Francisco Goldman
A week before Christmas, I was invited to spend a Saturday afternoon at Still Waters in a Storm with Stephen Haff, a handful of volunteers, and approximately twenty-five children from the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn. I’m not sure why I was summoned, or why Stephen and the others decided I deserved this gift.
First we had a delicious meal prepared by kids’ mothers for a holiday feast, including an amazing, candy-and-frosting-decorated gingerbread house that we decided to eat at the end of the day.
That afternoon those children, ranging in age from about four to fifteen, tutored me. The assignment was to write a story about the gingerbread house – what would it be like to live inside one, and so on. For an hour, or maybe somewhat less, the children set to work, writing their stories. I had to write one too, but, frankly, I was pretty stuck, so instead I moved around the table, supposedly offering help to them. They didn’t really need my help. Smiling, giggling, frowning in concentration, they were all busy writing. Now and then they whispered to each other, testing a sentence or part of their story.
Then they read their stories out loud, one child at a time, each choosing the next child to read. Twenty-five or so variations on what it would be like to live in a gingerbread house. All of them, without having to be prodded much, reading their stories out loud in mostly flawless English, and doing so with pride – sometimes shy pride –laughing and calling out, but all of them always listening. “My grandmother was mad at me, because I ate our front door.”
Imagination, humor, observation, love of language and detail, just such wonderful purity and pride in the whole endeavor, the empowerment of words, of being able to write and tell a story and hold your audience rapt! I felt like I was floating on the joy in that room. I honestly think I felt something like what a religious person feels when suddenly they can speak in tongues – believe me or not, but I hadn’t been able to write a story about the gingerbread house, but at the end, when it was my turn, the spirit in that room brought words to my lips, I was able to just adlib a story right there, earning me the right, along with all the kids and Stephen Haff and the other volunteers, to dig into that giant gingerbread house, which we devoured.
This magical event occurs every Saturday at Still Waters in Brooklyn. Anyone would be lucky to witness it. I dearly hope someone will film a documentary on Still Water so the world can see it. Everyone should support, cherish and, of course, try to copy in their communities, what Stephen Haff and all the participants in Still Waters, including the encouraging parents, are accomplishing here.