Underachieving Perfectionist

I had come to a time in my life wherein I felt a certain compulsion to define who I am. My need to fit into a certain category was not one that sprang up over night. I have been, for too long, wrestling with the notion that there is a place for me. A set, group, or clique that would embrace me as I am. To seek acceptance based on race or socio-economic background was not enough. It was the cheap way out. Hopping on the bandwagon of the latest trend seemed not nearly sufficient to satiate my appetite for approval. I’ve asked myself the same questions repeatedly; “who am I, what am I, why am I?” It has been those queries that have haunted me eternally. But, as I meandered through my work day today it became clear. A definition that I had toyed with for years Underachieving Perfectionist is to be my new moniker. I had been manipulating the phrase for a while and never could pull anything from it. Taking it out for a spin, running it up the ole flagpole, turning it inside out and outside in, popping its clutch, pumping its brakes and for as much as it rang true I got nothing from this statement. Until today as I meandered my way through the work day. It struck me as if it were the right hand of God slapping me back into consciousness. I am an Underachieving Perfectionist and maybe one day I can tell you exactly what that is.

A Writer's Lament

I was asked by my five year old “how long do people stay dead when they die?”
My response was “forever, they go to live in heaven.”
“Well how do they get to heaven?”
“The angels come down to take them.”
“Is it far?”
“Yes, very far.”
“Further than North Carolina?”
“Yep, further than North Carolina.” North Carolina is how she measures distance. That’s the longest trip she has taken in her short life. The inquisitive nature of her sweet little voice left me unsettled. While I am sure that, in that moment, she was satisfied with my responses to those questions, I anticipate the day she returns to the conversation. I dread the day that she returns to that conversation. For, I do not have words to accurately account for ones crossing over. I could explain it—I could try to describe it, but I cannot give life to the idea of everlasting life; the notion of one going to glory. I lament the loss of words. I grieve for the thought that in the broadness of language I am silenced. Silenced by the fact that words are merely an instrument used to communicate ideas, and some ideas are just beyond words. For a child’s sake I cannot reconcile myself with what may be good enough. So when it is revisited I will sit silent and lament the loss of words.

Coming Home

I saw the orange glow of the setting sun meet the rooftops,
And I felt the calm of the skyline, at dusk, beckon me.
The city that I come home to is not the same city that you fear.
The city that I know is the community that raised me, the culture that made me, and the people that gave me opportunity, despite the egocentricity of our time.
So, I’m not impressed by your two car garage, and your single family home,
Because the asphalt jungle is my urban oasis; where the concrete playground was my field of dreams, where the one way street hosted my superbowl, and where I shot my hoop dreams through a hollowed milk crate.
Wonderfully worn, and beautifully burdened is how I see my city as I come and go, and come again; and again I’ll come home.

Road Rage

The heat was permeating. When I opened my car door I was enveloped by a cloud of air that was no less than twenty degrees hotter than that which had already scorched my skin as I walked across the parking lot. Mid July in Baltimore is as ugly as it gets as far as the weather is concerned, but I was as broke as a Jewish whore at a Baptist minister’s conference, so I decided to roll down my windows and allow Mother Nature to condition the air in my car. Trying my best to look cool as the sweat poured from my forehead and pooled in my beard I turned up the radio, pulled out of the parking lot and headed for the parkway.

Having the opportunity to get off of work at five in the evening was a mixed blessing. Anytime I could leave the grind before my regularly scheduled time absolutely thrilled me, but with nothing but rush hour traffic waiting out there for me I needed a certain level of preparation to get me to the point at which I could leave the building without having the thought of the traffic alone raise my blood pressure to unhealthy levels. Like most drivers I was just arrogant enough to believe that if everyone else was not driving at the exact speed as me they were somehow wrong. The drive home was my time of meditation. My music and the hum of rubber meeting road should have been my only stimulus. Instead the chaos of cars swerving, horns blowing and engines growling left me more tense than the demands of my job. After all of the swerving, blowing and growling I would finally make it into the city where I would be surrounded by a swarm of pretentious middle-aged corporate types yearning for the moment that they reached the city limits so that they could relax in the comfort that they had yet again braved the threat of all of the vagrants and muggers that inhabit that cesspool called Baltimore City.
My route would take me from the northbound parkway to Russell Street; from Russell Street onto eastbound Baltimore Street; from Baltimore Street onto northbound Charles Street. All in an effort to arrive in the northeastern most area of the city as quickly as possible. Usually by the time I reach Charles I had made peace with the fact that I was the only driver on the road capable of navigating the streets without any serious threat to the lives of pedestrians or other drivers. It is also at that time that I was normally sinking back into my seat and lighting a cigarette as I estimate how late I would be getting home. On that day as I listened to Kweli ask “what ya gonna do when we come through?” a midnight blue Cherokee Laredo cut me off to pull into an available parking space just ahead of me on my right.

“Muthafucka” I thought as I caught the drivers gaze. “This son of a bitch is trying to kill somebody.”

“What?!” was his response as he returned the mug.

“You’re a jackass that’s what bitch. You should try watching where the fuck you’re goin’!”

“Man fuck you!”

“Whatever bitch, fuck you! Stupid ass muthafucka!” Traffic was stop and go so I was only two car lengths ahead of him. He was still within earshot as a rattled of a stream of explicatives that would rival any woman that I had heard giving her unfaithful partner a piece of her mind. It had been a long time since the Negro in me had shown himself in such a fashion.

I had only moved up two more car lengths as I began to calm myself. I checked my rearview mirror to take note of where he was headed for future reference. I was a little disturbed by what I saw. The bastard was walking through traffic toward my car. I looked again to verify what I thought I had just seen, and I learned quickly that my eyes had not deceived me. As he moved toward my vehicle I began sizing him up. This light skinned brother with the blue t-shirt clearly had me by a couple of inches in height and a few hundred trips to the gym. I was not, however, too concerned because this brother also had some sort of chemical process in his hair which raised his bitch quotient ninety-eight percent. I was still at the traffic signal on the same block where the argument had started so I unbuckled my seatbelt in an effort to prepare myself for the impending confrontation. As he moved closer to the car I heard him ask if we were alright.

“What?!” I said with as much disgust in my voice as I could muster. He had reached my car at that point and leaned toward my passenger side window.

“I said are we alright? You know, we don’t need to be out here arguing with each other like this. We need to save that shit for them other people” he remarked as he extended his right hand through my car window. I was surprised by the gesture. The sincerity with which he spoke left me with a renewed sense of humanity. What he offered with a handshake was more than just the acknowledgement of a mutual understanding of ideas. He offered a new beginning; the opportunity for two individuals to transcend the expectancy of who we were.