Had Jean-Do not woke from a 20-day coma after a massive stroke at the age of 43 to find himself “locked in”, safe bet he’d still be top-down tearing up the french countryside, making wave-crashing love on the beach, and carving up Chamonix Mont Blanc on his skis.
He’d still be gorging himself on oysters and other sensual pleasures with no end in sight.
But since he could no longer move a muscle, feel any sensation in his body, or utter a word, he did the next best thing.
He set himself free with his imagination. He found pleasure. And he wrote about it.
In his miraculous memoir — written with more than 200,000 blinks of his eye at a speed of 2 minutes per word — Jean-Dominique Bauby gives the world the experiences of his daily routines, inner struggles and most intimate relationships from his locked-in perspective. The film’s portrayal of his story is a sensual masterpiece that fired within me in many, many chambers before coming to rest heavily in one place with one question for myself.
“Why do you settle for imagination when you can still do it?”
Your legs can carry you to where you want to be, your arms are free to hold the ones you love, your hands can move to create what you can imagine, and you can speak the words from your lips as they form in your heart.
So go ahead — pinch cheeks, ruffle hair and plant kisses. Taste new things everyday and let people get under your skin. Throw your arms around who and what you love and say what you mean in the moment.
Yes, it’s true things change. They change in the blink of an eye.
And that’s precisely the point.
JULIE ANN STEVENS 