Q&A

We're in a church, on Church Street, and it's Friday night. The pews are packed. Blue Bibles and Spiritual Singing hymnals surround me and Julie, and although swapping stories with her over martinis has always felt something close to spiritual, we've never spent an evening together in the house of God. A Friday evening, at that.

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love steps up to the podium. She's here to read from her new memoir, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage. I have yet to read any of her material (I swear, it's on my list), so I feel somewhat in the dark. But Julie insists, "You will love her."

And I do. She is charming, quick-witted, and funny. She reads an excerpt from Committed and I am completely enthralled. Her writing has these moments of beauty that skinny-dip the surface of sentimentality and then cannonball back into the narrative—you're looking on, seduced and humored, wiping water from your face, wondering if you've teared up a bit or if it's just that Gilbert splashed you. Either way, it's on your skin.

After the reading there's a Q&A. Having attended a couple hundred readings over the past few years, I instinctively shift in my seat. These sessions are typically a world of awkward, scaling between the Hiiiii, ohmiGod, I'm such a BIG FAN to the When you say the tonality is primarily impervious, how do you navigate an impermanent subject? Oh, shut up.

And at first, it's the familiar geek-out and showboat. Until this nervous man stands to ask a question. He says, "...Umm. ...Umm. ...Umm, I don't know what to say!" and there's a choir of laughter and clapping. We're intimidated by her, too.

But then he collects himself, starts again. "I was experiencing a great heartache. I decided to go back to Panama, where I was raised. And my friends told me, they said 'You should read a book. A book will help you heal.' Well, I read your book. It was very, very healing," and there's this perfect religious moment where everyone is clapping, jubilantly, applauding the both of them for being so brave and open. And he continues, "But here's my question: How do you know when you're healed?"

Pandemonium. Because it's such an honest, heartfelt question. Because it's such a vulnerable thing to ask. I'm hurting. When does this end?

We all look to Elizabeth Gilbert. She is obviously touched. And she responds with a wisdom of experience: "Well, I don't think healing can be a destination. You don't just wake up one day and say, 'I'm healed.' No, it's more like a matter of feeling good enough. Like you've walked away from a firing squad and one day [motioning toward her limbs] you think, 'Hey, I'm doing alright.'"

Another question follows but that's clearly the message most of us are left with.

Leaving, Julie and I are spellbound. Drinks follow at the Miracle of Science, and like the name, spectacular things happen: Björk is there, along with Michael Gondry, director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Also bar side, that cantankerous Jim Morrison-crooning contestant from American Idol's recent Boston tapings (alright, I'll admit it, I watched it on Tuesday).

But much later that night, in bed, in the dark, I go back to that question of being healed. Despite all that money wiring into Haiti... Despite every prayer for the loved one no longer with you... Despite all the support in the world...

Lying on my back, I remember that game "light as a feather, stiff as a board"—we'd play it during sleepovers in middle school. Me, Julie, and a handful of other girls on our soccer team.

Someone would lie down, close her eyes. We'd circle around her, place our fingertips beneath her body. Someone would tell a make-believe story of how the girl died. At the end of the story, silence. And then a chorus of whispered voices: "Light as a feather, stiff as a board. Light as a feather, stiff as a board."

And no one would ever admit it, but it wasn't supernatural. We'd lift her. Plain and simple.

It was like we'd brought her back to earth. Her youth, her health, her soul intact. We'd giggle, high on our morbidity, sneak upstairs to the kitchen and delve into the freezer for ice cream. Our dreams ahead 8 hours long, warm, uninterrupted. The dreaming process, what supposedly heals you of the day's complications, commencing like a sun into dawn.

And yet some mornings, I'll wake up with this alarming sense of dread. How is it possible to feel so grateful, so unbelievably lucky, and yet—