Friday Night, I Ended Up in the Emergency Room .

“Sometimes you don’t survive whole, you just survive in part. But the grandeur of life is that attempt. It’s not about that solution.” -Toni Morrison

Currently feel like the Gay, Cuban, Popeye . . . Eye am, what eye’am!”

I’m sitting at a trés chic café in the West Village with a dear friend, talking about very #normalgay things like art, disruption, and this moment. As we chat, I feel a creeping tension—from my shoulder blade to the base of my neck. I shift, roll my shoulders, trying to release the tightness.

As our conversation winds down, I suddenly realize I can’t move the left side of my mouth. I try to smile, but only the right side responds. I text a friend who’s had Bell’s Palsy—a condition causing temporary facial paralysis—and he urges me to get to the ER, right away.

So off I go. Subway to Columbus Circle, meet my boyfriend, and into the ER. Sure enough, I have a mild case of Bell’s Palsy on the left side of my face—the same side where my leg has been struggling with mobility after three leg surgeries. I cannot smile with the LEFT side of my face, my LEFT leg isn’t fully moving. And if this isn’t a metaphor for my week, or my current experience on the planet, I don’t know what is.

Since Tuesday, I’ve been managing self-care as best I can. I turned off the news. Limited social media. Focused on nourishing conversations with people I love and trust. I went to the opera, the theater, museums—whatever feeds the parts of me that are still in motion and longing for beauty.

And I’m left with questions. Many, many questions.

Lately, Toni Morrison’s words have been ringing in my mind as she reflected on the question, “How do you survive whole, in a world where we are all victims of something?” She answers:

“It’s a nice big fat philosophical question, about: how do you get through?

Sometimes you don’t survive whole, you just survive in part. But the grandeur of life is that attempt. It’s not about that solution.

It is about being as fearless as one can, and behaving as beautifully as one can, under completely impossible circumstances. It’s that, that makes it elegant.

Good is just more interesting, more complex, more demanding. Evil is silly, it may be horrible, but at the same time it’s not a compelling idea. It’s predictable. It needs a tuxedo, it needs a headline, it needs blood, it needs fingernails. It needs all that costume in order to get anybody’s attention.

But the opposite, which is survival, blossoming, endurance—those things are just more compelling intellectually if not spiritually, and they certainly are spiritually. This is a more fascinating job. We are already born, we are going to die. So you have to do something interesting that you respect in between.”

Here I am, with limited mobility and a face that’s temporarily half paralyzed, surviving the news and its heartbreak—in parts.

Fearless Communicators has always been my attempt to do something courageous, beautiful, and interesting that I respect, with the gifts and time I have. This work will continue. My prayer is that we get to do this GOOD WORK together, and keep getting into GOOD TROUBLE for a world that needs it.

If you’re reading this and you’re hurting, know that you are seen, held, and loved.

Fearlessly yours,

Eduardo Placer