Tending to what we love

Caring for plants, people and the words we use to tell our stories.

About a year ago, I rode a CitiBike from the east to the west side of Harlem to bring home a lush and attractive rubber plant a friend had gifted me. I remember tying up the plant to the bike’s basket and positioning it just so that its green-and-maroon leaves didn’t obscure the road ahead.

I had the perfect spot reserved for the rubber plant in my living room, by the first corner I see when I walk into my apartment. Sunlight doesn’t quite hit it, but because the plant looked good there, I decided it would be enough to keep it going and growing. I based my decision on what I wanted rather than what the plant needs. In the process, I nearly killed it.

Here she is now that I moved her to a windowsill in my bedroom some months ago, a spot graced by just the right amount of natural light:

Properly caring for a plant is a lot like properly tending to a story. (Note that “story” is a word I use to represent anything narrative, even the stories we tell our friends.) I think we’re all guilty of falling in love with details, anecdotes, descriptions or quotes/dialogues that don’t serve the needs of the story. And because we fall in love with them, we insist in including them (= want) even though they don’t belong (= need).

What belongs in a story is what gives it purpose, advances it and keeps the audience engaged, whether that’s a friend we’re confiding in or millions of readers/listeners/viewers. To craft a story focused on what the story needs is what makes it shine. It’s what keeps it alive.

When it comes to storytelling, one of the most important questions I ask is, what is my story about? Alice Driver, an independent journalist whose work I much admire, offered a clear and valuable lesson on the topic in her most recent Substack, when she explained the approach she chose for her piece on Indigenous divers injured or killed while diving for lobsters in Honduras. Here is some of what she wrote; I bolded key words:

I’m a certified divemaster, and although I didn’t know anything about lobster, I was curious about the divers who formed part of the multi-million-dollar spiny lobster industry. As I did more research, I learned that the divers are from the indigenous Miskito community, and many end up disabled or paralyzed due to work conditions. Although I had read articles on the issue, I was frustrated that none of them were written from the perspective of a diver.

The result is a beautiful and heartbreaking story for Civil Eats, Diving — and Dying — for Red God: The Human Cost of Honduran Lobster. You can read more from Alice on Driver, her Substack.

In the spirit of supporting Alice’s excellent and brave journalism, I’ll be gifting a one-year subscription to her Substack to the first person to reply to this email. Hurry up, then. You’re in for a treat.

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Every year, Nieman Journalism Lab asks “some of the smartest people in journalism” what they think is coming in the new year. I predicted — manifested, really — that journalism outside urban areas will thrive, in particular in the big expanse between the East and West coasts. Check out what I wrote and while you’re at it, take time to read the other predictions, including this excellent piece by my friend S. Mitra Kalita, co-founder and CEO of URL Media, about the importance of centering journalism in the community.

You can also watch and listen to a superb conversation I moderated at the CUNY Graduate Center this month about the border crisis. It featured Elizabeth F. Cohen, Maxwell Professor of United States Citizenship at Boston University, and author of Illegal: How America’s Lawless Immigration Regime Threatens Us All; Julia Preston, contributing writer on immigration for The Marshall Project and co-author of Opening Mexico: The Making of a Democracy; Cinthya Santos-Briones, a visual artist, photographer, educator, and cultural organizer, who is a faculty member at CUNY’s Newmark School of Journalism; and Van Tran, associate professor of sociology and international migration studies at the CUNY Graduate Center. They’re some of the most knowledgeable people exploring the legal, political, historic and social questions around migration, belonging and citizenship. I learned a lot from them.

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The year is almost over. A new beginning is within sight.

With love and purpose, always.

Fernanda