Arriving – to the Real.

Arriving. Usually an easily known happening. You know the place, the people, and they know you. Hugs abound, pets join in. Everything is familiar.

But not so with the Infinite. There is no ‘place’, no people, no familiarity. No welcoming hugs to identify safety or security. Actually, it seems the exact opposite of ‘arriving’ is true with the Infinite.

There are no welcome mats, no puppies jumping up and down because of their elation to see you, Nothing. An invisible wonderland of silence.

It is a personal refuge of sorts. Indeed – a getaway of the highest order.

Is there an ‘arrival’? No one has a clue. All of us have had some mysterious event(s) occur in our lives. Are they ‘arrivals’? No idea.

The concept of ‘perpetuity’ comes to mind. Whatever happened, did it change your life from that point on? For me, one experience when I was around thirty, did it for me. Moments were experienced that were shockingly sublime. SHOCKINGLY sublime. From those few moments forward, I was hooked, and I still am. Arrival? For me, Yes!

Since my first reading of the Velveteen Rabbit, it has remained a favorite. A story about being ‘real’, discussed by toys. In it, Margery Bianco, the author, has the Skin Horse say, ‘Real isn’t how you are made, it’s a thing that happens to you’.

Those words still make me cry. ‘It’s a thing that happens TO you.’ Everything about this being real, is given. Not earned, not bought, and not found. It’s a gift. Like a Christmas in the middle of July. Unexpected. Undeserved. Unbelievable.

A profound sense of inner peace.

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 suppose you are real?” said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled. 

“The Boy’s Uncle made me Real,” he said. “That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”