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The College Hill Independent will reportedly publish a groundbreaking article about the withered oak tree that reminds me of my childhood.
“We at the Indy value investigative journalism steeped in issues of social justice,” said Indy editor Leah Vineau, etching a leaf-like shape into a piece of cardboard. “That’s why, in our next issue, we’re going to print a revolutionary piece on the oak tree in front of a Long Island childhood home, and, specifically, how the scratched bark contains the faint aroma of youthful sweetness and lost love.”
In their effort to amplify the voices of Providence community members, Indy staff members are committed to fighting for journalistic integrity through publishing a two-page spread on the gnarled roots that have become moss-covered since I left, since I placed myself in a different city and forgot the sound of the wind sweeping through the oak’s highest branches.
“We want to expand our reach beyond Brown’s campus. I have no doubt that this is possible given the diligence of our reporting and the hard-hitting topics we choose to explore,” Vineau said, approving a crayon drawing of a tree stump for the issue that will trace the dissipation of my innocence through the aging of an oak. “For example, the wistfulness one used to feel when watching birds’ nests in the place where trunk meets branch, and the hope that filled one’s chest when realizing that the seasons were beginning to change. But, also, the anxiety that stirred in one’s gut when realizing that, like the seasons, everything is finite.”
“We may be students, but we are first and foremost journalists. Our paper has the power to impact those around us, especially when we print stories about how a third grade best friend named Rebecca used to climb up, up, up, into the oak’s branches each day after school, her nine-year-old body lithe and nimble, laughing and free. We at the Indy write about the things that matter, like how one would watch the oak leaves change color, year after year, making one consider again and again the fleetingness of those things we call years.”
At press time, the Brown Political Review was planning on publishing an enthralling analysis of New Jersey’s 20th century excise tax policy.
