I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.

And this is the slowdown. slow down. This morning I caught sight of more gray hairs in the sink after shaving.

I turned each side of my jaw close to the mirror for inspection.

Surprisingly, I felt a smile come over my face.

No fits of frustration at my visible signs of aging.

Is this placid state my version of Grinn and Barrett? I should be raging, right? I smack my cheeks

with aftershaved Cologne to wake myself up to old anxieties. Good or bad, my silver hairs are a

manifestation of next stage major. Along with this unseemly spirit of acceptance, I notice I feel more and deeply.

Of late, my dominant emotion is profound gratitude.

I've seen this period before.

I watched my grandfather become inexplicably teary-eyed

reflecting on his life. We didn't call attention to his watery eyes,

knowing he'd seen some things. Today's poem draws attention to that moment in our evolution when we feel ourselves closer to our true essence,

especially in the presence of others.

Imago by Sandra Alcozer.

I know where the morning cloak butterflies come from.

I know where they go.

I say to my beautiful Black-Irish friend

as we lunch in a cavernous palladian cafe, where moments ago she closed her eyes

and rubbed her palms together as I asked about her happiest moment so far this year.

She driven up the coast from LA in a brand new sea foam

Fiat and she mouths its color, Verde Kiaro, her first new car ever.

...