 "Photo: Becca Salmon")
 "Photo: Dayna Ghiraldi")
There is a movement where the sick and the healed write "Love" on their arms. There is a group of people in more than 40 countries, every state of this nation, young and of every ideology, who have a passion for hope and a penchant for saving. There is a rising development for the two out of three people who struggle with depression and don't say anything about it - a movement to write "love" over the pain.
It's the evening of Nov. 12 and the fifth stop on the coffeehouse tour along the East Coast for the group To Write Love On Her Arms, and it's all Brew Ha Ha! and Newark tonight.
To Write Love On Her Arms is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. This is the mission statement for a group that started from a 1,535-word story of a girl's rescue from the darkest moment of her life.
Jamie Tworkowski is a tall, soft-spoken, 28-year-old Floridian. He is also the founder of TWLOHA and the loudest voice for the team - retelling, explaining and carrying on the meaning of the story he authored more than two years ago.
To Write Love on Her Arms is a community centered on MySpace - "where it all began," according to the Web site. It was there that the story was first printed by Tworkowski in early 2006, after he and some friends decided to take their friend Renee Yohe through a five-day rescue before she was admitted to a treatment center.
His story begins with, "Pedro the Lion is loud in the speakers," and flows, explaining how five days filled with standing on stage at concerts, impassioned books and unlimited coffee helped Yohe in her journey to recovery. Tworkowski described those days in a blog, the theme heavy with looking up to the stars for enlightenment, and that rescue is possible. He posted it as a blog to help anyone else, if only one, feeling the same numbing pain as Yohe.
Then came the comments. The stories of thanks, of needing and of desperation from MySpace users. It was as if someone suddenly pointed out the giant elephant in the room. The attention and the community of the hurting who didn't have a voice were suddenly very much alive.
For this tour, Tworkowski and a team of two members and two musicians are stopping in towns to help communities spark conversation and connect with each other.
"Part of what we say in these settings is that we're not the solutions," he says. "We're not the cool guys passing through town, trying to fix everything in one night. We're inviting everyone into a conversation, in hopes that it will continue."
The second-floor coffeehouse is littered with a crowd of young adults and a few teenagers. They sit on the floor and share chairs or stand against walls. Those that come in for an espresso stay for a minute or two, or the whole night.
The lights dim at 7:04, and three minutes later Tworkowski says, "Hello, welcome to Delaware," and the crowd echoes his friendly approach with laughter.
Chris Summers, a student visiting from another school, only knew of TWLOHA upon arrival through a brief introduction by his friend.
"I really don't know what to expect - I guess they help people," he says. "Right now, to me, they're just something I see on MySpace, but I want to see what they do."
Summers listens, never moving much, as Josh Moore, a TWLOHA team member, sings and strums his acoustic guitar perched on a barstool. Until the end of the night, Tworkowski, his team and all the hopeful songs of inspiration are creating first impressions.
Chad Moses, a 23-year-old team member with a straightforward smile pierced with a silver hoop, sets up a merchandise table just outside Brew Ha Ha!'s doors. He helps a duo of high school girls choose a shirt color and tells another shopper how selling the now-popular slogan, "Love Is The Movement," is a way to make great conversation.
"I'm in limbo now, really," Moses says of his official title in the organization.
He began as an intern, but this fall was asked to stick around and make it a livelihood.
"In early September, the team was having lunch and discussing the prospect of a coffee shop tour," he says. "I began calling places directly, including here, and within weeks we had it all planned out. The nights that I scheduled, though, I get a little more nervous than the rest."
Moses says he blew through his life savings in order to dedicate as much time as he could to interning and is madly in love with his career and lifestyle.
The competition for a position with the non-profit is tough, and he says it took six to seven e-mails of interest to catch an eye.
"I've never been told 'no' before," he says. "I've never settled for that answer, and so I knew if I wanted it bad enough I could show them what I had to offer."
On the barstool, Zach Williams finishes up his set. Williams is a Georgia boy who now lives as a Brooklyn musician, singing songs of the same themes by which TWLOHA swears. He ends his last song - the first song he ever wrote - at every stop with a story that brought tears to Tworkowski's eyes when they met 15 days ago.
He tells the audience how he and his wife were visiting his parents four years ago. One of those days she was out riding a horse, and it returned to the house without her. She was found, but mumbled, "I can't move," and then slipped into shock. In the next mess of an ambulance, tests and doctors she was diagnosed as quadriplegic, and for weeks the only scene they knew was a hospital. Friends and family would wait for hours into days into weeks, and through the humbling experience, Williams says he started to see love at its most raw.
"Being able to live in a hospital and see humanity at its core," Williams says. "Seeing life, at its absolute core - that's when I started writing songs and this one in particular."
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