Two Maxims

1. Yesterday, Tania and myself were performing in an elementary school in the Philadelphia area. There were three grades represented: 4th-6th. As I was perusing the audience, I took notice at how so many 4th graders have lost their innocence already. I started thinking about my daughter. She will be three in June. I felt panicky. Will Saskia look like some of these children so soon? Will all her innocence be faded by age 9? Six and a half years -- that's too quick. I don't have much time! Time is running out. I saw how much time I did not have.

The other day, I was waiting for a friend to arrive. We had set the time, and I knew I had three hours before he arrived. Three hours. I had plenty of time. I meandered around my apartment checking email, reading a book, watching a tv show, and just noticing how slow time was going because I had so much time on my hand.

Maxim: When you focus on how much time you don't have time will travel quickly; when you focus on how much time you do have time will move slowly. Focus on what you have, not what you do not have.

2. I went down to the deep south in North America a couple of months ago. I hadn't been to this particular state before, and I had some fear about how they would respond to me, because as a black northern fella, I have some deep rooted suspicions and prejudgments about white, southern males and females, and their reaction towards me. I thought I would be met with some obvious racism from these citizens; I was prepared. I was ready for my judgments to hold steady.

I'm happy to say, my friend lives in a large university town, and university towns tend to pull in a more liberal and open-minded atmosphere. This was true of this southern city. People were friendly, and genuinely so. They treated me kindly, without suspicion, and made me feel at ease. There was only one time that I noticed a different feel than my homeostasis. I walked into a restaurant with this lovely friend of mine, (who, by the way, I completely adore), and people stopped eating to stare at us, both black and white. Of course, I immediately thought it was because of how stunning my friend is, (which still could be the case), but the looks betrayed something else, almost as if people were looking at something very foreign. And they were.

Allow me to describe my friend. In the spirit of anonymity, I will call my friend GK. GK is white and her hair is blond. As I said before, I am black. In the deep South, I have noticed how few interactions blacks and whites have together, socially or romantically. The two don't mix as often as they do in the North. GK is a genuine exception to this rule. She doesn't describe her friends by their race or sexual orientation. This is also true of GK's best friend, who I'll code name, Trouble. They see people for people.

Nonetheless, outside of this minor staring incident, I felt happy to be proved wrong. I walked away from this southern city with less judgment. I learned that I shouldn't judge too quickly.

On Saturday, GK told me about a conversation she had with a peripheral MySpace person on her friend's list. He asked her, "Why did you come to the bar with a black guy?" She replied, "What?!" He said, "Why did you come to the bar with a nigger?" GK flipped, had a few choice words, and was restrained from hunting the guy down and killing him. Later, this same imbecile attempted to leave a message on GK's comment board with the following statement: GK is a nigger-lover.

I was stunned and speechless. This is 2007 and there are people who still use the word, "nigger-lover". It was laughable and almost unbelievable. For about 30 minutes, I kept thinking that GK was going to call back and tell me that she was just pulling my leg. She never called back.

I learned another lesson that day, and my trip to the South became a life's maxim.

Maxim: Do not be quick to judge; do not be quick to lose your judgment.

A Party invitation for Natalie Maines

"Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas." –
Natalie Maines, Dixie Chicks

Have you ever played the party game? It goes something like this – if you could invite 10 living/dead people to a party, who would you invite and why? On so many people’s list, Jesus, Gandhi, Mother Theresa, and Martin Luther King make the final cut. Not true for me, though, perhaps with the exception of Jesus, I much rather have the living at my party . . . at least this party.

In 2003, Dixie Chicks’ lead singer, Natalie Maines, while performing overseas made what seemed like an innocuous statement at the time, but proved to be a life-altering event for the group. Natalie said, “We’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.” This statement was her outcry against Bush’s war instigation in Iraq. The Dixie Chicks did not realize that their measly words would cause such a tidal wave. There were many southern folks, particularly Texans, who were incensed by this sacrilege against a (self-professed) god-appointed president. Who did these chicks think they were? The intelligentsia of the southern community began protesting the Dixie Chicks in the most erudite manner. They burnt Dixie Chicks’ compact discs, held up signs telling the Dixie Chicks where they could burn (and we’re not talking about just in France), boycotted concerts in droves, radio stations refused to play their music, people made death threats toward Natalie Maines, and one classy individual came up with the stylish idea that Natalie should be strapped to a bomb then dumped over Iraq. Ah, the cream of the crop in America! I am ever so puzzled as to why other countries tend to hate Americans! Look how civilized and organized these people were.

