“THERE was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really splendid. He was fat and bunchy, as a rabbit should be; his coat was spotted brown and white, he had real thread whiskers, and his ears were lined with pink sateen.”*
Pre 2014, I was the velveteen rabbit, or in my case, the satin rabbit – I was splendid in my smugness. Admired in both the organisation and institution I was part of. Sure, there were detractors, but for the most part, I looked good and acted in accord with that persona. There is nothing wrong with a persona. Many of us have multiple personas. The problem is when our personas become our personhood. The problem is when it comes time to put down our personas, we can’t because they have been fused with our personhood. To put down one would be to put down the other. In “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell, this line gripped me like a vice – “He wore a mask, and his face grew to fit it.” That described me to a T.
My persona was too beautiful to be examined or excised. It was to be preserved and perpetuated. Until August 30th, 2014. Then the fact of my incongruence was exposed. That beneath the pristine exterior was a pathetic interior. But then began the journey of being real….
“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….. once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”
That’s why it’s so hard to be real or to even want to be real. It means being loved to the point of breaking and having the sharp edges sanded down, and not having to be carefully kept or viewed. Being real means being vulnerable. But the fear of being judged, of being looked at for who we really are and not who we would like others to see us, prevents us from being real.
Sometimes it hurts in the process of becoming real. Who would rather not be loved for their beauty than for their banality? Yet, the persona that is not congruent with our personhood drives us further into perpetuating an image of who we want others to see then of the real us. In Greek mythology, Narcissist fell in love not with himself, but with an image of himself – a critical distinction. We want others to love the image we project, and the greatest tragedy to emanate from that is that we then come to believe that this image we project is who we really are. This was me leading up to August 30th, 2014.
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.
The exposure of August 30th, 2014 was what I clearly would have not wanted to have to happen in the journey to becoming real. Yet, it was that very posture of not wanting uncomfortable things to happen that necessitated those uncomfortable things happening. As I have mused in other reflections, August 30th, 2014 was a day of grace for me. Painful for me and as much for those I loved and those who loved me. Could it have happened with less collateral damage to others? Yes, it could have, but the propensity to self-deception and justification knows very few boundaries. Real happened for me through the agency of uncomfortable things.
Weeks passed, and the little Rabbit grew very old and shabby, but the Boy loved him just as much. He loved him so hard that he loved all his whiskers off, and the pink lining to his ears turned grey, and his brown spots faded. He even began to lose his shape, and he scarcely looked like a rabbit any more, except to the Boy. To him he was always beautiful, and that was all that the little Rabbit cared about. He didn’t mind how he looked to other people, because the nursery magic had made him Real, and when you are Real shabbiness doesn’t matter.
In these ‘weeks’ that have passed – over 7 years since August 2014, I have traded ‘persona’ for ‘essentialis’. For me, it has meant scarcely looking like a satin rabbit, but increasingly more like a shabby one. “When you are Real, shabbiness doesn’t matter”, at least to people who matter. Those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter won’t mind. To those who matter, the essentialis is what being real is about, and that’s what matters. The heart of the matter is the matter of the heart.
“I am the nursery magic Fairy,” she said. “I take care of all the playthings that the children have loved. When they are old and worn out and the children don’t need them any more, then I come and take them away with me and turn them into Real.” “Wasn’t I Real before?” asked the little Rabbit. “You were Real to the Boy,” the Fairy said, “because he loved you. Now you shall be Real to every one.”
I cannot and steadfastly refuse to minimise or negate who I was in the years preceding August 2014. So much of it was wonderful and beautiful and enlivening. I was real before, but only to those who really and truly knew me. I was ‘unreal’ to those I wanted to project an image of what I wanted them to see and to believe of me. How do I know this? A defining experience which occurred exactly 7 years, 7 months, and 7 days from August 30th, 2014, happened, in of all places, a prison where I spent 25 years in a full-time capacity and 36 years and counting, volunteering.
It was a correctional unit that housed men who have taken a decision to renounce their gang affiliation, of men wanting to become real. I was invited to address them and at the end of that session, the Office-in-Charge asked if anyone wanted to say anything of encouragement to me. One of those who spoke up said he had met me 11 years ago when I was then Executive Vice President of the organisation that served those imprisoned and their families. In his words, “When I met you 11 years ago, you were confident. Today I see and hear you again, and now you are REAL.”
*(paragraphs in italics are excerpts from ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’ by Margery Williams)
ACTIO SEQUITUR ESSE (Action Follows Essence – A Call to Action):
1. In what ways have my desire to be affirmed, adulated, applauded, and appreciated, stood in the way of my being real?
2. How might I summon the courage to be real, even at the risk of being judged or even rejected?