroom has a bathmat and a toilet cover made from a robin’s egg blue dusting mitt. The dollhouse is filled with carpets because there are none in the hospital.
I bought and furnished this dollhouse as an adult. It is not nostalgic, and it does not feel like a toy to me. I can’t push my own gurney when I’m in the hospital. I bought something that let me push its contents around. I never get to pick which path to take in the hospital, nor which room I want to be in. I go wherever I am brought. Then, I wait, as if I can’t imagine a future for myself until it is decided for me and enacted.
The birds are repeating themselves louder and slower as if growing impatient for me to understand them. Their migration reminds me to transition my decorations for spring. I feel like I missed the entire budding stage on the trees while in-patient. The rain must have smacked against my room’s window and I didn’t notice. It was barren before I went in, and now, it is not.
I bring on the change myself. It is meticulous work and I like it that way. I drag it out for as long as I can. I lift up the curtain rod and slide off the wool tartan curtains, and I replace them with pink gingham ones. I pull them shut briefly to watch the postage stamp of light flicker pink. I take off the heavy quilt from the bed and lay out a thinner one. I gently pull the fitted sheet back over the top for about a centimeter. Then, I fluff the pillows by waving them in my pinched fingers. I put the plastic house plants back out, facing their blossoms towards the sun.
My mom says that if I don’t get off the transplant list, she will continue this work for me, season by season. She says that it will make her feel better. She’ll be delicate, and she’ll still wrap the off-season decor in newspaper before layering it into the bins until their return. It makes me sad to think of her having to come into my room to do that, so I hope she’ll bring the dollhouse into her own room, in her own patch of sun.
Author: Morgan Biele
Bio: Morgan Biele is a first-year medical student at University of Michigan Medical School with a passion for narrative medicine. She is from Woodstock, Vermont but spent time in Durham, North Carolina and New York City before moving to Ann Arbor. The piece she is submitting was inspired by the writing she has read and the people she has met along the way. Commentary: When I was thinking about movement, I was thinking about the movement of the seasons passing and the uncontrollable movements that float us through space and time. This drew me to the idea, like in George Saunders' "Sticks", of people making very deliberate, precise movements and cherishing the control when they otherwise lack it. I wanted to envision contrasting movements, like trying to place a chess piece for a move on the shore of crashing waves. As a result, I developed a fascination with the miniature and how good it feels to be able to manipulate a miniature environment. When I went with a dear friend and colleague to the Met Museum and we were observing some figurines, I decided it would be cathartic to depict a transplant patient like her, using a dollhouse to process her grief and loss of control in the face of disease and of the medical system. It ends, of course, with moving on, or moving the responsibility, time, and place, to another person.
