THE VICTORIA
This post is a long-winded explanation of the how and why of The Victoria, but please stick with me.
The first case of COVID-19 was confirmed on March 2, 2020, in New York City. Soon after, the deadly airborne virus began tearing through the five boroughs and the surrounding suburbs, including mine.
And then panic set in.
Masks, hand sanitizer, and toilet paper were sold out, and the constant sound of ambulance sirens was unnerving. People sick with COVID were forming unfathomably long lines at my local ERs. Body bags on gurneys spilled eerily onto the sidewalks outside of NYC hospitals like Elmhurst, waiting to be placed in refrigerated trailers repurposed as morgues.
Between March 11, 2020, and May 2, 2020, there were 32,107 deaths in New York City alone.
While my friends set up Zoom Happy Hours, I sat sequestered, blindsided, and paralyzed by the fear of what would happen next.
As I roamed my house, looking for a project to calm my nerves, my eye went to the 47-year-old family dollhouse stuck in the corner of a back room, untouched and ignored for years.
When I turned it around, I discovered an entire house packed with furniture, dolls, dishes, books, and fairies.
I found my project! I went to work sanding, scraping, and remodeling the house without a name. I eventually dubbed it Blind Brook.
Soon after renovating Blind Brook, I built two more dollhouses: The Bellmore and The Cat House. I was on a dollhouse roll.
While chaos ensued outside my home, my dollhouses became my safe place—free from masks, germs, death, politics, and out-of-stock necessities.
And please don’t judge me, but during my endless months in quarantine, I found solace in all things 1:12 scale. Okay, maybe it was less solace and more obsession.
My real life was out of my control, but I was in complete control of the dolls, who were living their best dollhouse lives. Were it not for my dollhouses, I’m not sure I would have kept my sanity. And there were countless days in 2020 when I wished I could miniaturize myself small enough to move into one of my picture-perfect dollhouses.
March 2020 painfully and slowly morphed into non-Memorial Day, non-Mother’s Day, non-Father’s Day, non-July 4th, and non-Labor Day.
As I sat outside with my sister on her November non-birthday, masked up and freezing, I surprised her with the Cat House. She loved it! COVID be damned.
Then came non-Thanksgiving, non-Chanukah, non-Christmas, and non-New Year’s Eve. There was no ringing in 2021 for me.
Many months into 2021, I worried that the pandemic might never end. And looking back, I can’t believe I self-sequestered in my house for over 55 weeks.
Just to be clear, I didn’t lock myself down for over a year because I was afraid COVID was going to get me.
My reason for living like a hermit all those months was simple. I had no reason to venture out without my family and close friends.
NOW, finally, I’m getting to The Victoria House story.
In late October 2021, after an unusually stressful week of doing nothing, I ordered an Ikea dollhouse kit. I wasn’t sure what I would do with it once it was built and furnished, but I felt compelled to create and control yet another fairy tale life in lieu of the real one I had detached myself from.
On Thanksgiving, 11/25/21, I woke up at 3 a.m. and decided to pull out the Ikea dollhouse kit and get to work.
First things first. I needed a family.
I labored assiduously on that dollhouse day in and day out for weeks.
Midway through the dollhouse buildout, I decided to gift it to a young girl in California who was going through a challenging situation. I named it The Victoria in her honor, hoping it would bring her some peace and solace.
And no dollhouse is complete without a fairy, which is why I put them in all of my dollhouses.
The Victoria was ready to be shipped.
California here we come!