Question: You have the opportunity to teach me something, a skill, or experience or anything really. What would you want to teach me?
Answer: This is difficult because I think you were already on the path to learning it when we first collided into each other here. I don’t wish for the answer to imply that you have not already been learning it… I think you know this, but perhaps don’t carry it with you daily… yet.
That said: I wish to teach you most of all how much the scars of life add to our beauty. It is told better than I have words to say in the story of The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams. I have mentioned it here on numerous occasions. It was reintroduced to me by <lj-user=gearjock> a year or two ago.
The most poignant passage for me: “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”
If I were to guess, I would say you have the first bit of this in your heart. I think you know how the trials of your life have added to the person you are becoming. I am not so certain that you believe the last bit of it yet. That is where I would focus my effort in knowing you. Our world puts silly amounts of importance into things that everyone will lose over time. I think that single thing does the most damage to our ability to love ourselves.
Another excerpt: “Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you….”
“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…”
As I suggested earlier, i don’t think any of this is new to you; I would simply wish to leave the lights burning on the path while you catch up to me. It is nice to have company on a long journey.
March is question month: ask your questions here.
gryphon's hole 