One of most the delightful moments at the Wild Birds Unlimited fair was an approach from a retired teacher named Virginia, who stood patiently while I was talking to someone else and silently waited with a furry beaver puppet on her hand. She explained that her (3rd grade?) elementary classroom had been the “busy beavers” and that a parent who hand made puppets had made her the beaver original.
Now I’m a big fan of folkmanis, but this beaver was adorable, and had the slightly scruffy well loved look that told me he had a very active child-cuddled life.
(You’re all familiar I trust with the story of the velveteen rabbit and what it means for a favorite stuffed animal to become “real”? Well this beaver was well on its way…)
“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day. “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.”
“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.”
Virginia thought that since she wasn’t in the classroom anymore, she would give it to me to use in future child beaver presentations. She had carried it in a plastic baggie all the way to the bird store because she knew Worth A Dam would be there. She was absolutely delighted with the idea that the beaver would continue helping children.
As freely as this gift was offered, I knew it couldn’t be mine. This was a precious totem of her heroic adventures in the classroom battlefield and the light in her eyes told me it reminded her every time she held it why she started teaching in the first place. We agreed that she would keep the puppet, and that she would let me hold it for a while and take a picture with her iphone (of which she spoke so fondly I thought it might also be becoming “real” too…) and she would send me the photo when she could.
The moment I slipped on the puppet I could practically feel the energy and echos of a room full of laughing children. A sudden need to make a beaver voice possessed me, and I knew the first thing out of that beavers mouth would have to be “oh no! mayor rob was trying to kill me!” by the time he got to the sheetpile paneling in their lodge the beaver would have descended into a George Carlin monologue that wasn’t safe for public viewing.
I extracted him unwillingly from my hand, patted the beaver’s head and furry tail and handed him gently back, suggesting she poke some holes in that plastic bag.
Thanks Virginia, for sharing your very special gift with me, and reminding me how our seamstress beavers can thread the needle of community spirit to stich perfect strangers together.
