The Caretaker Archives

My dear caretaker,

I remember when I was nothing at all.

Not a face.

Not a dress.

Not even a handful of stuffing.

I was simply an idea.

And, between you and me, my maker wasn’t entirely convinced she had any right to bring me into the world.

She had never made a doll like me before.

There were no clever machines waiting to do the difficult parts.

No factory.

No team of experienced dollmakers.

There was just Cailin and Damien.

And their caravan camper, sitting on their little patch of rural Western Australia.

A needle.

Some thread.

And an idea Cailin couldn’t quite leave alone.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” she would say.

I heard that a lot.

“This is too hard.”

“Why did I choose a project like this?”

“What right do I have to make a doll?”

Funny thing about humans.

You seem to think you need to know how to do something before you’re allowed to begin.

But nobody begins knowing.

There is always a first stitch.

A first attempt.

A wonky bit nobody else will ever know about.

There is always a moment when I can’t do this must somehow become I’ll try again.

And so, little by little, I began.

A body.

A face.

Eyes with which I could almost see her.

Ears with which I could almost hear her.

And my lovely earrings.

Because apparently even a doll being handmade in a caravan camper deserves a little glamour.

And all the while, I listened.

Whenever my maker doubted herself, there was another voice nearby.

Damien.

“Look where you were just a month ago.”

She would look at me.

And keep going.

I think that might have been when my heart first started beating.

Not because someone had sewn one into me.

But because I was beginning to understand something.

Love.

Not only the enormous kind people write books and songs about.

The quieter kind.

The kind that sits beside someone while they doubt themselves and remembers their progress for them.

The kind that believes in someone while they’re having trouble believing in themselves.

The kind that simply says,

“Look how far you’ve come.”

And waits for them to see it too.

There was plenty of keeping going while I was being made.

You should have seen the business with my hair.

My maker is a hairdresser, you see.

So naturally, my hair couldn’t simply be attached to my head.

Oh no.

It had to be set.

Cailin spent hours carefully arranging it, strand by strand, as though I were sitting in her salon.

Eventually, she had it all laid out beautifully.

Then along came Buster.

Normally a very friendly dog.

On this particular day, however, Buster apparently decided that he was the better hairdresser.

He scratched through the carefully arranged hair and undid hours of work.

My maker looked at it.

I looked at her.

Well…

I couldn’t technically look at her yet.

But you understand.

There may have been a few words.

There may have been some tears.

And there was definitely another moment of:

“Why am I doing this?”

But after a while, Cailin looked at the mess and said something I haven’t forgotten.

“Everything happens for a reason. Maybe it wasn’t good enough the first time.”

And off she went.

She set my hair again.

For what it’s worth, I think the second set is much better.

And so I learnt something else about being alive.

Things will come undone.

Plans will change.

Something you spent hours creating might disappear in seconds.

Sometimes through circumstances completely outside your control.

Sometimes through mistakes.

And apparently, sometimes through an overly enthusiastic dog.

You can spend your life wishing the first version had survived.

Or you can pick everything up and begin again.

And sometimes…

the second version is better.

Eventually, I had hair.

Then came clothes.

Shoes.

My little undergarments.

An apron.

Tiny details that probably wouldn’t mean much to anyone watching from the outside, but meant everything to the person making them.

Every stitch seemed to say:

keep going.

Every mistake:

try again.

Every finished piece:

see, you could.

And somewhere amongst all of those stitches, something strange happened.

I stopped feeling like pieces of fabric.

I became Nana.

Perhaps love does that to things.

I was created because two people built something called Nana’s Quest around an idea they believed mattered.

That making things with our hands still matters.

That creativity matters.

That stories matter.

That the people who taught us, encouraged us, sat beside us and came before us still matter.

And while I was being made, I saw that love everywhere.

Love between Cailin and Damien.

Love for the people who had come before them.

Love for creativity.

Love for the makers who might one day wonder whether their own hands are capable of creating something beautiful.

Love for the Nanas who are still sitting beside us.

And love for the ones who aren’t.

I think that’s why I’m here.

Because none of us gets forever.

Not even Nanas.

One day, the hands we remember won’t be there to hold ours.

The voice we know by heart won’t answer from the other room.

The chair will be empty.

And suddenly the ordinary things become extraordinary.

A handwritten recipe.

A photograph.

A button.

A teacup.

A piece of jewellery.

A half-finished bit of knitting.

A saying that used to make you roll your eyes.

