Clear eyes. Full heart. Can’t lose.
This mantra from Friday Night Lights played in my mind on a drive home to Midland Texas. Often, I hit the Permian Basin at sunset, a perfect backdrop for the oil rigs, as the sky peaches and pinks. Like the opening credits in FNL, these diligent “steel cows” nod their heads amidst endless Texas terrain.
Read MoreThis week, I had a dream I just can’t shake. And after some reflection and real-life intervention, I don't think I want to. It all makes sense.
Read More“Have you ever been apple picking?” my friend Leila asked.
“I’ve always wanted to go.” I kept my eyes on the road for our exit.
“I’ll tell you the trick,” said Leila. “You have to twist the apple. If it’s ready, the stem breaks right off. But when the fruit isn’t ripe, it simply won’t come off. You can keep twisting and twisting, and it still won’t come. Or you could force it off, but then it won’t taste good. You can’t tell just by looking.”
”So You don’t know until you try,” I said.
Somehow, a little fly got trapped inside my car. He flew in when I stopped to get a breakfast taco on my way to Midland.
“Please fly out little guy,” I coaxed, cracking a smile at my own little joke. Five minutes later, I waited at Sonic for my diet cherry and lime coke. “Okay buddy, both doors are open for you now.”
The windows in my lime green beetle stopped working in 2020, just like everything else. Mr. Buzzy had a choice to make: get out now, or wait a loooong time for the next stop.
#WestTexasDriving
Each time, he bzzzzzzed, fought and tried to “escape” at the window. I opened my door, and he just kept flying to the crack where he “should” have been able to escape. Buzz Buzz flew from window to window, totally missing the wide-open doors that waited for him.
Read MoreDuring a goal setting session with a friend, I shared self-disappointment.
“I love Brave Tutu so much and with everything going on, I regret that I haven’t written a piece in so long. I just don’t know where to begin.”
“Why don’t you start there?” she said.
“Start with my disappointment and sadness?”
“Yeah, and how you’re not sure where to kick it off,” my friend encouraged. “If nothing else, it will be a good free write.”
Oh Claire Campbell, you are so wise.
Brave Tutu’s essence is to shine the light on small moments of significance—to uncover their rawness, wonder, beauty and even grief. However, for months I’ve felt stalled out. With added pressure, I wanted the January piece to serve as a mighty capstone of the last year and offer solid hope moving forward. But after a mind mushed from 2020 and the deadly insurrection at the Capitol, picking up the pen to dive into this space felt like writing on college-ruled paper with a magic marker. Impossible.
Read MoreAround 11pm, I exited the highway onto a double turn lane. In the left lane, I inched out for a right on red. The truck next to me, pulling a giant trailer, followed in full force. They gunned their gas and I watched as momentum swung the trailer into my lane. I sped my VW Beetle into the opposite side of the double yellow. One car, in oncoming traffic, switched lanes…
Read More“It was 1997, and I was 23 and working in Boston in my first professional job as a sales service representative for an educational publisher. I answered the 1-800 hotline and spoke with customers all day. But my goal was to become an editor.
One unsuspecting day about six months into the job, my coworkers and I were gathered to learn that our department was being eliminated.”
Read MoreI circled the packed YMCA parking lot. My anxious pre-yoga pep talk did not go well: “I’m not going to get a spot and I’ll be late for class. There might not be room for me. Even if there is, I don’t want to be that person.”
I took a deep breath and kept circling.
Read MoreFor everyone who subscribes to Brave Tutu in the month of October, a private donor will give $1 to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.
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