There once was 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. On Christmas morning, when he sat wedged in the top of the Boy’s stocking, with a sprig of holly between his paws, the effect was charming.

V Rabbit

I don’t know how I came to regard this book with such a sense of wonder. Perhaps because I’m the type who doesn’t just read stories–I live them. Perhaps this one had just enough fiction in its reality, with a rabbit who is alive inside of his cotton-stuffed skin, and a decent sense of wonder himself, that I recognized a kindred soul on the pages.
My world was huge, inside my mind, even at six and seven years old. I coasted through dry summer days in Nevada’s desert, braving the sage-flavored wind and dust devils like all the other kids. I watched eagerly with my brothers for the first snow to fall, hands pressed against the foggy pane of the living room window and leaving smudges that obscured the view. Unlike the other kids, I paid little attention to who was doing what, escaping with a book whenever I could. When no escape was available, my imagination would fend for itself.

Epic adventures played out across the evergreen landscape of my mind, things I never bothered to write down or tell others about any more than one would note brushing their teeth or drinking water when they got thirsty.

“What is Real?” the Rabbit asks his friend, the Skin Horse.
“Real isn’t how you are made,” The Skin Horse tells him.“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.”

The Rabbit wished that he could become Real without these uncomfortable things happening to him.

Being bigger on the inside, and staying that way, is a rare quality. It’s a constant struggle. Becoming Real is so painful, many of us turn into make-believe. We call it survival. Things happen, that you remember dimly without much color, because you manage to stay out of trouble. Escape pain and poverty and loss as best you can. Sit in offices. Play the stock market. Develop ulcers. This is no way to live. I would rather end up shabby and much-loved, carved deep with pain so that joy can fill me just as deeply.

And once…the Rabbit was left out on the lawn until long after dusk, and Nana had to come and look for him with the candle because the Boy couldn’t go to sleep unless he was there…

“You must have your old Bunny!” she said. “Fancy all that fuss for a toy!”

The Boy sat up in bed and stretched out his hands. “Give me my Bunny!” he said. “You mustn’t say that. He isn’t a toy. He’s Real!”

When the little Rabbit heard that, he was happy…and so much love stirred in his little sawdust heart that it almost burst. And into his boot-button eyes, that had long ago lost their polish, there came a look of wisdom and beauty, so that even Nana noticed it the next morning when she picked him up, and said, “I declare if that old Bunny hasn’t got quite a knowing expression!”

There’s a lot to be said for storybook wisdom. Real is worth it.