The Dixie Chicks were branded as traitors for speaking out against a costly American mistake – (trickery at the polls in 2000 or the war in Iraq, you choose) – and they, in turn, loss most of their country music fan base. Was that really a loss? Do they really want their clientele to be of the mindset of potential murderers, obtuse tobacco-spitters, and blind sheep led by a blind shepherd? By no means!

The Dixie Chicks may have lost their country music fan base, but they gained a world of respect around the world, and they gained new fans. Like me. Natalie’s passion and heart won me over. I know what it’s like to fight against the norm; to be criticized for doing so; to be misunderstood. I know what it’s like to lose voices of support because the crowd can’t understand what’s beyond the matrix, what exists outside the box. I know what it’s like to feel scared, alone, and tired, but knowing that you must stand up for what you believe; you must sing truth, even when all other voices are fluctuating with nonsense. I know what it’s like to be told to just “shut up and sing” as if you are only a singer or actor or whatever it is that you DO. “Our life is more than our work, and our work is more than our job.” Shut up and sing? What an ill philosophy, a putrid testament to a tapered worldview. Sing, Natalie, and never shut up. Let your voice be heard, even if it means the sacrifice of your life. We shall live on. Remember this: obedient women have never been remembered in history! You, my friend, have lost bronze, but have been rewarded with gold.

If I were to have a party, inviting 10 people from the living and dead, Natalie Maines would most certainly make the list. She has made her bed and now sleeps like a baby. Thank you, Natalie, for showing fearful how truly to be brave!

Dear Natalie, I am having a party someday, and would like to formally invite you to come. I promise that the cast of characters at this event will be only those who have chosen the lesser trodden path. And like you, all have been misunderstood in some form or fashion. I hope you accept my invitation, and I look forward to meeting you in this or our next life. Please RSVP as soon as possible. Sincerely, Michael Fowlin.

sleep kidnapper

she’s a sleep kidnapper – that’s not a good thing

she leaves you pondering with fantastical reasoning

she is the precipitating smell of calmness before the storm

she disturbed my sleep for hours, leaving me without form

she’s a sleep kidnapper; she’s on her own time

she knows no man or woman to decipher this riddle

she is as original as history – and probably just as riddled

she takes her own time; kidnapping me into anxiety, not the sublime

she’s a sleep kidnapper; can’t be a good thing

i’m without form, she’s calm as the storm

riddling me with anxiety and the repetition of history

i’m left to ponder how this riddle of a woman disturbed my sleep

she’s a sleep kidnapper

and i can’t fall asleep

The Isolation of First Generation

In my recollection of the incident, I was probably 11 years old, and the time of day was most certainly prior to noon. What I don’t remember clearly are details such as: was I the only one present? Was this the first time my mother said this to me? Was this the last time? Grant it, these questions are somewhat superfluous to the issue itself, but it intrigues me that my memory only holds the words, not the context, of this personally momentous event.

My mother said, “I will not speak to you until your teeth are brushed!” At the time, her statement would have only a causal, seemingly insignificant, relationship to me. The implicit, “Go brush your teeth,” caused me to go and brush my teeth. This, in turn, would later increase my teeth-brushing compulsion and breath-cleanliness obsession. And then about a year ago, I began to painfully interpret this as my mother’s conditional love, despite her frequent protests of unconditional adoration towards all her children. And then, a few weeks ago, a new understanding arose; my mother was only passing on what had been taught to her: proper human beings should brush their teeth, first thing in the morning. This is not the American way; this is the Jamaican way. It wasn’t a preference; it was an imperative. My mother “shoulded” on me.

Most of my friends in America generally brush their teeth after they eat breakfast or drink their coffee in the morning. This is not the case with Jamaicans. Jamaicans brush their teeth first thing in the morning. I grew up with this standard, and I continue this standard today. (I’ve even taken it a little bit further: I brush twice before I eat, and once after I eat my breakfast.) But why did I interpret teeth-brushing as an indictment of my mother’s conditional love, and more importantly, what does teeth-brushing have to do with anything more significant than having white pearlies?

