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Being REAL

’What is REAL?’ asked the Rabbit one day. ’Does it mean having that buzz inside of you, and a stick-out handle?’

’REAL isn’t how you were made,’ said the Skin Horse. ’It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a 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 often happen 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.’

- Margery Williams, “The Velveteen Rabbit“

thaamb tai, kunkoo laavte…

“thaamb tai, kunkoo laavte“, she said. And as we went through that simple ritual, and she took that pinch of vermillion to put on my forehead, our eyes met. In that one moment, all acknowledged. Our stories exchanged. Our histories interwove. The vermillion mark on our foreheads the testimony of millenia of standing together, shoulder to shoulder, leading the same lives, no matter where. In that one moment, I heard her… or was it me?

i am the mother
i nurture, i care
i am the crone
wisdom deep in my eyes
i am the daughter
i serve and cajole
the tired, hardened heart
i am the warrior
i fight to protect
the destiny of my children
i am the wife
who toils through the day
ensuring food
for everyone
i am the mate
in me rests the tranquility
of the home
i am the Earth
i bear the burden
i tolerate, i accept
all needless violence
unleashed upon me
i am the whore
i tease, please and satisfy
i am the goddess
all encompassing, forgiving
sita, laxmi, durga
all rolled in one
i am that kunkoo
that vermillion mark
with which all my identities
have been defined.

where am i then?
that frail human being?
not mother, not wife,
not daughter, not whore,
not warrior, not goddess…
but that just that frail being
who cries, who fears
who rages, who resents
who lusts, who yearns,
dreams, and desires…?
all of these
subjugated
submerged
sublimated
in that one pinch of destiny
burned and branded
on my forehead.