On becoming real. As we shelter in place I’m finding myself looking for familiar comfort in books I’ve read many times. Madeline L’engle and LM Montgomery, CS Lewis, and Louisa May Alcott. Today I found my inspiration in the classic The Velveteen Rabbit.  This morning I was reminded that as I slow down and really begin to feel things – sometimes it hurts a little. When I’m so busy I don’t have time to feel, I become numb. But as I slow down and pay attention, I feel others joy and their pain too. Deep inside me I know this is worth recognizing. Its as if my heart is melting and becoming soft again. I cry more easily. I giggle more. There are also changes in my physical appearance. My grey hair is growing out, my body is shifting as I can’t do my regular workouts. In many ways I’m on my way to becoming my real self again.  And  I think thats who I want to be for my family and community now. The real me. Its not glamorous and it’s certainly vulnerable, but it feels right. #butterflybtc “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.” #bethechange #butterflyeffectbtc