I love my mother. And, my mother’s love is conditional. However, teeth-brushing is neither a fair nor accurate example of this conditional status. I suspect that recently I’ve interpreted teeth-brushing as an example of my mother’s conditional love because I needed to understand my state of despair. Who really loves me? Do I feel loved by my mother? Where do I belong? These and other questions were plaguing me. But, I digress.

Teeth-brushing is a metaphor for what the experience of adaptation and assimilation must be like for many 1st generation children, including myself. We are caught in the vortex of two separate worlds, left on our own accord to decipher what things to keep, what things to file away, and what things get tossed aside. The burden of being 1st generation is a weight too often glossed over, yet, it affects the very core of all of us who are in this position. I am making a new path of what it means to be Jamerican. I do not completely fit in with Jamaicans, nor do I completely understand the American way of being. I am both, and sometimes I am neither.

I think about my 1st generation status as a symbol for all who have been forced to create their own niche within the environment in which they live; the individuals who willfully or unknowingly march to their own drum; the warriors who turned around to walk against the crowd; the despised poets; the fringed politicians; the fevered zealots and the nomadic sojourners; the women and men who have echoed the sentiments of harmony against all forms of oppression; the jazz musician in a classical band. Here’s to you – a toast – wherever you go and may be, for making my life what it is – less alone – and here’s a wink and nod with the knowledge that this path may lead to our own crucifixion or liberation; or maybe, just perhaps, a little of both.

Why I Never Committed Suicide
"Not me, I think I'm gonna stick around. I've just got to find out how this movie ends. And as I stumble through the mystery of this life, I'm gonna keep on trying to find a friend."-- Randy Stonehill, Weight of the Sky

The questions come every once in a while from students and adults alike: Why suicide? Why not suicide? What stopped me from ending my own life? What advice do I have for them not to end theirs? They are intriguing queries, to say the least. Suicide is a great presence; a distressing assassin to some, while a hopeful potential for others.

Simply stated, death is fascinating; scary, but most certainly intriguing. Our mortality has had philosophers and the daft, queens and peasants, atheists and saints hurling theories about our physical end. Are we just dust? Is there an afterlife? Will we be remembered? Will I be remembered?

My first memory of death happened when I was seven: my grandmother died. Her death did not deeply affect me, though she was in and around my life from birth. A year later I would experience another death that would certainly shake me. It was August 2, 1979. I had just finished taking a shower, and heard the heart-stopping news: Thurman Munson, the great Yankee baseball catcher, had died in a plane crash. I fell into a stupor. How could he be dead? Death doesn’t happen to someone like that.

Within minutes, I heard the outside door open, and my brother and our next door neighbor, Rosanne, were coming in to tell me the news. Unfortunately for me, I had just finished taking a shower and I was completely naked. I panicked. I knew that within seconds they would be in the same room in which I now stood. I darted for my bedroom and crawled under the bed; there was no time to dress. Of course, Rosanne and Roy thought that I was playing some reinvented game of hide-n-seek. I wasn’t. While I hid, they sought, eventually finding me screaming under the bed because Rosanne saw me naked. I never was or have been as embarrassed as I was in that moment. I was completely terrified! Not only was I still processing Munson’s death, but now I had to deal with the humiliation of my next door neighbor seeing me as a wet, dangling mess. Death and sex were forever entangled, and my mom promptly took it upon herself to inform all the relatives about this charming incident. Needless to say, I was none too pleased.

After that incident, I don’t remember thinking about death too seriously until my teenage years. My initial reflections about suicide took place around age 14. I don’t remember any specific details concerning this topic, or any real precipitating crisis at the time, but I sense the circumstances around these ponderings dealt with more of my existential need to comprehend my existence. Furthermore, suicide was a subcategory of death, and by age 15, I was thinking about death, daily. I was intrigued by the mystery beyond; I was captivated by books and movies about death; I enjoyed visiting cemeteries (in my later teenage years, I even attempted to take my first girlfriend, Amy, to a graveyard for our first date); I was entranced by the death of relatives and family friends. Death, in truth, occupied more mental space than sex ever did in my teenage years.

Suicide became more of a focus the day I found out that Marc P. died. I was 15. He took a lethal amount of heroin and kissed a few rainbows in his final monologue. Of course all the adults wanted us (or perhaps, themselves) to believe it was an accident, but Marc and I were close enough our freshman year for me to know that it was a suicide. His smile and contagious laugh could not mask the sadness that existed in his ghostly piercing, blue eyes. I was shaken, stunned, angry, yet, obsessed with his exit, and in some ways, quite possibly, I am still gripped by his death. His voice haunts me, for he was one who got away.

