Brooke Campbell: News

Yesterday morning, I left town. I've been working a lot & needed some space.
One hour up the Hudson is a town I have grown to love. River, black with stars. And apparently... fireflies float over the river. They float over the river. I've never seen that, but I did tonight. Amidst all the things that make no sense in this life, that makes a lot of it.

My Aunt & Grandma have been growing Moonflowers. They bloom as the sun goes down. All the ladies in my family are blooming in the same way. Our patriarch, my grandad Robert, passed away at the end of March. I traveled home talking away the miles with mom & cousins. Everyone was full of stories of his last days and moments. But, by the time I got there 2 days later, most of the pain was gone. The air was crisp, the sky blue, the funeral home director, efficient & kind.

The ladies attended to everything--not that the men were ineffectual. Somehow, it's just that it was for us to do. We were built for it...for the filling in of the gaps. We grew in to the open space like Ivy and we grew together in a new way.
I suppose it was that it was grandma who remained. Had it been otherwise, maybe it would have been for the men.
Anyway, there's no need defending the admiration of the women in my family. The men understand.
It has been the turning of a page, for sure. We are all entering the prime of our strength and it is beautiful---rosy-cheeked & fertile, able to conceive, till, & fend off.
The Moonflowers are part of a huge new garden that my Aunt is growing with my grandma at her house. My grandad is sorely missed, yet the ground and every overhanging basket and branch have turned lush.
http://plantsinmotion.bio.indiana.edu/plantmotion/flowers/moonflower/moon.html

I took a train up to some quieter country today with thoughts of sitting by the river to watch the snow fall by a warm fire. Was instead met by blizzardous conditions in a town completely uncharmed by it. I've never before experienced a true blizzard coming off the open water. Pain & blindness are involved. But, man, is it fantastic.

Just walked home from the IAM show & webcast, which was lovely.
It's about 11 degrees, which is actually ok. Frozen soda, spit, and mop-water on the streets. I always love seeing the various ways people wrap themselves up in winter -- and the ways they cling to each other, for warmth, but also for balance-like all those layers are throwing them off kilter.
Everyone's a little more dependent in winter. That's nice in a town like this.

I've just brought my car to Manhattan for the first time...had planned on garaging it to save time and stress, but have been a little taken with the twice weekly parking shuffle.
Seasoned drivers in this City tell me this will wear off within a month, but I'm nearing the month mark and I have to say...I like it!
I've been tending more and more toward hibernation with each passing year. And when I live in New York, I carve out a path and then run it like a gerbil, seeing very little of this vast & deep island.
Knowing that I may be towed to the tune of $300 forces me out, searching new neighborhoods for a safe 3-day home for my little car.
In these 10 or so moves, I've seen neighborhoods I never would have- a testament to the diversity of the city & my own gerbility.

Just played at this great festival near my hometown in Wilmington, NC. Opened for a couple of films-most notably, "Mississippi Damned". Holy cow.

Dense, elegant and FULL of light.

Anyway, met some lovely people and appreciated my homeland anew.

Beautiful.

Whatever this day is... may it bring light.

Maybe it will. Maybe I have to bring the light.

Can I manufacture my own? I can... but the parts that build that humming little machine are from outside, from elsewhere. You have to hunt them down-from memory, from the ethos. Ego blinds and one needs eyes for this.

Light kills ego. Ego covers light. Where's the way out when you're trembling, anxious with the weight of yourself? What windows to open to let it diffuse?

I grope until I find them and then take a deep, sweet breath.

2 days ago, I figured out how to get onto my roof.

Since moving back to the South, partially for more nature, I haven't gotten a bit of it. No hiking or starry skies.

I've been working, working out, taking lessons, planning, but not--I repeat, NOT taking in the great outdoors.

Tonight, our first night in the 50's, I crawled onto the roof with a cup of tea and watched a few stars twinkle until I got sleepy.
It was a balm to an unsettled feeling that has been set in like a fever since I got here. It was like the watch to the guy in the time-deprivation chamber. It was sanity.

I'm just heading home from another 2 weeks out playing for folks. I love it. Spring was half-awake as I left Nashville, but micro-retreated with every mile north I drove. I, however, was opening.
A friend showed me the first crocus of the year that they had seen in Peekskill. It was in a straw flower bed with a little ice still lingering. Half thawed lakes in Massachusetts, long hours mulling over current life issues with friends, great gigs with people who listened.
I am grateful.

