Brave Tutu Blog — Brave Tutu

Start There

During 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.

Millions of Moments

I hope you will forgive me when I break format for this post. I can’t provide a SINGLE circumstance in this piece because this dream come true for me was built on what feels like a million moments.

Application to Date Me

Amidst a sea of positivity, I let one voice stop me from swimming. Anyone relate? I had a funny idea. One that makes me laugh just thinking of it. An idea that others joined in with amusement and encouraged me to try. Did I listen to their voices? Nope. Did I let the voice of one friend, who laughed (not in a good way) at my idea get to me?

YES!

Surreal Season

During the pandemic, I tend to begin messages this way— “I hope this email finds you well during this surreal season.” Whether it’s a work contact I’ve never met or someone I’ve known for years, I imagine saying so much more. Let’s face it, this one-sentence greeting barely scratches the surface of what may be happening off screen in their daily lives—of how the email really “finds” them. I want to reach through the ether and just give them a hug. I think about the words I wish to share…

Open Cupboards

MISSION: Find and eat the sugar cubes! As kids, we spent HOURS playing church hide and seek. We felt like finding sugar cubes was a simple extension of the game. Parish halls = coffee. Coffee = sugar. Simple math.

When we were really young, sugar cubes were still a thing and our dad was a visiting minister. We had many new territories to explore. We tested unlocked doors, snuck into nurseries and scoured cupboards. The entire campus was our playground.

Living with Change by Guest Author Sophia Perry

"If not now, when?" I'm hanging onto these words, assuring myself I've made the right decision. A million thoughts and pictures of my previous life run through my mind, but I remember a quote I once had read: "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown".

Exes and COVID

The first social distance weekend of March, I got a call, not a text, from someone I dated in 2018. We weren’t serious, but we had a connection. He asked if he could take me out after all this was over.

COVID Connection

A man jogs towards me on the sidewalk and then goes into the street to give me six feet of space. I wave and smile. He does too. In that moment, there is a connection of care. In the necessary distance, I link with this stranger. It’s a total juxtaposition; we join through separation. Bizarre.

Handwritten by Guest Author Jacob Cramer

Every year, my grandma writes me and my brother Chanukah cards. They’re personalized, filled with love, and usually also filled with gelt: chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil when we were younger, and a small bit of money today. This Chanukah, her card was just what I needed as I stepped off of a rollercoaster of a semester.