Tag Archives: life

The Moments of Impact

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water-dropI have a confession. I like the movie The Vow. I’ve watched it a million times via cable movie channels. Part of my like of it is from the soundtrack. I’m one of those folks who latches onto the movie playing in the background. That can make or break a movie for me. Picking the right music makes all of the difference.

Think (if you’ve seen it) the first episode of The Game this season and the closing music while Derwin was leaving the show forever as Miguel’s “Don’t Look Back” played. While the song has nothing to do with parting ways – it’s actually a song telling a woman to leave and not look back if her man doesn’t make it home because he’s outchea cheating – it sounded great in that scene and brought it all together. For a moment, I felt like they got it right. For a moment.

Back to The Vow. You know the story. Car accident. Wife loses memory. Can’t remember husband. He tries to win her back. He loses. Until he wins. The end. Nothing remarkable there.

But what does stand out to me are two sets of quotes about moments of impact:

My theory is about moments, moments of impact. My theory is that these moments of impact, these flashes of high intensity that completely turn our lives upside down actually end up defining who we are. The thing is each one of us is the sum total of every moment that we’ve ever experienced with all the people we’ve ever known. And it’s these moments that become our history. Like our own personal greatest hits of memories that we play and replay in our minds over and over again.

The moment of impact. The moment of impact provides potential for change. It has ripple effects far beyond what we can predict. Sending some particles crashing together. Making them closer than before, while sending others spinning off into great ventures. Landing them where you’ve never thought you’d find them. That’s the thing about moments like these. You can’t, no matter how hard you try, control how it’s gonna affect you. You just gotta let the colliding parts go where they may. And wait. For the next collision.

#realn*ggatalkinshutthef*ckupho

If we are to view life as one big set of collisions inspiring a million tiny changes and every so often monumental, epic change, then all of life is about the crash. The moment you meet that woman who inspires you to become somebody you didn’t even know you could be. Or that man who makes you realize that it’s okay to trust. The person who lets you take off your cool. But Newton’s Third Law of Motion states that for every action is an equal opposite reaction. Now technically its supposed to be to the actual forces colliding – kind of like Iyanla and DMX – but living within the spirit of the law, you’re meeting you husband means that collision possibly sent somebody waiting in the wings on the love they feel to be returned off into a tailspin they don’t even know exists. They’re the train heading towards the blown bridge. And they won’t know until its too late.

Well the interesting part of these collisions is that from the ashes often arises a fire-y bird. I shall call it a Phoenix. I’ve seen change have various affects on people. But the most common – though often ill-inspired – is the change that pushes somebody towards new heights. I’ve seen a woman who lost her man because he cheated become the beauty queen we all saw. Not to say she went out and got him back or immediately got another man, but I witnessed her become free and beautiful in her own existence, set adrift on memories bliss while realizing that new memories are but a short walk on the sidewalk.

I’ve seen some of my best friends face adversity after experiencing some huge loss and restructuring their life to never lose that way again, sometimes for better, sometimes for the worse.

I’ve personally altered my mentality after going through, at the time, what would be the most significant collision I’d ever experienced.

But these collisions were necessary to help shape the personal narrative of all involved. Some people need change to grow. I remember years ago my daughter’s mother suggesting that I needed to be fired from my job in order to realize my full potential. She felt as if I’ve been to able to rely on stability to make it through life and the resulting contentment stopped me from truly becoming who she felt I could be. By the way, there is no force stronger than a supportive woman. I truly believe this. A woman who believes in you enough to think you need to LOSE a job to become a great? But has no doubt in your ability to dust yourself off? I’m not sure I ever said thank you for that. I probably should.

Either way, moments of impact that change your life. I look forward to those. Nearly every day I wake up I realize that something could change my life that day, good or bad. I’ve prepared myself if its my time to go. Seriously. But I also know that the possibility for greatness is right around the corner. I just need to find the right set of buildings. But it’s there. The person I’ll bump into. The idea I’ll happen upon. The impact that’s waiting on me to show up so the energy can finally be woman-thou-art-loosed.

