We never really know the moments that will shape the rest of our lives. One such weekend was the Farmer Veteran Coalition national conference in Des Moines a little over a decade ago.
An influential friend, Neil, had suggested attendance and so packed up the car and drove days West through early season snowstorms to the campus of Drake University where military veterans who were transitioning into farming got together.
Conferences are often overwhelming, too much information in too short a time. Too many people to meet, too much for a slow-processing person like myself, to process. But this one was different. There was an immediate rapport with almost everyone. Many friends were made over the course of the next couple days. Mike Lewis of Kentucky, Calvin Riggleman of West Virginia, Mickey Willenbring of Oregon.
At one of the dinners, happened to sit down next to Chris Brown. He’s a quiet and gentle soul, who immediately commands the attention and respect of everyone around him. A natural leader. He shared his life’s work at the time, Growing Veterans, an organization he had founded that was the first in America to provide mental health support to veterans through a farm based in Western Washington. We made plans for a visit the following summer.
Chris was a good sport, because we filmed before sunrise, around 5am and did a two hour interview. Then hours of verité after that. He opened up about his own personal healing journey, how a conversation with his father had sparked his own path towards recovery from post-traumatic stress. A counselor had recommended he grow plants, and the simple act of keeping a plant alive on his balcony triggered a viciously positive cycle that changed his life. Soon he started a non-profit so veterans across the state could heal the same way he had.
One of the hardest things about making a feature documentary is cutting incredible stories out. As our team put together the story for Farmers for America, the story of Growing Veterans just didn’t fit. We were able to squeeze in about a five second moment of one of Chris’ speeches at the initial conference where we met, but that was it. It felt bad, like a real waste.
Finally, a couple years ago, we had the idea to release a four part documentary with all of the remarkable farmers we’ve filmed with. Instead of making fast-paced cuts, we decided to let the interviews and the shots breathe, to allow the slow processing among us, to process. The film is called Farming- and we are so happy that Chris’ story will be a part of it.
Netflix, Apple, Amazon and Hulu are profoundly unhealthy streaming services. They inundate us with cliffhangers to trap us into binge watching documentary series that commodify ‘true crime’ through horrific retellings, and create puff-piece documentaries about vapid celebrity.
At Leave It Better, we strive to make films that are healthy to watch. Films that bring healing to people. If you enjoyed the above film about Chris Brown, which we are providing for completely free, subscribe now.
A huge thanks to Chris and Matt at Growing Veterans for opening up their lives to us, and to all of the farmer veterans out there. We appreciate your service abroad and here at home. Kudos to our editor Thomas on this short.
A huge thanks to each and everyone of our subscribers, especially our paid subscribers who make this work possible. It means the world.
best thoughts,
Graham
p.s. We released this short film a couple months ago, however, it was accidentally erased because I misunderstood what Substack meant by “podcast” Ha! We are reposting it for our new subscribers. The short film is the same, however, we wrote a new essay to make it worthwhile for those who had already seen Chris’ short. Apologies for any confusion.
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