Saturday, December 20

What is Real?


From where I am perched..behind this computer I hear the voices of angels. Each click beneath my fingers, into your blog, impacts my next thought. If I open my mind and listen, the truth is heard from all of those speaking. It's what they say and how it is said that everyone is captured. Sorry... follows the truth that unfolds only to become silent again. This comes from a person with a closet of pain and a voice that wants to carry. If it's the key pad that talks than a step has been taken...never to be hushed again.

This is how I feel when I read your blogs daily. I love to see the silence unfolding, read as the strength is growing and setting someone free. Some are happy and some are mad, but the sad always say, sorry. If it wasn't for those of you who have the strength to speak someone else might always feel alone. I admire "real" people. This time of year isn't easy for all, but the festivities always go on. It is also the time of year that I think more and more about what is "real" to me. Many years ago my heart was captured by the words written within a book.

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."

I want to talk all of you who read my blog. It's a little funny, a little silly, a little dreamy, a little dumb and a lot of "real".

Now, go have some fun and sign up for my "gift-a-ways...click here and click here. :D

18 comments:

Unknown said...

Boy, does that bring back memories. That was my favorite book when I was little. I havn't thought about it in so long. I have to get it for my kids.

Jill said...

Blogging is such an interesting way to get to know someone, and it has been really interesting reading the blogs of people I know well because several of them don't seem like them at all. I feel like I am real and don't sugar coat things on my blog because it's important to me that I'm capturing my real life and not fictionalizing it. I don't know that everyone else feels that way, but being honest on mine has helped me become more comfortable with who I really am.

rachel said...

This is a beautiful post!

Alexis AKA MOM said...

It's so funny you write about this I've been thinking about this same subject for some time. It's great to write and feel the release that comes along with that, it's like the calm that my life so needs.

Thanks for bringing up that book, that was one of my favorites as a child. I think I still have my copy, I'm going to have to go find it.

Thanks Ann!

Cassie said...

This is a great post. I'll admit that I am definitely one to have a hard shell. It's just the way I was brought up I guess. It is refreshing to read the blogs of people that you have come to know, and realize...no remember... that everyone has some kind of turmoil within, often much like our own. It does soften my shell a bit more each day!

The Velveteen Rabbit is such a wonderful story. I didn't know it as a child. It wasn't until my niece was born that I read it. Such a wonderful lesson!

Aunt Julie said...

The Velveteen Rabbit has always been one of my favorite children's books! And your salute to blogging is so true...sometimes it's difficult to pull myself away!

Mandy said...

Love the Velveteen Rabbit!

Patois42 said...

What a great comparison.

larkswing said...

What a great post! Very warm!

Are you back home? Did your package arrive before you left? I hope so, if not, let me know and I will send another :)

Anonymous said...

It's true about blogs. I think we open up more through this format than we might in person. It's therapeutic, isn't it? Not to mention highly addictive.

Michelle said...

Hi, new here! I really appreciated your post. Thanks for sharing.

Kelly said...

How nice to read such a great excerpt from The Velveteen Rabbit. I have to remember to get a copy for my son.

Thanks for stopping by my blog!

mommytoalot said...

Great post, you are a fantastic writer. Just popping in from SITS.

Amy Clary said...

I just read this book to Alex the other day. :)
I hear what you're saying about being real too. I would never try to make things sound better than they are. BUT...I have a rule for myself. If I post something negative, I have to find a way to spin it to the positive side. That's the way I do things in real life so that's how I blog them too.
P.s. I'm getting GREAT sleep with my boy in his new bed. Thanks for asking. :) He's really taken to it.

Aleta said...

What a beautiful post! Thank you for visiting my blog and for bringing me to yours as well. I look forward to reading more.

The story reminds of a childhood toy. I loved my Teddy Bear. By the time that I was older, he lost one eye, the tiny plastic nose had been stitched back on countless times, the stuffing was coming out of one paw - but, oh, how I loved that Teddy Bear. Nice to know he's "real."

Glad to meet you!

Alyson | New England Living said...

I loved this post. You are such an awesome, real chick and I love reading you.

Good luck on your adventure into Quebec!

Jolene said...

Wow, what a thought-provoking post...

michelle said...

That was my favorite book when I was a girl. It is sometimes very painful to be real! But I like what you said about others being helped when we are real, so true.