I’ve experienced some already. But there’s more.

What about you? Have you experienced that person, place or thing that altered your world? Has there been any collision that sent you into the great abyss of greatness?

Let’s collide.

-VSB P aka THE ARSONIST aka MR. IMPACTION JACKSON aka GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRL HE A 3

Parenthood Strugglelife.

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So you're saying that you can't seem to find mommy. mommy. mommy. mommy. mommy?

So you’re saying that you can’t seem to find mommy. mommy. mommy. mommy. mommy?

Parenthood, ah parenthood.

It’s simultaneously one of the most rewarding yet stressful endeavors any person can enter into. For one, you literally have no clue what type of child you’re going to get. You might get a child who inexplicably loves “Gangnam Style” or loves to tell you to worry about yourself in the most aggressively polite way possible. Or you can get a devil spawn.

The possibilities really are endless and you get to find out who you have over the course of time. My daughter? She’s a total comedian. She loves to laugh and make people laugh and has one of the most developed imaginations I’ve ever seen. She loves art, and likes singing. All things she got honestly between her mother and I. But she’s only four. Who knows who she’ll be even two years from now. Cool runnings. Peace be the journey.

Well, for all the fun and exciting parts, those stressful aspects? F*ck. Or even the ones that break you down. Maaaaaaaaaan listen. You get to learn so much about yourself. It’s non-stop on-the-job training. So what are some of the aspects that will make you want to pull your hair out (unless you’re Panama Jackson and you’ve already done that)? Glad you asked.

1. School

This could largely depend on where you live. But if you live in a major city this is definitely your struggle. If you live in the suburbs already then sure, you can probably send your child to the neighborhood school and call it a day without too much stress about whether or not the education your child is getting rivals that of Eastside High after Joe Clark left but before he returned. SAMS!

Major city though? If you aren’t rich enough to send your kids to private school then you’re like everybody else struggling to get your kids into the few public schools that are actually, well, educational. In DC, we have some elementary schools that are good and for the most part, they’re all in the rich part of town, which is far as hell from the rest of us citizens. Then, there’s the fact that we have a lottery. So you have to Wait for Superman to pull your lever. That goes for charter schools and public school slots here. You visit schools and find one you like and hope that you “win the lottery”. It’s stressful. It will drive you mad. And it’s something you probably don’t think about until you have to. Sure we all think about public education. Some of us work in it. But unless you have a child who is going to experience public education then you can’t truly appreciate how stressful it is find a good fit for your child only to wait for somebody to let you know if you will be able to send your child there or if you’re going to have to 1) move; or 2) have to find a way to save the money so you can send your child to a private school and eat Ramen noodles, which you totally swore off after college.

You know what? Even before that…

2. Day care

Do you know the average cost of daycare in Washington, DC, is like $1,400. A month. That’s a mortgage. So imagine having to pay a mortgage or rent AND that as well? But then there’s the finding a day care that works for you and your family. Is it educational or just an all day playplace. Of course you want educational. What time do they open? What time do they close? Do they make food there or do you have to bring their snacks and lunch? What about their teaching method? Montessori or traditional? Then of course you have to get used to dropping your kid off at day care while they scream and yell for you for the first few weeks. Do you know what can tug at your heart? Knowing that you have to leave your kid there while they’re screaming but not being able to go pick them up because they won’t learn to separate from you if they don’t. <—probably more of a mommy issue at first. My daughter was much more okay with me leaving her then her mother. The good thing about day cares though is that some of the mothers are HOT.

Wait. What?

Crush. Kill. Destroy. Stress. It’s a lot.

