Circles of Hell 4: Polly Pockets

Know what Polly Pockets are? If you are a small girl, or parent or relative of a small girl, I bet you are more than well acquainted with the diminutive perky plastic bimbette -- to your cost!

For those who don't know, Polly Pockets is a tiny doll about two to three inches tall, made of hard plastic. She has an oversize head with a perky ponytail (also hard plastic) and she comes with soft rubber clothes and hard plastic accessories.

Sounds kinky, doesn't it?

The soft rubber clothes are molded in one piece with a strategic slit in the back - a doll's version of the special clothing made to dress corpses in coffins. Dressing Polly is not unlike dressing a corpse. You have to pull, twist and manipulate tiny pieces of rubber. It isn't easy. It isn't easy for the Princess' tiny four-year-old fingers, and it definitely isn't easy for my middle-aged sausage digits. As soon as she is dressed (and the clothes are truly horrible colors and shapes), the Princess rips the outfit off and starts wrestling with another.

This may not sound too bad to you, but remember the doll is only two to three inches high. Imagine the shoes. Imagine the rubber blouses. Imagine the teeny tiny hard plastic accessories. Everything is tiny and ends up scattered across a wide area. I've found odd pieces in the dog bed, under the sofa, between sofa cushions, in shoes, in cups, in the cat food, and I think I saw the Princess "mailing" some through a heating duct.

I used to hate the small pieces of Lego that I inevitably stepped on with bare feet first thing in the morning, but now I hate Polly Pocket more with a pure heart. She and all her accessories should be flung into outer darkness where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. As I can't conjure up a fate of biblical proportions for her, I lie in wait with the vacuum cleaner.

Whoops! Take that Polly's shoes, bag, vile rubber blouse! You may not be biodegradable, and you may last for ever, but sucking you into a swirling mess of dust and dog hair is extremely satisfying.

Now, all I have to do is make some excuse to the Princess...

Not a Matushka - not even close

It isn't easy being a priest's wife (or indeed being a priest's children). Quite apart from the fishbowl effect, or people assuming that we are a direct conduit to my husband, or having to watch what we say because anything we do say can reflect on or be attributed to my husband, there is also the problem of THE NAME.

There are many different Orthodox Christian churches owing allegiance to various jurisdictions, usually identified with a core ethnic group and particular set of traditions and practices. There are four ancient patriarchates: Greece, Jersualem, Antioch, and Alexandria. There are also more recent (and recent is a very relative term) patriarchates -- Russia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, and Georgia. There are also Oriental Orthodox Churches, including India, Armenia, Ethopia, and Eritrea. It's a set of complex global relationships.

What does this have to do with my not being a matushka?

Let me explain.

Matushka is the term usually used of a priest's wife in the Russian tradition. It means "little mother" and designates a specific role for the priest's wife within the parish. This is an unspoken, undefined, and totally assumed role.

Some matushki love the term - can hardly wait till their husbands are ordained and then claim it as their right. That's fine and good for them. I am not one of them.

I don't like the term because it is not what I am. I am a priest's wife, true, but a priest's wife in an English-speaking community among ten or more other priests' wives (I don't live in a parish but a seminary, so if you throw a stone hard enough on the seminary grounds you will probably hit a priest or a matushka).

Why should I be called matushka? My husband is called "Father X". Why do I have to answer to a tradition and a concept which is not mine? Try calling me "Mother X" and you can see how silly it sounds. I am not the "mother" of the campus community, nor frankly do I aspire to be so. I am not Russian (that's my husband's heritage). I don't need the title for status or to identify myself in some way: I have many other legitimate titles that people can use -- Mrs X, Professor X, or Dr X.

Also, there are nebulous expectations associated with being a matushka. Warmth, for one. Practical skills, for another. A willingness to step into the breach (church school, choir, coffee hour). Being cautious. Being self-effacing. Being sweet. Being dowdy seems to be another. Having an excessive respect for clerical hierarchy is assumed too.

I don't fit the bill. I am not warm (though I do care). I don't volunteer for church school, can't sing for toffee, resolutely refuse to have anything to do with organizing coffee hour, and, though I don't set out to embarrass my husband, I have a big mouth, my own opinions, and style of dress.

I do go to church. I do believe. I try (and often fail) to be a Christian.

I am a priest's wife. I am not a matushka.