Living just enough for the city...

I spend my days on a campus that would put most arboretums out of business. The air is clean and [even when it's not summertime] the living is relatively easy.  Even though my immediate surroundings are lush and worry free, I obviously never loose sight of who I am...a black man  in America.  I don't wear it pinned to my chest like a military ribbon or even under my shirt to be revealed as I emerge from the telephone booth. But in the immortal words of Popeye, I am's what I am's.

To me, that carries with it a deep context that I celebrate and honor daily in many ways.  I live my culture, my heritage, my blackness if you will, out loud through my physical presence, expressions, intellectual contributions and thousands of ways that provide meaning to me.  These are the things that define my difference. I've been fortunate enough to have a similar daily walk for many years now, as professionally, I've always been in these types of environments.

I've recently grown weary of the switch that happens when I leave the confines of this world and step in to a world that has no use for depth, meaning or context.  When I wait for a train, when I walk through city, when I just live my life I get treated the same as I did 20 years ago.  Back in the day I'm sure that I, like millions of young black men, carried myself in a manner that reflected how tough we wanted to seem. The streets were like a training for the "phony tough and crazy brave." Sure we all wanted to tout how real we kept it, but in those quiet moments, no one wanted to be that. It was a survival skill.

The Fugees said,  "Just walkin' the streets death could take you away. You're never guaranteed to see the next day."  My cohorts and I truly believed these words, even before they were made immortal on the biggest hip hop record in history.  No longer am I that kid.  My life is completely different than the days when I had to constantly be on alert for the various snares of city life.  These days I walk the about feeling great.  I say good morning to complete strangers on the street, hold open doors for old ladies, skip down the ave to the beat of the music in my head and it's glorious. What I've found is the world hasn't caught up with the song that I'm singing.

White folks still react to me in tailored Hugo Boss suits, the same way they did when I wore back when I wore saggin' Hugo Boss jeans.  Black folks are equally suspicious. On one hand, I'm a wardrobe change away from being able to play my old role on the street, but on the other hand, there's something different.  People see it in your eyes.

I'm not hurting anymore.  I'm still angry cuz I never got my forty acres, but it's not at the fore front of my consciousness.  I'm still real, perhaps realer than I ever was, but definition has expanded.  I've got a big social and professional circle that surrounds me and fulfills me in so many ways. Yet, I feel like a perpetual outsider when relating to the gen pop.

How is it that as a successful black man, I feel like more of an outcast than I was as a borderline delinquent? It goes back to my original premise: this world (read USA) has no use for depth, meaning or context. A box for everyone and everyone in your box.  The quicker we can figure out what you are and put you in your proper place, we can go back to ignoring you, fearing you, hating you or what ever the appropriate interplay between our box and yours is.

the foot bridge

Over the footbridge

There was a time in our lives when we were so close that nothing seemed to obstruct our friendship and brotherhood, and only a small footbridge separated us.

Just as you were about to step on it, I asked you: "Do you want to cross the footbridge to me?"  Immediately, you did not want to anymore; and when I asked you again, you remained silent.

Since then mountains and torrential rivers and whatever separates and alienates have been cast between us, and even if we wanted to get together, we couldn't. But when you now think of that little footbridge, words fail you and you sob and marvel.

-- Friederich Nietzsche

This above all: to thine ownself be true

I'm not sure how I haven't done this in the past 18 years, but I found myself rooting through some old wares 'stored' in my parents crib.  A quick reflection on some things that I unearthed:

1. I had a planner freshman year.  I wrote stuff in it.  I was pretty organized, for a 17 year old son of a chaotic unorganized household.
2. All of my addresses are organized just like they are in my cell; by last name.  My wife thinks it's so weird that I even have last names in my phone, but this is a carryover from my 90’s self.
3. I am in contact with all of the people in my planner address book, except for those that I intentionally no longer associated with.  That's mostly a function of the net, because at a point I had last touch with most folks.
4. I found my first email address.  It was my initials and the last four digits of my social @salisbury.edu. WOW! That's all I can say.
5.  I also found a bunch of letters that are just comical.  Sometimes I get on my high horse and lament the loss of written communication, but in reality I've had wall posts on FB that were way more interesting and substantive than these letters.  It's nice to reminisce, though. Friends, girlfriends, pen-pals...I had actual pen-pals.  Crazy.

