Ceci Giltenan, Author

One of my favorite children’s books will always be The Velveteen Rabbit.

Description:
A toy velveteen rabbit longs to be loved, and he begins to experience this when a boy adopts him as his favorite toy. But the rabbit wonders about “real” after meeting two rabbits with feet that pad softly on the ground and with noses that twitch. He learns that he can’t jump like the other rabbits and that he smells different. It’s only when a mysterious nursery fairy kisses him that the velveteen rabbit learns finally what it’s like to be real—not just to the boy, but to everyone.

If you have never read it, you really should. It is enchanting and I promise you are not too old.

As the description suggests, the toy bunny wants to understand “real” and asks one of the oldest, wisest, toys in the nursery 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?”

“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.”

The Velveteen Rabbit. Public Domain Books.

I am real. I sometimes have to remind myself of that. Perhaps some of you were able to join me and two of my author friends, Sue-Ellen Welfonder and Kate Robbins on Monday night for our “Girls Night Out” party. In case you missed it, the three of us went out to dinner and invited our readers to join us “virtually” on Facebook. We posted photos, games and trivia questions and at the end of the night gave away some prizes. I had a wonderful time and I suspect many of our readers did as well.

What does this have to do with being “real”? As I look at those pictures, all I see are my flaws. My turkey neck, my frizzy hair, my fat arms–well my fat everything for that matter.

I am not perfect. In fact, I am a little shabby but I am proud to be Real. I live my life in the open, sharing myself with my friends and readers. I don’t hide behind an ancient photo taken when I was younger, thinner, and firmer or pretend to set the perfect example. I am not one of the beautiful women I create, but then, they aren’t Real, are they? Like the Skin Horse said, when you are Real even if you have become loose in the joints and shabby, “these things don’t matter at all.”

It takes time to become real and sometimes it is a bit painful. It doesn’t happen to people who “break easily” or “have to be carefully kept.” It also takes wisdom to recognize the value in being Real, and to know that “once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

Here’s to all of you who are Real, who don’t break easily and embrace life in all of its imperfections.

Christ is risen.

❤ Ceci

I am not sure there is a worse feeling.

In February, I did a month of courage related posts, in anticipation of the release of Highland Courage. All of us would like to believe that if faced with some some horrible circumstance, we would do what we could to change it. If you saw a car speeding toward your child, or anyone’s child, I firmly believe most most of us would do whatever they could to try and save the child.

I believe humans are hard-wired for action. If there is a problem we want to do something. Even if we are too far away to help physically, we want to donate money, goods or services. At our deepest levels I believe we need to help. To do.

For that reason, we find it overwhelming when there is absolutely nothing that can be done, when we are helpless.

My heart broke today when I read about the last cell phone messages sent to loved ones from people on the Korean ferry that sank. I imagined receiving a text from one of my children. Mom, I’m trapped. I don’t know if I’ll make it. The utter helplessness of being perhaps hundreds of miles away, knowing that your child may be facing death and not being able to do anything must have been devastating.

People face helplessness every day. Perhaps they have a child with an incurable disease. Perhaps they must look on as a loved one self-destructs, with no power to act. No matter the reason, by virtue of being humans innately programmed to do, we will never be able to face helplessness with ease.

At times like this, I can only turn to God. My thoughts and prayers today are with those Korean families, and everyone else who find themselves feeling that kind of devastating helpless.

Psalm 121
I lift up my eyes to the hills—
from where will my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
He who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time on and forevermore.

Déjà vu? Yes I suggested this a few months ago but I thought I would do it again.

Word of mouth is the single best promotional tool for nearly any product or service.

How many times have you gone to see a movie, eaten at a restaurant, or even made an appointment with a doctor because of a friend’s recommendation? When we first moved to New Jersey in 2000, we had never experienced a classic “diner.” When we went out to dinner it was always to a chain restaurant, Bob Evans, Perkins, Shoney’s, or similar.

However, none of these chains had a location near us in Burlington. Instead there were little diners, Liberty II, Wedgwood and Mastoris. Unlike the slick, uniform appearance of the chains with which we were familiar, most of these places looked a bit shabby from the outside. I had eaten breakfast in the odd greasy spoon in Maryland but beyond breakfast, they weren’t great dining options so I passed on these.

One day, I moaned to a coworker, “There were no good family restaurants near us.”

She couldn’t have looked more shocked if I had let out a string colorful expletives. “What are you talking about? You live just a few miles from Mastoris?” She said the word “Mastoris” almost reverently.

“What is Mastoris?”

“It is one of the best diners in New Jersey.”

“Oh. I’ve never been a big fan of diners. I was thinking of something like Bob Evans.”

“Well, once you eat at a good Jersey diner, you will NEVER want to eat at Bob Evans again.” She proceeded to tell me about the wonders of diners, specifically Mastoris, (they have the best cheese bread on the planet). So we tried Mastoris. Everything she said was true, right down to the best cheese bread on the planet. I am not sure I would have ever given Mastoris or any other diner a try had it not been for her recommendation. I would have missed so much.

There are books I love for the same reason. When I was eight a neighbor suggested the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. As a teenager, my friend Paula Leger gave me my first steamy historical romance–I was hooked. In the early nineties, my friend and neighbor Nancy Kressler gave me Firefly Summer, by Maeve Binchy (God rest her soul). I loved it. Since then I have read almost everything Maeve Binchy has ever written. As one of Ireland’s greatest authors ever, perhaps she didn’t need for Nancy to promote her books to me–but I needed them.

My suggestion today is that you recommend something that you love to a friend. You will not only be helping promote whatever it is, you might be giving a lasting gift to your friend.

Having said that, I would be both grateful and honored if you choose to tell a friend about one of my novels today.

❤ Ceci