3. The things you can’t fix…

My child has THE WORST ALLERGIES. I live in DC. Anybody who lives in DC with allergies will tell you how difficult that life is. I don’t have allergies but her mother does. She got them honest. Do you know how hard it is to look at your child’s face all puffy and stuffy and know there’s nothing that you can do about it short of giving them some medicine and hoping it kicks in? When your wakes up and tells you that she’s tired of being stuffy and of allergies and you know she’s stuck with them forever. It breaks me down. I can’t do anything. Hell I toyed with the idea of going back to school to get a degree in biology so that I could become a scientist and cure allergies. Then I’d probably end up dead as the allergy medicine companies colluded to have me murdered for ruining their bottom line, but you get the point.

4. OPC – Other People’s Children

I don’t typically mean your friends, but the kids in your neighborhood or when you go to a playground and some other little youngster does some sh*t you don’t approve of but its 2013 and you can’t check anybody else’s kid without fear of at best getting yelled at and at worst going to jail with the words “sexual predator” following your name forever. It sucks though, because people want their kids to play with your kids and you’re whole thougth process is like, ewww…shoo fly. Judging. Point is, you want your kid to have friends, but you’d also like to hand pick them which is nearly impossible.

Anyway, those are some stresses of parenthood. What are others folks without children don’t really realize until it happens? Hell, what are things you folks without kids think would be stressful?

Let’s get physical.

-VSB P aka THE ARSONIST aka MR. DADDY TO YOU aka GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRL HE A 3

 

The One About Self-Awareness.

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I see PRIDE! I see POWER! I SEE A BAD ASS MUDDA WHO DON'T TAKE NO CRAP OFFA NOBODY!!!!

I remember the first time I heard the theory that people are more intimately familiar with who they think they are than who they actually are. Okay, that’s not true at all. I don’t remember when I first heard it, but I do know that when I heard it I immediately said to myself, “self, that’s true”. It makes sense if you think about it. We spend so much time thinking about who we want to be and how we think we come across that reality is like getting slapped in the face with one of Aretha’s areolas, your two ho’s, and a bottle of rum.

With that in mind, over the course of time I’ve come to some conclusions about myself based on what I thought I wanted or who I thought I was and how reality is playing itself out. Some way down like where the signifying monkey used to hang out. Others more shallow than Kim Kardashian in a kiddie pool kickin’ it with two koalas on Koval.

Allons-y.

I thought I wanted to be one of those folks who likes to have deep conversations. It turns out that I want to be one of the people who has deep conversations about ignorant sh*t.

You know Savon from Love Jones? Yeah, I want to be him, except talking about thongs and the importance of Puffy to the fabric of society. But I SO want there to be a drum present. When I buy a house, one of the first things I’m doing is going drum shopping so I can have a truly Black household. All convos will include the drum. I want to talk about how Kool-Aid is truly the key to life and pop culture. I don’t want to talk about important things unless I feel like it. And only on special occasions…like when white people are present. Or in front of Barack Obama, though I’m fairly certain I’d probably talk a little ignant around Obama. The man sings Al Green songs for cripe’s sake. He cool.

I thought I wanted to date women with big hair who had the big hair angst and social justice guilt and conscience who were artsy and blah blah blah. It turns out I just like big hair.

Seems that I couldn’t care about their activism. I just like big hair. Hell, I might actually prefer big haired bougie women. The type with big hair and Coach bags who are as superficial as chicks with perms. I just wanna lay in their hair without the guilt of recycling. Basically, while I love Freddie from A Different World, I’m sure she would have gotten on my last damn nerves when I told her that I thought “Rack City” was empowering to women.

I thought that because I’m a writer and a rapper and an author and talker and because I communicate often I was a good communicator. It turns out that’s not true.

So, despite my uber sharing ass nature, in intimate settings, I can be quite walled off and anti-vulnerable. How’s that for some sh*t that makes no sense. I’m like the Great Communicator Of Useless Information When It Matters Least. I’m Alex Trebek for Dummies. For Relationships.

I thought that majority of my relationships ended because of compatibility issues. It turns out that most of them probably stem from that little communication problem I just shared a few lines ago. No coca-ina.

Now that’s not to say that every relationship that ended didn’t need to end, they probably did. But my inability to communicate properly was probably as culpable for the beginning of the end as any compatibility issue or constant nuisance that I either created or initially found cute but eventually found grating.

