I'm Major Jackson, and this is the slowdown.

I distinctly remember my 25th birthday.

I was living in Loxley Court, Old City, Philadelphia.

My roommate Ellen decided to have a last minute intimate gathering for me, emphasis on gathering.

We bought bags of party-sized chips, pretzels, a plastic tray of sad-looking vegetables,

and bottles of pale L from the corner store.

We invited friends from the art center where we worked.

However, it being a Friday, word-spread, it seemed to every artist within a 10-mile radius.

Before I knew it, I was greeting and handing off bottles of Heineken at my door to actors,

photographers, poets, musicians to both friends and strangers.

My multi-CD player spun music for hours.

Then someone hit the stop button on Lenny Kravitz's Flowers for Zoe,

then turned the living room into a stage.

She performed a monologue from a play.

Then several others read poems, then quest love of the square roots.

Later, the roots grabbed a pot and wooden spoons from the kitchen and kicked a beat.

Black thought and Malik being broken to a freestyle, one of them rhyming major with

rager in honor of the occasion. I slowly took in the young and aspiring artists before me,

crowded on the sofa, sitting on the floor, leaning over the wrought iron railing of the mezzanine

of my apartment. A rising sense of community and confidence overcame me.

The year prior, I became a young father and was unsure of the direction of my life,

how to proceed responsibly as a parent. I possessed a serious fear that I needed to pursue a stable

...