 "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."
Tworkowski says there is irony in a college tour, seeing as how he pulled himself out of one for a full-time sales rep position with surfing company Hurley.
"I thought I would do that for years and then this thing happened a couple years later," Tworkowski says. "Which was a couple years ago, and it's super surprising but I'm thankful for how it's all played out."
Sam Bentley, a 20-year-old Newark resident, is also thankful how it played out, and that TWLOHA recognizes the small college town.
"Without Tworkowski and To Write Love On Her Arms those conversations probably would have never taken place," Bentley says. "I think that the College/Coffeehouse Tour is an amazing idea because the issues To Write Love On Her Arms stands for are issues that affect so many young people. It was great to have them actually recognize and care enough to spend such an important evening with such a small town like us."
Jimmy Morocco, a 20-year-old intern who joined the team in August, speaks up to the audience during the "open mic" question-and-answer part of the night. He spends almost all of the time barefoot - "I really hate shoes," he says - and it's easy to gather his personality from the inspirational messages scribbled on his rolled-up, worn-in jeans.
He mentions that in the past couple months, he's learned a lot, but what's more important is that he's still learning.
"The word 'love' is difficult," Morocco says. "But I'm getting to understand the true intent and seeing it's effect and how to trust people and in turn be vulnerable, to build a community and how it all encourages us to move, and honestly, how to live."
TWLOHA encourages people to find hope, and one listener Wednesday night describes her's.
"It's not that we want to die, it's that we want to live," says a strong but desperate voice from a table over to Tworkowski's right.
The voice comes from a 21-year-old woman with too many years of stories all over her face. Her name is Becca Salmon, and her voice explodes in the room with energetic force.
She explains meeting people in rehab who came from north Philly, joking that the conditions were so extreme that she swore she saw Tupac in there - the patients all brought to their worst. All they were looking for, she says, was a way to live again.
"When I reached that point of asking for help I wasn't saying, 'I wish I was dead right now,' " Salmon says. "It was, 'God, I wish I was alive right now.' We want to live, we just don't know how."
The mood of the room, if possible, gets more electric and humble at the consideration of her comment.
"That's really well said," Tworkowski answers, and the noise of the room is a hum of agreement.
Summers pushes his chair back and stands, saying that he's learned of a good cause and will join in the movement by telling the story and offering hope to others. He's happy to see the tour move on and is confident that local groups will start developing in support of TWLOHA.
Tworkowski is often asked about the movement he started, and he says he always likes to wrap up those discussions with a particular message.
"I'd love to keep doing this and to keep being creative and stay bold well into the future," Tworkowski says. "Our desire is to let people know they're not alone and to invite them out of thinking they are."
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