Cages or Wings?

...which do you prefer?

For those who have been following along for a while, then you likely know how I feel about the birds (and the bees) and that everything that follows is ultimately for them… and you.¹

Fear or love?²

This question was raised in conversation with a magical friend, Toby, only hours before my husband spontaneously invited me to re-watch the biographical musical film, “Tick, Tick… Boom!”

I was sharing with Toby what I am about to share with you (and him again, since he is also reading along. Hi Toby ;)

Don't say the answer
Actions speak louder than words

Several of you (including Toby) have said, “I want to know what happened!”

Here’s the truth.

What happened happened after the ICU.

Tick, Tick…Boom!

This story was never about almost dying 7 days ago.

Every day is a near death experience.

Until the day it’s not.

Fear or love is the only thing this story has ever been about.

When Andy returned to the ICU several hours later, he arrived with the Island Fox³, the one I was imagining, intending and requesting. He also delivered a second. One I hadn’t dreamed yet deeply desired to be present with me.

In order to to understand the significance, you have to understand the meaning. Which means you have to know the story of The Little Prince⁴ as well as my insatiable love of stuffed animals.

The one on the right is the Island Fox. My family knows the one on the left is to be buried with me after I die. He is to keep me company, nurture me and stay with me as I turn into a Redwood tree. He is the one who teaches and reminds me without speaking a word, to see rightly with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye⁵.

Actions speak louder than words…

As time ticked the steroids and antibiotics, pain medicines and anti-nausea medicines worked their magic. Equally potent in my healing was the love being bestowed upon me by every nurse who patiently read what I wrote when I needed to pee, or walk, or...

My infectious disease cultures finally returned and offered an explanation for what likely caused all the fuss: Parainfluenza Type II — made a nice bed to accumulate puss.

When I saw the senior Ear, Nose and Throat doctor, I asked him how common it is to have Parainfluenza Type II cause acute suppurative laryngitis?

He said quite succinctly, “Not. I’ve never seen it do this before.”

So now you know.

And I know I have been leading you on to get to this point. To this reveal. Which I can appreciate may feel a little anticlimactic. So I want to offer you the real reason I started to share this story. It was never about what happened before or during the ICU.

It was never about the Destination.

This rambling and meandering preamble is about the journey to come.

Which brings me back to the conversation I was having with Toby about Fear or Love and the serendipity of my husband’s invitation to re-watch Tick, Tick…Boom! that same evening.

It came without word. Without explanation.

He simply crawled into bed, reached for his iPad, clicked play then reached out his left arm to wrap under my shoulders and pull me close as he balanced the screen on his chest for us both to see.

We’ve both seen it before. I recall we even both appreciated it. Though different parts. I love the references to Sondheim. Andy, less so.

Yet nothing seemed obvious as to why this movie this night.

I had not shared my conversation with Toby, and even if I had, I don’t believe Andy would have recognized the question he posed as inspiration for needing to watch this film. I clearly hadn’t.

The film has several moments of intense soul-searching, choice making, seeming life-altering points in time. One of the most searing is when Johnathon’s agent speaks words that were the opposite of what he wanted to hear.

He wanted to hear he had arrived.

The Destination: his work, his gifts, to have finally been received by the world. To know he had created something meaningful. Something that made a difference.

To hear, instead, that what he had created was, as wonderful and appreciated as it was, still not enough…and that he needed to make “the next…and the next…” felt like his heart may just….⁶

And yet, it is ultimately, exactly, what he did…until he couldn’t….

I know this feeling.  I suspect we all do on some level.

Yet with my husband, I have wondered if he knows how hard it is for me to share what I write. What I create. To put it out into the world. Only to be told I’ve not yet arrived at my Destination. And need to keep writing and creating, and writing and creating. Because, like breathing, it is what I am compelled to do…because I can⁷.

Until I can’t.

When Andy let the iPad fall flat on his chest at the end of the film, he reached out with both his arms. Squeezed me so tight I thought it might be my last exhale. Then whispered words we’d both just heard. Words that, seasoned with the rarest of saltwater, went from excruciating to exquisite⁸. And in so doing, breathed life back into me like the Elk in Fantasia 2000.

“Don’t stop. Keep Going.”

I share this all to say that what you are waiting for is not necessarily what you have been thinking.

The ICU didn’t change me. It didn’t lead to an epiphany that changed the way I care for people. The ICU was a Rabbit Hole⁹. And like Alice, I became curiouser and curiouser… which I hope remains true for you. The adventure is just beginning.

Thank you for continuing on this journey to save the planet and humanity by Communicating Love…because you can…because we need YOU. I promise what’s behind the ICU “looking glass” is worth the wait.

No matter what, know that I am so grateful you are HERE.

1. The Title and subtitle are lyrics by Jonathan D. Larson from “Tick, Tick… Boom!” and reminiscent of my very first post to this substack story (I can’t add footnotes to a Title or I would have directly linked you to the “What are you waiting for?” inaugural post:)

2. Also words of Johnathon D. Larson…which I hadn’t recalled until I re-watched Andrew Garfield’s astonishing performance in, you guessed it, “Tick, Tick… Boom!”

3. Per the the National Park Service, “…the island fox only live on 6 of the 8 Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California—they are found nowhere else on Earth” save my nightstand;)

4. Please see footnote 11 in “Feeling Intensely” or just leave a note saying you’d like to talk about The Little Prince. This is one of my most favorite ways to share an afternoon:)

5. This Fox is the newest interpretation of the Fox from Mark Osborne’s film adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s, The Little Prince. My family knows to place these words spoken by the Fox on my epitaph and more importantly to speak them to me and live by them while I am very much alive.

6. If you don’t know his story…spoiler alert.

7. Foreshadowing.

8. Please see footnote 8 in “The invisible injury of grief” for a more detailed explanation.

9. Reference to Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, in case you were Wonder-ing ;)