In my travels since October 15th, I have seen flashy beach towns (Miami & Cocoa Beach),demure beach towns (Naples & Charleston) crocodile saturated swampy grasslands (the Everglades), a tiny and lovely cow-town (Eatonton, GA). And the fact has been refreshed in my mind that people are people, yes. But folks are so different region to region.
We mold to our surroundings. We talk slower if there's always time to talk slower. We act like survivors if always tricky to get by.
We act as though there's a bubble around us if there are always too many people around to process.
It's supply and demand.
It's beautiful.
It is fairly animal, totally honest. Of course we hedge it with our adherence to or rebellion against cultural expectations
I love it when what I think is unique to me turns out to be a reasonable, even predictable response to my environment or situation. It puts me in my place in the healthiest way, like having a wise old man sit me down and tell me the truth.

I remembered my frame today. I listened...and there I was. I had to get really quiet. Then I heard shallow breathing. I saw the little purple vessel in my wrist flutter. I blinked in slow motion and saw the world go black, then return. I felt around where the hair comes out of my head and followed a few strands down ''til they slipped out of my fingers-saw the prints on those fingers.I drank a swallow of ice water and felt the chill run through the pipes in my throat. It was fun.
Then I remembered some advice from one of John Piper's teachers. He said, "Forget yourself and do your work." Now, when I do that, I notice the world-how burdened my coworkers at the restaurant are by the menial tasks that occupy us. I saw Abu straining to reach the top shelf, Magnolia standing, legs in pain, while she waited to clean the bathroom after each person. I had the energy to care.
Why in the world would God care to liberate me from myself? Why in a tangible way, would He give me such a gift? I'm sure there are plenty of answers out there. But, at the spot where the rubber meets the road, I am baffled at the difference between me relying only on the earth and me relying on what is essentially a mystery. I am more solid leaning against a Spirit and unsteady leaning against the tangible.

It's been over a year since I wrote anything. And, you know, no foul, because people are not trampling my website. Plenty of grass growing here. I don't mind and I miss them at the same time.
Do you understand?

I love being left alone. Completely alone. But, at the one am's of my life and when the ink is still wet on the page--during those moments, I wish I had not isolated. I wish there were people to understand that water just came out of a rock. That it does not flow readily here, yet it is.
What stirred this pot?
I was just chosen to play in front of a bunch of people with whom I think I share a great deal. A crowd before whom I don't have to pull punches or edit. How is it so?
How is it that this is such a rare, precious gift?
That safety is so hard to come by?

I am hopeful and grateful for any pocket of people who have sat long enough in the dark to give place to the things that drive one there-the incongruencies of life that rub the skin off our arms-that leave us raw and bleeding while demanding that we wear gold bracelets, sip champagne, and smile in a open-air cafe.

I am raw most of the time.

Never more so than when I am trying not to be.

Anxiety = trying not to be

"Be anxious for nothing..."

So, the big change comes. You move. You marry. You procreate or adopt a cat. And the future seems so foreign that it's like staring into the sun. You reflect on what has been-good and bad. You clean out your closet to the soundtrack of songs that have gotten you this far.

And then you eat, sleep, and work over and over again until "the shiny has rubbed off", as my mama says.

And one day, a couple of seasons later, you check your own pulse and realize that time has steam-rolled you into history.You look more or less the same, but really, you're not.

You're feet are imperceptibly wider, your cell production has slowed to a brisk walk, you haven't seen your grandma...

Time is not free or fair.

It costs whether its flitting about lands on magnanimity or heartlessness

So, a show I recently played will be podcast(ed?). You can find it at acousticli.com-accompanied by a rather disturbing picture (oh, vanity--sigh)...

Has anyone seen this?

This wonderful little movie has been playing on HBO2 for the past month.
It is absolutely beautiful and grounding.
I'll stop way short of reviewing it as I wouldn't really know how and want you to see it for yourself.
I will say that it makes me marvel at how easily we all become politicians and how barren and lonely and delicately destitute living honestly with the truth can be.

I hope you'll watch it.

Hi everybody,

Well, I have finally joined the rest of the world on My Space.

Those of you who are savvy, come on over and visit.

If you never have been, there will be link on the LINKS page. You can join for free and communicate a little easier.

If you're not into it, the guestbook here is still open for business.

Love,

Brooke

Hi everyone!

I'm imagining a red carpet rolling out from this page and you walking down it. I'm so glad you stopped by.

I'll be posting things pretty frequently, so please come and do the same.

Peace.

Brooke