It's interesting that I should find these gems now.  I lived as many years since preparing to depart for college, as I had prior.  I remember that kid.  Optimistic. Curious. Quiet. Respectful. Contemplative. Bright. Despite all of that, he was yearning to escape the violence that had grown to a fever pitch in those days.  He felt like one of a few standing from a lost generation of young black men who grew up supervised by overworked mothers, absentee fathers, the correction systems, the streets, or no one at all.

College was his key.  He knew not to what.  Despite the intelligence, he was unsophisticated and had very few goals, beyond survival - Maslow.  I wonder what I would say to that young man, as he loaded his cases of Snapple, footlocker of linens, and jumbo box of Purex (that lasted for three years) into his parent’s minivans.

You already know the secret to life, trust yourself. 

This kid was incredibly sensitive.  His instincts were sharp, for no reason.  He just 'got it'.  Many adults thought that he had an 'old soul'.  He had to go through a lot to get back to this realization, which he already had around the age of 14.

You will get far on smarts and charm, but you will succeed by hard work.

Distinct, with a silver tongue and a cool that would make Andre 3000 stop in his tracks, the young man experienced life as easy (despite the inherent environmental challenges, that were outside of his locus of  control).  He got B's without as much cracking the spine of a textbook.  He was likable and drew people in.  He would find college more suited to his style than high school and his interpersonal relationships would open social and academic doors that he didn't know existed.

If I was sitting with him, I would affirm those qualities and then admonish him to double down on those traits with diligence and industry.  In time, he would come to that realization, but he would have been better served striking while the proverbial iron was hot.

Keep in touch with your guys from home.

He would enter an intense environment, where he would share time, space, laughs, and great memories with new and interesting people.  With long distance charges, snail-mail, and geographic separation, it will be hard to keep the links strong to the guys that he came up with.  The short sightedness of youth will let him believe that it's easier to live in the moment, but these relationships are grounded in a time that will never be his again.  Those that were with him will remain as the anchors of an all too short list of true friends.  It makes sense to grow with them and share your time, space, laughs, and great memories with them along the way.

Money matters.  Get yours.

Gen Xer's rejected the notion of getting rich, just to get rich and wanted to sincerely capitalize on the wave of social change that flowed from their predecessors. The simple reality of this life is that you can't help the poor if you're one of them.  I would have him figure out how to get the most out of his talents, so that he could be a real player in change conversations.

Girls.

This is one he will have to learn on his own, I suppose.  His mom made sure he had the jumbo box of condoms and his dad had 'the talk with him'.  His physical well being was safe.  Emotionally, he would find that girls will be alluring, distracting, intense, irreplaceable, cruel, exciting, impractical, and everything in between. I would have my young protégé be confident, honest, and open.  I would also shatter the myth of perfection as seen on T.V. It will be messy and difficult at times.  The band of angels will not sing forever and the fireworks will fade.  That's OK.  It's character and substance that sustain, not the initial feelings of excitement.

 Read before class, not just before the test.

Sitting though 1.5 hours with Dr. Gehring breaking down the Magna Carta, Pius XI, and Charlemagne will be infinitely more tolerable if he is familiar with the material.

Dream big, not practical.

He was raised to think within the realm of reason.  Son of middle class government worker, the message of go to school and get a 'good job’ (whatever that means) pervaded his self dialogue.  He wasn't going to be Mike Jordan, Mike Tyson, or Mike Jackson, but there are heights that can be attained based on the strengths that he does have.  Figure those out, and go hard.

This isn't as good as it gets, but you should still live it as if it were.

The litany of people telling him at every new milestone that 'this is the time of your life' was confusing, to say the least. How would he deal with the pressure of knowing that this was going to be the next 'time of his life' and the sadness of knowing that whatever comes next will be worse?

