"What Is Real?" - the Life Mantra of SKINHORSE

Excerpt from

THE VELVETEEN RABBIT

by Margery Williams

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. 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 the 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."

SKINHORSE:
As a 16-year old, I discovered this quote for the first time while shopping at a mall in Tucson, Arizona. It was intertwined within a unique poster-sized artist's rendition of the scene in the nursery. Intrigued and stirred at the first reading, its powerful message soon became my life's mantra. That poster continues to hang within my home today.

The teachings of the Skin Horse have kept me grounded at times when relationships have become all too complicated and painful; or during those periods when the hope for connection has seemed much too distant, shallow, or fleeting to ever begin to fill the empty spaces; and even following the bitter tears inspired by some (with sharp edges) who tend to look for ugliness where only love has ever been.

Becoming Skinhorse in my own right is worth all the attending struggles to me. Thus, I retain a willingness to keep offering up pieces of myself, hoping along the way to meet up with a few more of those who, like me, desire to stay on the path to...Becoming REAL.