I Am the Velveteen Rabbit (and So Are You)

So once again, sitting over a cup of tea I am musing philosophically.  (Yes, while at work) I find myself thinking of a lot of things as I go through the usual reports and motions of the day.  I am not ignoring my work; I am working and thinking on fifty different things, as most of you probably do.  The reason I am writing my musing in this blog is because it is something I am thinking, it is also a “Tea Musing” and I told you all from the start that the blog was about “life, the universe, and tea”.

So before we go any further, I got a wonderful (EARLY) birthday gift from Jacquie of tea and tea buttons!  Tea Buttons are SO COOL!  Also the tea is delicious!  It is a white tea called “Angel’s Kiss” with papaya, pineapple, rose petals, and strawberries.  The Sencha is delicious and gives a good flavor to the brew.  The company is “Voila! In Frederick” and their website is coming soon.  When they come online I will post a link for their site.  Otherwise, very tasty!  Also forgiving for over-steeping and good to re-steep…I was cautious to try the re-steep, the over-steeping happened on my second cup because…I’m at work.

OK, now the “Tea Musing”…Let me start with a quote from the book I referenced in the title of this entry:

“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.” – The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

Have you ever noticed how the things we read as children resonate through the rest of our lives?  When I was young there were several books that my parents gave me that I still quote and love to this day.  Honestly, to say several is a low estimate.  My parents were wonderful and bought me lots of books, my family helped too.  I was a well-read child.  I’ve recently had situations that reminded me of certain sayings or quotes from books I read when I was a child…and several more times over my life.  While thinking about situations in life and hearing these quotes in my head, I fondly remembered how I was “told” about all of these life lessons I would come across, these things that would come my way and how I was equipped for most of these moments; whether at that time I realized it or not.  Most of the things that made me ready for the toughest concepts in life, especially when you really think about them were the lessons I learned from books I read as a child.  The Velveteen Rabbit (one of my favorites) is a big one.

Once again I am brought back to Philosophy.  I find myself pondering “The Velveteen Rabbit” and Martin Buber’s “I and Thou”.  Yes, it seems unlikely that any children’s book is really trying to teach us a philosophical ideal but that’s the beauty of it.  Whether it was intended or not, several children’s books opened the door for us to accept certain facts of life and even paved the way for us to understand deeper ideas.  The specific one that always comes to mind when I read “The Velveteen Rabbit” is the idea that we are looking for someone to SEE us, to recognize us for ourselves and allow that exchange and form a meaningful relationship, if even for a second.  We look for someone who “gets” us, who understands each and every scar and shadow, who is willing to stay when we don’t look “shiny and new”.  Through our life experiences, each person loses their sharp edges and becomes a little less fragile, some people don’t they build up walls and sharp edges to hide their fragility but when they let someone in, when they show their mended cracks and re-sewn buttons…that is when they start healing.  The “funny” part is often that we don’t feel Real until someone loves us, until someone accepts us, when someone finds our flaws as just a part of us and LOVES us.

When we are no longer objects or passing strangers but when a meaningful relationship forms, when we are loved, we find out that an amazing transformation has been happening.  I’m not talking about the “love” that teenagers talk about but the “love” that is subject-to-subject, when we share the unity of being.  Now Buber was talking about this ultimate Thou, and I’m not in the mood for a religious debate or articulation on the intricacies of the whole theory…I am meaning the essential truth of the I-Thou relationship that when we become a whole being, more than an object or goal, we are “Real”.  While I would love to state that Descartes was right about “self-realization”, in this case I find that while I do love myself, I didn’t feel Real until someone else LOVED me. 

Yes, my self-reliant, liberal, feminist brain is going, “Seriously chica, you need ‘a man’ to make you feel Real?!” and my response to that is this, “No, I don’t need ‘a man’ to make me feel Real.  I needed people to see me for me, to LOVE me, to keep recognizing me.  I had been slowly but surely becoming Real through all the experiences of life all the bumps and bruises, all the little ‘L’ love and the big “L” love.  But what I realized was that someone SAW me, someone LOVED me, shabbiness and all and I realized that I was ok being comfortable with all of my life experiences, all the hurts and the smiles alike.  I realized that I was Real…and my self-actualization, my self-love became stronger and settled-in because I was LOVED and someone LOVES me.”

So…for anyone reading this and even for the people that won’t read it…know this, some crazy tea-blogger out there loves you and hopes that someday you come to a point where you LOVE yourself and you recognize and accept that you are LOVED…and that you find that with all your shabbiness and your fur rubbed off that you have become Real.

(BTW, to anyone reading this and remembering that the Velveteen Rabbit ending doesn't end with him living happily ever after with the boy, that isn't where the lesson is.  The lesson is that you are loved and you realize that you are loved and that you love in return.  Love is what makes us Real)