In August, members of the Junior Farm Crew participated in a writing workshop with Rebecca Rivvas, a journalist for the St. Louis American. Crew Leader Tiffany Brewer wrote the following free-write as part of this session. EarthDance is pleased that she shared her moving reflections.
As the breeze rolls across my skin, I smile at the beauty of this simple and pleasing task. Write. Just write. What is it that I’m feeling? Calm, blessed, thankful. Some are afraid to share their thoughts for fear that they will be exposed as bad writers, but I have matured into a confident, transparent, unapologetic being. Maybe it’s because I have been told that I write well and I express myself with an inspiring presence. Maybe it’s just I love me! It’s hard to hide a bright light. I pray that prayer often that others see that God’s presence shines through me in everything I do. I think about my daughter and how she learns from each of my actions, reactions, inflections, imperfections, and every other “tion” in the dictionary. I smile! I write in a journal for her, but I seldom do this; sit and write just to write. Even now I’m starting to feel a subtle pleasure in putting down these thoughts. 3 pages is a lot when you don’t write often. I bet it’s a struggle for most of the crew, judging from the deep breathing. It seems to be a daunting task instead of an activity that I would think is designed to relieve stress. We work outdoors. On days like this when the weather is so freaking unbelievably amazing, I’m glad that I was asked to do this job. Who would want to sit in an office when it’s 82 degrees and the partly cloudy sky blesses us with the perfect amount of shade you can look up, breath a deep cleansing breath and feel completely at peace. Not to mention there’s food all around us. To me that means Life! Sirens snap me back to a harsh reality that we also live in a time of death. Not just regular death, but unnecessary death. Whenever there is a social movement that has to tell people black lives matter it’s hard to continue to bask in the pleasant atmosphere for more than a moment. A young black man was gunned down by a police officer not far from here almost a year ago and it put the spotlight on police brutality and excessive force. A few days ago a black woman ended up dead in a jail cell after being pulled over for a traffic violation. I look at my brown hand writing these three pages and the peace is overcome and pushed out by the notion that black lives don’t matter.