ABSTRACT
Imagine a child playing with other children and using a stick as a horse: The child jumps around his friends, goes places, feeds the horse, claims that the horse is lazy, and so forth. In creating this make-believe play, the child is making present a horse, a horse that otherwise would be absent in this child’s life. Furthermore, he is not only making the horse present but doing things with it. We say that the horse is ready at hand to convey this idea that the horse is made to participate in the child’s playful activities. This scene exemplifies what we call symbolizing: a creation of a space in which the absent is made present and ready at hand.
