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| Hannah Wilson Class of 2017 |
A fleeting memory, no more consuming than a glance inside a shop window can leave one's heart without the privilege of gravity, one's stomach as if it were chocked full of stones. It can sweep across you like a November rain, leaving spots like fat lakes on your glasses where they have fogged. Neither the sorrow held behind those lenses nor the stings of cold air ahead of them can seem to reconcile with the world as it is.
But I suppose that's the most difficult thing for anyone to attempt. There's so much to do after disaster strikes, and so little energy with which to do it. How does one begin to repair what has been utterly demolished? What is there to be done for those who sleep with one eye open like the chest of a transplant patient, and one eye closed to darkness that engulfs hour after dreadful hour of nighttime?
What do you say to the woman who walks to the corner of her street every day and sits, like a big stone in the sands of a broken beach, and waits for a familiar face to drive by? She already knows, that face doesn't like rain. Especially not in November. Learned long ago how to get around without gravity, how to use the stones in their stomach to keep them grounded. Never wore glasses, never looked inside a shop window except to see their own reflection. What do you say to one who knows and refuses to believe?
This is advice on how to heal.
Give it to her in numbers. And always round up.
The exact mileage between Here and There.
The months in whole since the mov(ing on)e.
The hours it took to fly from point A to point B, nonstop.
The weeks she has left to feel this bad before people will start to ask questions, make interventions.
The days she has wasted camped on a dirty street corner waiting for someone who will never come.
The number of times she almost gave in.
The number of times she didn't allow herself.
Give her the truth in numbers. Because words lose their meaning if they're said too many times.
'Love,' for example.
Hannah Wilson is a junior McConnell Scholar at the University of Louisville. She studies philosophy, women and gender studies, and political science.