marisa bettencourt photography

                                        I Played with Barbies

I loved Barbie. I had so many. My parents were so nice for getting them for me. One night when I was young, maybe 7, I went to the Father/Daughter Dance with my dad (duh). My mom had made my dress, it was white and red. It kind of reminded me of a bandana pattern and I loved it. When we got home from the dance I saw one of my Barbies wearing the exact same dress. My mom had made a duplicate for her while I was getting sweaty on the dance floor with my girlfriends and wondering if my dad was having a good time. It was so great and I was so happy. To me Barbie was cool. I could dress her up and pose her in these vignettes. It was total fantasy and never once did I wish to grow up to look like her. I mean, honestly, nobody looks like Barbie. Little girls know that. Their mom doesn’t look like that and her friends’ moms don’t look like that. Ain’t nobody look like that. Pretend is fun! Imagination is fun! Don’t we always want our children to expand their imaginations? Fast forward from the Barbie years till now and you’ll see along the way a girl who noticed the inequality between men and women, was aware of the glass ceiling and the double standard, and was shocked to learn that women are paid less on the dollar than men. All this from a girl who played with Barbies. The images above are from my final project in my first photography class in college. I recycled newspaper to make the pages of a book. I learned this technique in Biology class although I’m not sure why I did that in Biology class. Doesn’t matter. The text of the story is told by phrases I tore out of the newspaper as I was tearing it to soak in water. The real story is told through the photographs. It’s riveting and scandalous! Anyways, the images you see above are the last two pages, the quote being the last. I made the pages, I took the photos, I developed the negatives, I printed the images, I came up with the story, I made the book, I became a feminist. I also met a young man because of these images, he became my husband, I became a mother, I am a professional photographer. And I played with Barbies.

I don’t like back-to-school. I’m not like most moms. I’m going to miss warm, little, shirtless bodies hugging me good morning as they wake up on their own at an hour that makes my friends jealous. I’ll miss packing up for the pool club and eating lunch together at 2:00 in the afternoon just because we can. I’ll miss hearing laughing voices echoing in the neighborhood with their friends as they walk down to the park for a junk food picnic. I’ll long for adventures at water parks trying to find that perfect slide that does’t scare David but makes him feel like the brave, big kid he is becoming. I’ll be lonely when the house is quiet instead of hearing Joe tell me this is the best day of his life simply because I made cinnamon buns for breakfast. Earlier bedtimes mean fewer late night conversations with Andy about the conflicts in the Middle East and the funniest thing he read on The Oatmeal that day.  I’ll miss delivering popsicles for my guys to eat on the front stoop.  And teaching them what a stoop is. I mean it hasn’t been all rainbows and Princess Unikitties this summer. Those voices on kids shows drive me nuts, requests for alone time are often not delivered, “You’re the worst brother ever!” is practically a mantra in our house, and I’m always picking up gum wrappers. So many gum wrappers. However, beach treasures lined up on the windowsill, t-shirts proudly worn displaying our travels up north, and the ever present pile of beach towels warm my heart. They make me happy to have a killer job that affords me time with my boys. Time that will slip away like the tide. Memories I’ve photographed, shared on Instagram and lived in my heart. I’d like to hang on to summer for just a little longer, but I swear if I have to pick up one more gum wrapper I’m going to lose it. Like lose it crying as I did at school this morning as they lined up for their first day.