We go to see Andrea Gibson perform and for an hour I panic with her brilliance, with the trauma and love of her words. She speaks every painful subject with beauty and grace and emotions that I am afraid to feel unless she will give me the words and you will hold my hands. Even though I can barely feel my hands. Even though I can barely feel them, I grip my pen and scribble the lines and words that strike me alongside their free-associations and responses. I listen and recite under my breath and afterward, when we are calmer, we approach her, speak, and hug. Peace.
I watch someone else across the room and try to read her face. You hold my hands and I hold yours at the times when we can feel the other needs it most. We know what hurts. We know what to touch and when. I know that certain words break you just like you know certain words will snap me in two. And we respond and breathe and trust. Not so hard as last year, but never easy.
A friend approaches us after. Are you both okay? Yes. Yes we are okay. We are more than okay. We are a lot of things, and now she's seen us cry. She's seen you touch my wrist when Andrea Gibson speaks of suicide, watched us grip each other in reassurance over and over again. She saw and understands just a little more and I take comfort.
And now, two days later, it's hard to believe we sat in that room. Sat three feet away from her when she traded the stage briefly. Hugged her at the end of the night. When home and slept and woke up the next day and hardly anyone could tell that things were different.
