Growing up, our neighbor two houses down had an in-ground pool, I spent most weekdays each summer there. Once I was in junior high, I joined my friends at the community pool until I began working at age 16. The Junes, Julys and Augusts of my youth were spent in a bathing suit. This was long before my mom and I would go to the beach in New Jersey together, an occurrence that would last 30 years.
It was only natural that when I was young and learned of Malibu Barbie I put her on my Christmas list, finding her under the tree on a cold December Pennsylvania morning. Later that day, with the smell of turkey permeating the house, I stood Barbie on the windowsill of my room, where we could both see the covered pool a few backyards away.
Other than Malibu Barbie and Suntan Ken*, I had no other Barbies or Barbie-adjacent dolls. The duo is one of the few toys I still have, packed in a bin in the attic labeled, “Sister Rain Childhood.”
When my mom died in 2012, I lost interest in going to the shore, I have not worn a bathing suit since then. Five months after her death, I woke up to total darkness. The neighbors were long gone by then, having moved to Florida, the people who bought their property filled in the pool and covered it with grass.
Recently hearing that Mattel had come out with a Blind Barbie, I made the connection to the doll I once was and the one I am today. Of course, I look nothing like either figure, definitely not their figures, but they both represent major before June 2012 and after November of that same year Sister Rains.
So I bought a Blind Barbie.
I could tell you it was for this website that I purchased her and that would be true. But I also did it for the tan girl I was and the blind woman I am.
As I write this, I sit at the desk in a hotel room in Manhattan, a few doors down from an American Girl store. I am too old to have been part of that sensation. It has always been Barbie for me, beginning over forty years prior to a controversial movie coming into our lives, a couple of decades ahead of America Ferrara as Ugly Betty, let alone the inspiring monologuer Gloria.
Turns out I am a Barbie girl in a Sister Rain world. I bet you are too.
* I have always called the duo I received that December 25th Malibu Barbie and Suntan Ken. Upon researching their history, I discovered that Ken is referred to as Malibu Ken. No matter his skin color, he’s just Ken.
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