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Does it hurt to be real?
After Bridget's letter yesterday about keeping it real (see post below), I kept hearing a snippet from the Velveteen Rabbit running around my busy brain: Does it hurt to be real? Finally I had to go look it up & I didn't have the line exactly right but I loved the refresher:
I think when I read it as a wee one, I thought it described friendship. At this point it pretty much sums up my parenting experiences lately: sometimes magical, sometimes shabby (which reminds me of the time when Sam was 4 and he said "Mom! you have two smile lines under your eyes!" Thanks, buddy.) But worth it, definitely worth it. I wouldn't change being Real for anything. But I think I'll take measures so my hair doesn't get rubbed off.The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.
"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.
"The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."
The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called Real happened to him. He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him.
~ Margery Williams
And now, I'm off to the Apple store for a little spa treatment for my poor battered Clementine. A little piece of her edge broke off yesterday & I feel awful about the abuse she has suffered at my hands. Talk about becoming Real!
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Reader Comments (8)
wow. i don't remember the last time i read the velvetine rabbit, but i do know that i have never read it through these eyes. thanks for the beautiful reminder and the challenge to become! i may have to go buy that book now!
I love Velveteen Rabbit. I had not thought of it that way before. Definitely makes sense. Love your posts. Hope Clementine gets feeling better soon. :)
What a beautiful link to a favorite story. Love the analogy. I, too, have not read it in years and so had never thought of it from a parent's eyes. Now I read it, I think - how is there any other way to see it? Just gave me chills. Beautiful, beautiful words.
I see the parallel of children getting older, leaving the safety and magic of childhood and seeing the real world -- the good and the bad. We just had a tragic abduction of a child out here in SLC with a horrendously tragic outcome. My nine year old became aware of the situation before her fate became known because he saw a flier with the missing child's picture and information. You could not avoid noticing the helicopters buzzing around searching for this little girl either. While I enjoy the growth I see in my kids as they get older (including in the humor department -- they can be truly funny not just kid funny), I felt sad about them becoming real as I had to explain to my nine year old before school this morning what had happened to this little girl. Where did the magic of childhood go for my children and for the little girl? Being real can be wonderful and uplifting, incomprehensibly cruel and, of course, somewhere in between. -D
I can't say that I've ever read that book but I can see how it relates to being a parent. My 5 year old son called me an old woman the other day. I could have been hurt by that but to him, I am a woman and I am older than he is so his statement was correct.
I've got to re-read this book. It never meant anything to me, and your excerpt was so tender, I realize I missed the heart of the story. Thanks for mentioning it.
Annie! I love looking at the world through your eyes! Children's lit. is my love language. Thank you for such sweet words!
Love the Velveteen Rabbit. I have not read it in ages. I became "real" when I had my first c-section and then even more real when I had my second. It is my battlewound and I couldn't be more proud of it.