I thought that I was one of the few mixed kids who didn’t have an identity issues. It turns out that I do.

Yeah, I can’t decide if I f*ckin’ rock or if I’m f*ckin’ awesome. It’s a conflict that only people of my pedigree can fully appreciate. It’s hard out here for an cool mulatto. Or a culatto.

I often thought that because I was enlightened that I was above certain negativitisms. Turns out my enlightenment helps to inform my ignorance.

This woman cut me off in traffic today. I didn’t call her a b*tch while shaking my fist in my car behind my glass windows. Nope, I called her a wench. Mostly because I like the word and second because I thought calling a woman a b*tch because she’s a woman who pissed me off would make me like every other ignorant man. So wench it was, which I’m fairly certain achieves the EXACT same end as the b-word. I felt bad. But if I didn’t read, I don’t think I’d know the w-word either. Damn you education system for teaching me how to get around general use pejoratives for learned ones! I definitely call ni**as the n-word though.

Anyway, those are some of my self-awarenesses. Sharing is caring people. What you got?

-VSB P aka THE ARSONIST aka MR. STEAL YOUR CURL aka GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRL HE A 3

Is This What Growed Up Feels Like?

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The only NWA I can get with nowadays! Take that Dr. Dre!

Personal growth is a motherlover. Especially when you don’t see it coming. And in some ways it can make you ashamed of who you were just hours before. Or make you call into question decisions you made that led to you making it to the point where you could realize growth that you now have hours later that you didn’t have hours before you experienced said growth.

TCBY.

What am I talking about? Glad you asked.

The other day I was rollin’ in my ’64. Actually it’s an ’07 but who’s counting. Well except for me. Moving on. So I was rolling down the street smoking indo, sippin’ on gin and juice (none of that is true either). As of late my favorite thing to do is pick a Pandora station and kill the battery on my iPhone. Usually its set to either the Patrice Rushen station or the David Axelrod station. Well this fine day, I decided to roll down my windows and blast some of that good ole ignant music I love so much. So I punched in three letters that are world famous:

N.

W.

A.

One of my favorite albums of all time is EFIL4ZAGGIN. Dr. Dre was at his producerial essence on this album and despite its themes (put a pin in that, we’ll get back to this shortly) its a hip-hop masterpiece of beats, rhymes, and life and is sonic perfection. So anyway, I punch in NWA and Eazy E’s “Boyz N Tha Hood” comes on. Okay. Dopeboy anthems have always been one of my favorites and especially since I’m a West Coast music head, there wasn’t much better.

Then it happened.

“Just Don’t Bite It (She Swallowed It)” came on.

Oh. My. God.

Dude, this has to be at LEAST one of the 5 MOST ignorant songs in hip-hop history. Ever. Hell, so is “Automobile” off the same album. Actually so is “Find ‘em, F*ck ‘em, and Flee” on that same album. You know what, f*ck it, EFIL4ZAGGIN is one of the most ignorant pieces of art ever created and sold in commercial outlets. Like seriously…gotd*amn. As I listened to this song (and I know the words by heart) I almost felt ashamed of myself.

Actually, I did feel ashamed of myself. In that one song is rape, statutory rape, complete and utter disregard for women, rampant and blatant misogyny, etc etc etc. Honestly, I kind of wondered how ANYBODY could make a song like that and then say to themselves, “wow, this sh*t is dope.” Dumbfounded. I’m the blast my music loud type of mofo. I turned my stereo ALL the way down as I listened and thought about what I was listening to. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a father to a daughter now or what, but man…

…WHO DOES THAT???

Randomly: I’m not from the West Coast, but it seems like a common theme in nearly ALL early 90s West Coast hiphop involved running trains on women. Um, what the hell is wrong with ninjas in Cali??? Even Ice Cube, arguably the more sensible one of NWA, and the only one to give any of their music any type of substantive element was full of statutory rape and just outright violent disregard for women. I’m not gonna say that it was a West Coast thing, it has been a hip-hop thing, but the abject clarity spoken on those songs is almost disturbing at times.

