I loved playing with paper dolls. Baby dolls were all right, but not quite as nice, and anyway my parents didn't give me one. Although I did want one. I liked the long lashes, and how the eyes closed when you laid them down.
Barbies I also liked, although my father and some other adults said bad things about them. I think that to me they were a bit in the same category as paper dolls.
I also liked and wanted coloring books, but my parents were against them as well for some reason. I think they were supposed to somehow curb creativity.
Legos! Yes! Even now...
I did also like the electric car tracks that our friends had—especially if they had vertical loops. I guess it must have been the physics. I also liked to observe how tiny toy cars rolled on inertia, but don't remember ever pretending to drive them. I was baffled by how some boys seemed to know all the models—to me they all were... well, cars. Some just rolled better or were prettier than others.
I did like putting together plastic models, but didn't really play with them much once they were complete. In a way they were like Legos.
Superballs, or whatever they're called—the way they bounced was absolutely fascinating. As was the way an arrow flew when flung by a bowstring, and the way a kite caught and danced in the wind. Anything that soared through the air was lovely. I vividly remember the dreams where I myself would fall and find I could glide, rise and swoop like a bird.
As for ball games, I rather hated baseball, football and most other team sports except for volleyball. I also couldn't understand why they'd excite anyone other than the players themselves.
I loved sitting and floating in huge inner tubes and diving through them. And diving for shellfish and sea urchins, and cooking them over a driftwood fire while sitting wrapped up in towels with my sisters and other village children on the sun-warmed rocks.
And I loved to read. We weren't allowed to watch TV much, and my parents didn't buy us video games, but we had what felt like an infinite library... I also liked it when we read them aloud or made up stories to tell each other.
I also liked board games. As for video games—my parents never bought us any so we only played them at friends' houses. I bought my first one after I started living alone.
But this is already getting a bit long, and I'm drifting off subject so I think I probably should stop now...