It wasn’t too much after Marc’s death when I started thinking about my own demise, but initially, not through suicide; rather, I held this romantic and altruistic view of my death. I was certain I would die in sleep or be murdered like some of the great social leaders before me, and this, undoubtedly, would take place before I turned 25. I remember how assured I was about dying young. I didn’t crave this, but, much like clairvoyant abilities, I sensed this anticipated truth through every fiber of my being.

These thoughts went on and off through my freshman and sophomore years of high school. I was involved in a lot of stupid stuff at the time, creating havoc and idiot moves everywhere I went. It was my freshman year when I started burning down parks and wooded areas; it was in my freshman year when I kissed Tricia R. – she was the first girl I ever kissed, and she worried if I would be a good kisser because I was black; it was in my freshman year that I would steal liquor out of neighbors’ garages; it was in my freshman year that I resumed shoplifting; it was in my freshman year that I was drinking and chewing tobacco; it was in my freshman year when I started to feel really lost. Then my freshman year moved into my sophomore year, and more of the same continued, with a few additions.

On many nights during my sophomore year, I would sneak out of my house, running wild in the neighborhood, stealing people’s mail, starting more fires, drinking alone, smoking tea, sniffing glue and gasoline, and trying to get lucky with some girls.

All these activities added to my depression, and suicidal thoughts were in the background of my mind. I felt empty. Life appeared to have no purpose. In my heart of hearts, I knew that I would not commit suicide; I came from a religious home, and suicide, in my thinking then, was always a one-way ticket to hell. However, on the night of April 25, 1987, I had snuck out of my house and I had gotten very drunk, and when I came home I prayed to God to never allow me to wake the next morning. I was desperately disenchanted by the life I had created. I went to sleep, hoping I would die in that peaceful land of dreams. I couldn’t pull the trigger, slice my wrists, or hang myself, but the urge to subsist was a distant memory; I wanted death.

I awoke the next morning tearful, incensed, and still drunk. It was Sunday, April 26, and my life was about to change. Before going to church, my parents often had a morning worship time where all of us would pray together. For the most part, these were a drag, both then and now, but on this morning, I was a trembling mess. I wailed out to God praying that God would either give me all of God or none of God. I promised that I would submit to God’s will for my life, if God would take these voices from my mind, from my soul.

God answered my prayer.

There was a major change in my life; yet, from time to time, death has made a request for my company, and in my senior year of college, I almost gave in to that ridiculous clanging. During this period of my life, I was dealing with what one 17 year old boy had done to this 11 year old child. Up until then, I thought I was fine, but one of my sociology teachers put a word to what had happened to me: molestation.

Only by the strength of God and friends did I survive that phase.
I’ve battled some depression for chunks of my life, though I’ve never taken medication for it, nor do I think I ever will. When I look at my family history: mother, father, brother, aunts – I see that the mark of depression rests heavily in my genes. I know that within the last 13 years my brother has battled alcohol, sex, and drug addiction, and quite possibly some undiagnosed mental illness. Yes, the drug addiction garners the most attention, but my clinical sense believes it is a tangled web, not a dangling rope.

My mother has been on both anti-anxiety and antidepressant medications, and my father, within the last seven years, told me about wanting to cash it all in when he was laid off from work. This was the most shocking of all. My father, a big, strong man wanted to end it all. He felt humiliated by life and its injustice. Thankfully, because of his faith in God, perhaps the thoughts about family, he stuck it out. We’ve never spoken about this impulse since the first time he nonchalantly mentioned it to me. Finally, one of my aunts is bi-polar and has spent many years on medications and in hospitals.

What has made me not commit suicide? Very simply: God, family, friends, and my instinctive belief that I serve more people by being alive than I would by my death. Will that ever change? I can’t say for certain. I knew in college that it was my sister Joy that kept me alive at times. She is 11.5 years younger than me. She is my baby, though now grown. I knew in college, especially my senior year, that she was the most important reason for me not ending it all. I also knew had anything tragic happened to her at that time, I would take a step away from this life, and perhaps never return.

