There's a haunting little memoir entitled The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, the story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, former editor of the French fashion magazine, Elle. At the age of 43, Jean-Dominique suffered a rare kind of stroke to the brain stem. He woke after twenty days in a coma. Only his left eye functioned. But his mind was unimpaired, frozen in a body, which had, but one meager way to communicate. It's the story about what it is like to be locked up, a prisoner in your own skin. I cannot imagine the terror, the claustrophobia. It is one thing to feel misunderstood. It is quite another to have utterly no recourse. To feel completely at the mercy of your body, medical and personal opinion, the good will of friends and acquaintances, and above all else, silence. In this case, the indictment of silence.

It was in that world that Bauby learned to probe inlets of sanity, or as he called them, the "only windows to my cell." To fall prey to daydreams of walking and talking. To find the "hours drag on but the months flash by."

And then this:

This is a story about resiliency. And ultimately, about love. Love of life.  

I heard Alan Jones say that "indiscriminate and unconditional love may be at the heart of reality, but that's too vague a thing to bet your life on." I get the point. This all sounds good on paper, but it is not an easy sell, especially when we live in a world where we can put money down on the promised land of resolution--meaning any fantasy place we can go physically or mentally to consume fictitious resolve. We live in a world where we are fueled by the promise of that imaginary day when all will be easier. Are we there yet? Are we done now? 

Resilience is what happens when we give up control and are willing to embrace the ambiguity. And in that ambiguity, to hear--and to take delight in--the wingbeats of butterflies.

Regardless of our circumstances life pulls us inexorably toward love and beauty, even though it may be wrapped in aching pain and or delicious hope. To engage this pull, this fuel that feeds life, is the sacred necessity of resilience. Which means that resilience allows us to live with intention. Now. We do not put off until tomorrow what can be embraced, enjoyed, felt, or experienced today. This includes our sadness, our pain, our disappointment and our grief.  

Where does one get resilience?  

Or butterfly hearing?  

Is this a gene only given to the lucky?

Pat--a fellow writer--and I had the task of taking the thirty or so manuscripts and setting them in some sort of readable and coherent progression.  I went to her place for an afternoon of work.  She lives on the east side of the island, and her house--the original portion built in the 1930s--sits on two acres of lowbank waterfront, looking out over the Puget Sound toward Seattle and the Cascade mountain range.  We sat, working at a desk facing the water.  The water lay relatively still, and cormorants hang out on makeshift moorings, like bored teenagers without a car. 

Pat and I talked about the chapters and about the book.  We talked about the water and the Orca whales, now congregated around our island for their annual salmon feeding.  And Pat asked about my father.  She knew he had cancer, and was currently in the middle of his chemo treatments.  Pat also wears a turban, the obligatory concession to an alliance with the powerful drugs waging war on her behalf in her own body. 

I told her that my father was in good spirits, knowing that his cancer was stage one, and that there was a reasonable shot at containing it.
I asked her about her health, but was reluctant to press.
"I'm stage four," she told me matter-of-factly.  "That's all there is.  There are no more stages."
Stage four is when doctors begin to talk about time.  When they reluctantly tell you (will it be months or days?) how long you have to live.
"Is it in your lungs?" I asked.
"They've seen some spots on the x-rays, but don't know what to make of them yet."  She paused and we watched a cormorant cruise a few inches above the water, as if the water and bird were negative magnets, keeping an exact spacing between the two.  A massive freighter drifted by, a condominium of railway containers, it's idle pace certainly belying its mission. 
Pat went on, "My oncologist originally told me I'd be on the chemo treatments for nine months.  Well, it's been nine months.  So I asked her about it.  I mean what would happen if we saw that all my blood work hadn't shown any signs of weakening.  She told me, 'Then we'll just keep at it.'  Which means, of course, that I'll be on chemo forever." 

There's just no way to make such a statement and sound unaffected.  Or no way to hear it, and go about your day as if the scales of our faith have not been tipped.  I listened.  Thinking about my father and how when we go into a restaurant together--in the small town where he lives--he can point to others who have and have had, cancer.  It's a fraternity I am not privy to.  And I can tell it means something to him to know he's not alone in all of this.
As she continued, her eyes clouded.  "I wanted my doctor to tell me that she had great news.  I wanted her to tell me that I was the lucky one in 500,000 people who beat this thing." 

We sat silently.  Because I didn't know what to say after that.  Maybe I couldn't handle the obvious.  It's true that the temptation to be a constrained cheerleader is visceral.  As if there is a need to say something upbeat, say anything for fear of what the silence may mean.  As if left to hang above us, the silence will descend and choke us in its thick sorrow.  As if through words, we have to make something of the moment.
"Are you troubled by any of the other side affects?" I finally asked her.
"No," she smiled. "I'm fortunate there.  No nausea.  And I still have quite a bit of energy."

I didn't want to ask what that felt like.  The knowing that your days are numbered part.  So we chatted a bit longer.  Mostly about the book.  It was pleasant, and the truth is that I could have stayed a bit longer.  Had a cup of tea and watched the ships float by.  But I didn't want to intrude on her time.  That's what I told myself anyway.  Or maybe I couldn't handle the obvious.  That when one lives smack-dab in the present, it is not easy to suspend our regrets over yesterday or our fears about tomorrow--especially when tomorrow may never come. 
At any rate, I had a long list of things to do before the afternoon was up, and my mind started sifting through the pile.  You don't want to ignore the list, what with its relentless harangue.  So I said my goodbyes and took my leave.  We'll see each other again at another of our island writers get-togethers. 
Of course we will.  

Here's the deal: Resilience involves inviting all of life in... the longing, hunger, vulnerability, wildness, energy, uncertainty, appetite, hope, humor, beauty, and irony. We are not outrunning life. Or outrunning the bad parts of life.  

Only when we embrace do we see.  

Only when embrace do we hear... with butterfly hearing.

I see now that with my friend Pat, I was afraid to honor that space, waiting instead for some issue to be resolved, for miracles to spirit us past the messiness. I wanted to see beyond the mess. I know now that such a thing is possible only if I embrace the mess, this clay of life.
If I run, I do not honor.
If I do not honor I do not allow for the space that enables me to give, receive, move, grow and love.