I'd set his mind at ease, by telling him that life keeps getting better.  At the same time, this time is unique and not to be taken for granted.  His cool, while a tremendous asset, never lets his lows take him too low (a defense from childhood), but it also never lets his highs take him to high.  I'd let him feel OK with going with the beauty of each moment and living it to the fullest.

If he was still listening, I'd send him off ala Lord Polonius to Laertes:

"Neither a borrower nor a lender be;

For loan oft loses both itself and friend,

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

This above all: to thine ownself be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!"

Good luck, homie.

Commitment, it's not just for 'R'elationships, anymore

"Now in my younger days I used to sport a shag...." Pharcyde, Passin Me By 1993

Perhaps this was the hip-hop generations answer to F. Scott Fitzgerald seminal opening of, "In my younger and more vulnerable years."  Well, in my younger and more vulnerable years, I liked girls.  I could name them all, but how emabarrsing would it be with search engine technology, if Kelly Parmisohn (to whom I may have had the courage to utter but a few sentences in all of those years)  found her way to my witless ramblings whilst conducting a random Google search. It's not the names that are important, anyhow. Just know that there were girls and they were liked.  

I figured that barring any catastrophe, one day I'd find a girl who didn't think that it was odd that I knew every word to most songs, in most genres, written from 1985-2000. As I searched for this girl (another blog for another time), I began to learn about relationships-- neigh, Relationships. The big 'R' variety. The good, the bad, and the infuriating.  

There was no preparation for this education.  My guy friends never told me, though we spent hours talking about girls-- the idea of girls as it turned out.  My female friends (and there were many) must have been as clueless as I. Either that, or they were practicing some sort of masochism by proxy. I was allowed to fall headlong and heart-first into, what Princess Bridian terminology would describe as, 'the pit of despair'. 

But this blog entry isn't about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery, and loss. It's the opposite, in a sense.  From the time we actually do have a partner, we are faced with the construct of commitment.  The big 'R' variety of relationships in our western society seems to, at least back in the stone-ages when it mattered to me, yearn for a definition.  That definition commitment and we are all somewhere in it's orbit. The (sometimes) dreaded 'C' word. 

The progression from yearning to find companionship, just to deal with your own (or another's) commitment issues are as ironic as a 33 year-old barista with a mustache, wearing his girlfriends jeans. This brand of supposed fear of committment, however, is documented.  It may come as a surprise to a big 'R' neophyte, but we've done a good job pressing this particular butterfly and preserving it for all to see.

So why are we here, you ask ( I know I am, five paragraphs later).  Because I had a realization this morning.    Though it took a bit of work, I found myself quite capable of committing myself the the big 'R'.  There was a time when I railed on about societal constructs and natural ways of being, blah blah blah, but that was some dumb kid who I would scarcely recognize in 2011. Now I'm faced with the shocking discovery that I woke up today and realized that somehow many of my little 'r' relationships have been consumed by my unspoken, unacknowledged fears. My commitment to music, physical fitness, and writing to name a few.  These are lifelong relationships that I have allowed to grow cold and distant.  

Writing and I are at the breakfast table, reading separate sections of the paper in silence; neither of us knows what went wrong.  Music sleeps on the couch most nights, uninterested in what might happen upstairs.  Fitness and I, at least have an occasional physical thing going on, that is mutually gratifying, but we used to do it every day.  We couldn't get enough.  In the morning, at lunch, after work...we were insatiable.

I've not written anything that wasn't for work in so long, that my process is gone.  I've forgotten favorite colors and flowers,  and every birthday and anniversary for years.  Unstated resentment permeates the air.  Our narrative has gone stale like the breakfast toast, but neither of us notice.  Today though, I'm bringing home, more than symbolic, flowers.  We will take a long walk at sunset and begin to figure out what happened to us.  

So welcome me to this world of blogging.  I never thought it would come to this, but we have to spice things up.  I'm hoping when I get home, you'll be there wrapped in Saran Wrap, or nothing at all!