What about now? I think about my daughter. I think that if something tragic were to happen to her, something that ended her life, would there be enough good (in friends, family, and God) to make me want to continue? I pray that I will never have to answer that question.

For now, I know that suicide has not even remotely called my name since 1993, and for this I’m thankful.

Is it still Sectarian Violence?

Everyday when I read the news headlines it is inevitable that I will be confronted with the ugliness of what is happening in Iraq. All the lies that have been told to us is beginning to become clearer and clearer in broad daylight. Is Iraq really better since we entered that country several years ago? Even the rote utterances of those who still support our perpetration in Iraq, sound dimwitted, at best. And in case you're unaware, the argument goes something like this: "How can you criticize the American government? Is not Iraq better off without Saddam? How can you even argue about taking out that dreadful dictator?"

Allow me to answer these questions, and perhaps to present another series of questions. Yes, Iraq, in general would be better off without Saddam. However, the more important question is this: Is Iraq better off with America's invasion? The answer to this question is even more intriguing: no!

The lengths that this current government have gone to support their mistakes is confounding. I'm befuddled by the disaster that we have labeled the "War on Terror". Has not terror increased by our presence? And this crackpot label: Sectarian Violence . I hate to disappoint you, my friends, but this is a Civil War between the Sunnis and Shiites within our war on terror. To give you a better picture, it would be similar to us fighting the American revolution against England while having the American Civil War between the Confederate and the Union, mixed, for good measure, with the Great Depression. Now, doesn't that sound scrumptious?

It is not sectarian violence; it is civil war, and we are unprepared for this travesty, and we were the fuse for this explosion. And I love the response of those who support or supported the war when someone like me points out this disaster. They ask the questions, "Well, what's your solution? Are you just going to run and leave?"

I love the idiocy of this response because it reminds me of when I was a child and I almost burned down my house. I was lighting fires under the house, and one of my fires went out of control. My mother smelled the smoke, and she came running outside asking me what I did. I looked panicked and she told me to get some water and put out the flames. I snapped to it and did just that: I put out the flames. Never for a moment did I think about adding more fire to put out the fire, and never for a moment did I turn to my mother and say, "Well, what are you going to do about it? How can you criticize me when you don't have a better solution? Things will still be burnt after I put out the flames! I'm seeing this through! Ashes or no ashes, you can rebuild it later, if you want." Could you imagine what my mother would have done to me?

I think the situation we started in Iraq is a lot like this situation. The pro-war components of this country are like me setting the fire, and the anti-war components of this and most other countries are like my mother, screaming for the mischievous son to put out the fire he started. Yes, things will be burnt, (you can't un-burn what has been set ablaze), but the house, in the end, will be saved. And finally, it is the son's responsibility to clean up his mistakes.

Oh, America, beautiful and troubled child, what am I to do with you? You have made my job so much more difficult. How do I convince the youth not to resolve their conflicts through violence when they hear their leaders promoting violence to end violence? Am I just a clankering bell whose tones are no longer heard or recognized? Must I resort to just silence and watchful prayer? By no means! I will not be like the zebra. For you see, when a zebra is attacked by a lion the other zebras stand around and watch. They do NOTHING! I am no zebra; my voice, in words, in deeds, is what needs to be heard. Violence begets violence.

There is a popular bumper sticker that says: Pray for our troops. I like this bumper sticker, but my bumper sticker says it a little differently: Pray for our enemies, then pray for our troops.

May we find peace in this coming new year.

Raising Saskia

I am raising my daughter to be the best
I am raising my daughter to be a feminist
to reject the masculine standard of normal
to resist referencing
a group of girls as "you guys"
I want her to break the trend
by naming her daughter after her name
and not some man's . . .
to keep her last name
or to throw it out and start all over
to see God's breasts through all the empty spaces and silences
of scripture
to know that Eve was smarter than Adam
(the wise serpent only wanted to break the best)
I want her to know the song of Sojourner Truth
because I am raising my daughter to be a feminist


I am raising my daughter to be powerful
before beautiful
she need not be identified only as beautiful
her beauty is evident
her power needs establishment
her name is her story:
Saskia -- protector of her people
Cordelia -- the faithful daughter of King Lear
she will lead other women
other men
to celebrate the power of all our power
I am raising my daughter to be powerful
I am raising my daughter to be a powerful feminist

I am raising my daughter to be the best