Shannon Farmer

I want you to imagine one of those days when you come home from work or school—and you just sit. You have absolutely no energy for anything else, it’s just time to sit—with yourself, with the day, with whatever happened. Your back is aching in that spot, you know the one that always hurts for reasons you’re not even sure of anymore. Maybe your heart is pounding even though your body is at rest because of a conversation you had with a coworker or one you suspect you’ll have with a friend. You...

I've been thinking of a lot of different words and their meanings lately. I've been thinking of how our language and cultural backgrounds affect our thought processes and how we interact. I recently read a phenomenal book by Renée Watson called Piecing Me Together. It was about a young Black collage artist who was invited on scholarship to a special private school and mentorship program. She accepted this opportunity mostly because she wanted to find a way out of her circumstances. A few...

‘You gotta take the good with the bad’ This is a phrase of wisdom and resilience that has been passed down from my great-grandmother to my mother to me. It’s a seemingly simple truth that has evolved its complexity to me over the years. Today I want to share this wisdom with you and how owning your truth is a good thing, but the process of owning it often feels bad. Owning your truth is a terrifyingly vulnerable process of self-reflection, where you don’t back down from who you are, what...