And I realize that in the hood, things happen. A lot of women involved are willing participants. But who the hell commits sh*t like that to immortality via master recordings? I suppose the same goes with the violent, murder murder murder stuff too.

Obviously, this was is all very conflicting for me because I’m a hip-hop head to the heart. But some of that sh*t just crossed/crosses the line and I’m really curious as to how ANYBODY could make that music. Like, if I could interview MC Ren right now, I’d say, “Ren take me through your thought process when you wrote the lyrics for “Just Don’t Bite It 2 (She Swallowed It)”. Does any of it strike you as not right?”

I’m trying not to chastise my beloved hip-hop and it’s not like I’m going to stop listening to it, but listening to that song shamed the motherf*ck out of me because I couldn’t believe that I used to love it H.E.R. and also that somebody actually made that…somebody with a mama. Maybe this is what growing up starts to feel like. Maybe I already did seeing as how I haven’t listened to anything N.W.A. related in years at this point, partially for this reason and because I have a daughter that I have to raise to love herself.

But egads man…what a lesson. So I wonder, good folks out there, have you had any similar type of “aha” growth moment? If it involved NWA, you and me? We >< here.

Talk to me.

-VSB P aka PETEY WHEATSTRAW aka GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRL HE A 3

April Showers: In Memory Of…

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Y’all gon’ have to forgive me, because today I just feel like sharing.

I remember when my life changed.

I don’t know if everybody experiences life changing moments or goes through events that cause them to really consider life and all of its possibilities or not, but it happened to me.

The problem for me is that the very experience that changed my life is one where somebody else’s life came to an end. And that is something I’ve been dealing with for 12 years now. I only have one real regret in life. But over time, I realize that had I done something different that night, and thereby erasing my regret, I might have ended the lives of two other people. Not just the one person who’s life did end that night.

April is the birthday month of my cousin. Or would be if he was still alive. April 21. It’s a day that for years has pained me, since for the past 12 years, I’ve never been able to get to Atlanta to celebrate his birthday with my family. Every time I do make it back to Atlanta, one of the first stops I always make is to the cemetery to visit the grave of my cousin, and now my grandmother as well, who is buried right next to him. Just as God intended them to be.

One night, in July 2000, my younger cousin and I went to the movies. We saw Scary Movie . I don’t even remember if it was funny or not. I do remember a conversation my cousin and I had about religion and our upbrining in the church and how we felt at the time. I was 21 and she was 19. The movie was over at about 1135pm. We lived on the Westside of Atlanta, Adamsville to be exact, and we were at Magic Johnson’s in Greenbriar. It takes about 10 minutes to get from Greenbriar to my grandmother’s house. We got there are about 1147pm.

My grandmother’s house has a split driveway. You can either pull into the left side or the right side. I pulled into the right side. Parked. And walked into the basement door. As I was walking in, my cousin, T, was walking out. He would go to our grandmother’s house every day at least once to check on his mother and my grandmother, who would cook dinner for him everyday. You get things like that when you are grandma’s right-hand man. I hadn’t seen him in about a week, maybe. Which wasn’t normal. Not that anything was up, he would either stop by my spot to see me or we’d meet up at my grandmother’s house to say what’s up a few times a week. We have a pretty tightknit family like that.

T: What’s up folk, I ain’t seen you like a week, cuz. What’s up, you ain’t got love for your cuz no more?

Me: What’s up T, you know good and well I love you man. I’ll give you a call in a day or two.

*dapping up in black man handshake hug*

T: Alright, folk. I’ll holla at you later. Bye momma…

He walked outside.

I started to walk towards the stairs. At this point there is about 10 feet between us. He’s outside, I’m inside.

My other cousin, who is his little sister, is between the two of us. And then it happened. He yelled, “don’t hit me folk!!!”

He was gone.

1148pm.

Shot once in the heart. Died instantly.

