Hello! How was your summer? Mine was weird and bad and beautiful.

Poster up top is by the brilliant Mady G. They really outdid themselves. Plus they are an absolute pleasure to work with. You should pay them money to draw stuff!

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The summer tour of The Bridge and the River and the Road, the first of The Courier Plays, has come to an end. Thank you so so much to everyone who came out. How truly splendid it all was.

The joy of the tour was colored by a big, sudden, absolutely fucking insane event that occurred just beforehand. I’ve been going back and forth in my mind as to whether to bring this up in the newsletter. It feels right to touch on it but not go into detail.

This past July 4th a terribly sad thing happened to my family, causing an immense grief to settle over us.

This event happened a week before these shows were about to start. I briefly assumed I would cancel them then, for reasons I don’t really understand, almost immediately changed my mind. I kept waiting for somebody in my life to gently suggest it might not be the best idea go through with the tour, but every person was like “No, yeah, Gabriel, that seems like something you’d do.”

And they were right! The shows happened. Five of the scheduled six. One ended up getting cancelled, because of the big sad thing. It was okay, everybody was lovely about it, but oof. I’ve never had to cancel a show before and it felt so bad.

So it’s been a strange time. Carrying this vast grief while also feeling the deep joy of being in a room with people telling a story, which is my favorite thing in the world. Both of these happening simultaneously. Being a human is freakin weird.

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One beautiful thing that comes of tragedy is the beauty it brings out of people.

Carrying around this big sad new information about my life, I feel a desire to tell people but also feel the people pleaser in me holding back from upsetting anyone. I’ve found myself using the phrase “I don’t want to ruin your day” a lot.

Everyone, across the board, old friends and new friends and strangers, have instantly and without reservation wanted to know and to help and to offer care. Everyone. To all of you reading this: Thank you!! You really helped a lot. Even if you feel like you didn’t do anything, you did, I promise.

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The five shows were wonderful.

Lots of ease and warmth and excitement. Old friends and new. Show in a barbershop with some of the audience in barber chairs. Show in an old lace factory converted into artist housing. Show for four glassmakers in a glassmaker’s living room. Show in a house with three generations of a family watching together, the 1 year-old sometimes freely walking right in front me as I told the story. Show that my mom saw.

And the money from these shows paid for my plane ticket to the next show! More on that below.

All of that is “so Thicket & Bramble”, a phrase people in my life hear me use all the time.

(A reminder that the phrase “thicket and bramble” comes from this poem by Marge Piercy. Everything I’m trying to do, it’s all in there.)

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Hello! Gabriel will now take a brief moment to talk in the third-person for marketing purposes.

Have you enjoyed Gabriel’s storytelling? Do you want to let them know? Are you looking for an easy way to help Thicket & Bramble grow? Look no further than the Thicket & Bramble Feedback Form where you can share your thoughts on Courier, Moss, and/or the podcast.

Doesn’t need to be anything verbose or complicated. You can straight up just be like “I liked it!” That alone would be super helpful.

Gabriel has now finished talking in the third-person. Thank you.

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The next performance of The Bridge and the River and the Road will be Friday, September 25th, in Los Angeles. My first time there. Also my first time on a plane since before COVID.

Los Angeles pals!! You’re invited. Text me or hit reply on this email if you want to go. It’s gonna be a ball.

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Been getting a lot of nourishment from this 24/7 stream of the Moomin show from the 90s that popped up in my algorithm. I’ve known a lot of excellent people who love Moomin, but I’ve never been deep into it myself until now.

I love it so much. I love how pagan it is. I love how much everybody loves each other. I love what an asshole Little My is for no reason. I love that Moominmamma is always solving problems with Grandma’s book of recipes. I love how it’s mostly gentle and chill but then sometimes some big insane disaster happens and everybody needs to pull together. I love how Moominpappa handles the terrifying monsters that show up from time to time. Dude just jumps out of bed without hesitation puts on his top-hat and goes “Now see here!”

And then, of course, there’s my dear beloved Snufkin. My perfect boy.

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“Despite all this, those who do look into the matter are invariably forced to the conclusion that play does exist across the animal universe. And exists not just among such notoriously frivolous creatures as monkeys, dolphins, or puppies, but among such unlikely species as frogs, minnows, salamanders, fiddler crabs, and yes, even ants—which not only engage in frivolous activities as individuals, but also have been observed since the nineteenth century to arrange mock-wars, apparently just for the fun of it.

Why do animals play? Well, why shouldn’t they? The real question is: Why does the existence of action carried out for the sheer pleasure of acting, the exertion of powers for the sheer pleasure of exerting them, strike us as mysterious? What does it tell us about ourselves that we instinctively assume that it is?”

From this kickass essay by David Graeber.

I’ve had his The Dawn of Everything on my pile for years now. Haven’t gotten past the first couple chapters. Maybe that’s where I’ll go after I finally finish Southern Reach.

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This poem by Palestinian American poet Naomi Shihab Nye has been with me the past few weeks.

I’ve seen a version where the line is “only kindness that ties your shoes/and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread” which is quite different from “gaze at bread”. I love when poems have little variations like that across versions published in different places.

Poems are alive!!!

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That’s all for now, dear people. Thank you for reading. I wish you peace and closeness.

Happy Labor Day to you, fellow worker. You should unionize your workplace.

One more poem for the road: this from the great Wendell Berry.

Goodbye!

Gabriel Maria Rodriguez
they/them
Hudson Valley
9.7.2026
thicket-bramble.com