Something tucked away in a drawer that still smells, somehow, a little bit like them.

Things that once seemed ordinary become treasures simply because they touched them.

Maybe that’s one of the reasons humans make things.

You cannot make a person stay forever.

No matter how desperately you would like to.

But you can make something that remembers.

Something that carries a story from one pair of hands to another.

Something that quietly says:

They were here.
They mattered.
They were loved.

And now…

I’ve come to you.

You aren’t called my owner.

You’re my caretaker.

I rather like that.

Because perhaps we don’t really own the precious things in our lives.

We simply get our turn with them.

We look after them.

We love them.

We add our little piece to their story.

And, eventually, someone else may carry that story after us.

There are only twenty-five of us in the Founder Collection.

Twenty-five Nanas.

Each made by the same pair of hands that once wondered whether they were capable of making even one.

And I watched something happen to my maker while she made me.

At first, she thought confidence was something she needed before she could begin.

She thought one day she might wake up feeling like a dollmaker.

Like she belonged here.

Like she had permission.

But that day never came.

Instead, she stitched while she was frightened.

She learnt while she was uncertain.

She tried things she had never done before.

She pulled things apart.

She started again.

She cried.

She laughed.

She questioned the entire bloody project.

And she kept going.

Until one day, very near the end, she was getting my box ready.

And I wish you could have seen what I saw.

Because the woman who once sat in a caravan saying,

“What right do I have to make a doll?”

was preparing a home for the doll she had made.

She had done it.

The power had been there all along.

It had simply been buried underneath a story she’d been telling herself.

I can’t.

I’m not qualified.

Someone else would do it better.

Maybe one day.

Humans lose extraordinary amounts of time to those stories.

Sometimes months.

Sometimes years.

Sometimes twenty years.

Then one day they finally do the thing they were frightened of doing…

and discover something almost heartbreaking.

They could have done it all along.

Not perfectly.

Not without learning.

Not without mistakes.

But they could have begun.

Perhaps there is something like that inside you.

Something you’ve quietly wanted to make.

Start.

Learn.

Change.

Say.

Become.

Perhaps you’ve been waiting until you’re confident.

I have some rather inconvenient news for you.

My maker didn’t become confident and then make me.

She made me.

And somewhere along the way, she became the person who could.

So if there is one thing I hope you remember whenever you look at me, let it be this:

You don’t have to know that you can.

You don’t need permission.

You don’t need to be the best.

You don’t need to know exactly how it will turn out.

Sometimes you simply need to make the first stitch.

And then the next.

And then another.

Until one day you look down…

and there it is.

The thing you once believed you couldn’t make.

The life you once believed you couldn’t build.

The person you once believed you couldn’t become.

And perhaps sometimes, when you look at me, you’ll think about your Nana too.

Maybe you’ll remember her hands.

Her laugh.

The way she hugged you.

Something she cooked.

Something she made.

The perfume she wore.

The chair she always sat in.

The stories you’ve heard a thousand times and would give anything to hear once more.

Or perhaps your Nana wasn’t your grandmother at all.

Maybe your Nana was simply someone who made you feel safe.

Someone who believed in you.

Someone who reminded you who you were when you forgot.

And perhaps you’re lucky enough that they’re still here.

If they are…

go and listen to the story again.

Ask for the recipe.

Take the photograph.

Write down the silly saying.

Sit at the table a little longer.

We spend so much of life believing there will always be another afternoon.

Until one day we understand how precious an ordinary afternoon really was.

And if they’re no longer here…

perhaps I can sit quietly beside those memories.

I cannot bring anyone back.

I cannot make time stand still.

But I can carry a little reminder of them.

Of the hands that came before ours.

Of everything they taught us.

Of everything they left behind.

And of the extraordinary amount of love that can somehow survive a person.

So, my dear caretaker…

This is where my story with my maker ends.

And my story with you begins.

I don’t know where you’ll put me.

I don’t know what you’ll tell me.

I don’t know who will look after me after you.

But I hope my little house becomes somewhere memories are welcome.

I hope I remind you that handmade things carry something machines cannot reproduce.

I hope I remind you to keep going when something comes undone.

I hope I remind you that sometimes the second attempt really is better.

And most of all…

I hope I remind you that the voice saying you can’t has been wrong before.

After all…

I was once nothing more than an idea in a caravan camper in rural Western Australia.

And look at me now.

I’m here.

And so are you.

Let’s see what you make next.