I honestly never heard the gunshot. And to this day that bothers me. Everybody else heard it but I didn’t hear it so for a second I was confused at what I was seeing. I didn’t see anybody else’s face. I just saw T laid out on the ground, his car door open…

A total of 30 seconds at most passed between the time I got to the driveway and he was killed. At my grandmother’s house.

Which means that whoever did it, was there when I pulled up and must have been hiding in the shadows of my grandmother’s carport, which is literally right next to the door we walked into.

Do you remember the scene in Menace II Society where Stacey is trying to revive Kaine after he was shot? That was us. We were shaking him and trying to wake him up, refusing to believe he was gone. Little did we know he was already dead. One of the paramedics told me that later that he died instantly. At least there wasn’t any pain. I had to make all of the phone calls to the family because I was the only person who could hold the phone. There were four other people in the house when it happened. My aunt (his mother), my grandmother, and his two sisters, one of which went to the movies with me. One of his sisters ran into the street and collapsed. His mother lost it as well. My grandmother and other cousin, both of who have the strongest relationships with God of anybody I’ve ever met, both cried, and then prayed.

It took about 10 minutes for it to dawn on me.

The person who killed my cousin had every opportunity to kill me. He had to have seen my face and my other cousin’s as well. For all we knew, he KNEW us. I was afraid to go to my grandmother’s house, or anywhere else for that matter for a week.

I could have died that night. Had I made the decision that would have erased my regret, and parked on the other side of the driveway, I would have seen him, and he might have killed me and my cousin in order to get away. He was clearly going to kill somebody that night. He came there to complete a job. He succeeded.

And that changed my life. I don’t really remember my demeanor before it all happened. I know I was still a happy person and that I wasn’t very negative in nature. But now…

…it’s hard for me to get upset or really depressed. I have my moments like everybody else. But losing my cousin like that, and being so close to the situation and realizing it could have been me, well, everyday I’m alive I’m happy to be here. I have quite a few friends who have asked me how I seem to be so happy or jovial so often and why not much gets me down. I nearly always respond: because I’m alive. Life has been good to me. And it took that day to make me realize just how lucky I am.

My family was scared for me for quite a few days. My father in particular. I was leaving for a summer program in DC a week later so it was a very tense week in my neighborhood for me. I was scared. But somehow, I was just thankful to be alive. I feel that way lots of times. I have a weird peace in my life nowadays. Some things suck, but it takes me very little time to get over certain stuff. I realized how much I love and value my family.

I love life and living. I appreciate every day that I get. Even the people that drive me crazy are appreciated. Not being afraid to live is one of the best feelings ever. Sure I slack at times, but I know that life is grand and that my cousin is looking down on us while he and my grandmother play backgammon in heaven, something I could never play on Earth.

For a good year, I got really nervous at my grandmother’s house. Even today, every time I walk by the spot it happened, I have to look over and stare for a while. I can’t get the vivid imagery out of my head, and I’m not sure I ever will. It’s part of me now.

I miss my cousin a lot. At least I got a chance to tell him that I loved him. Anytime we have a family function, everybody always makes sure to mention T and make sure we remember him. And because my family is tres ghetto, somebody always shows up with their RIP t-shirt. I myself have two of them.

So every April 21, on his birthday, I make sure to give thanks for his life and remember his death. My life is what it is now because of him.

Always missed, always loved. When they reminisce over you…

One thing that experience taught me is that we’ve all got stories. And that you’d be amazed what people have been through if you just listen. If you’ve got something to share, feel free. If not, that’s all good.

I know it’s heavy for a Friday, but I’ve been hesitant to write about this for years on this site. And today I felt like sharing.

Welcome to Panama’s City.

-VSB P

 PS: For your reading pleasure, check out Champ’s latest article at Ebony, “5 Reasons Kim and Kanye are a Match Made in Heaven”. And for those looking for more philosophical fodder, check out Panama’s latest at Guyspeak, “What’s Worse: The Pr0n Star or The Ex?”