Dancing on the Edge of the Roof

When I was forty-two years old, I decided to run away from home. Just pack up and go. Wouldn't take dishes or nothin', no "household goods," stuff like that. Just my own stuff. What I could get into two suitcases. Wasn't runnin' away exactly, just movin' on. I wanted to see things I'd never seen before, go places different from here. I had been here too long. Wasn't nothin' happenin' here. Not a damn thing. Sometimes, you hear people say they want to find themselves. Well, I didn't need to do that. I knew where I was. That was the problem. When I was a kid, I watched the Popeye cartoons on Saturday mornin' before my momma waked up. Swee' Pea, the baby, he was my favorite. He would feel like he wasn't bein' treated right, so he would tie up all his things in a bandanna (like the ones my son Rashawn wears on his head now) and put it on a pole and crawl away, him in his pjs. And he'd see monsters and China and the ocean-the exciting things he'd never seen before. It was like a big adventure. That's what I wanted. A big adventure, all my own. Now, you know there was a lot workin' against me. I'm not what you call educated or nothin' like that. I ain't never been nowhere, don't have much of a life as it is. Got a COTA bus life-I go where the bus go: to work, to the carry-out, then home. And I'm not the kinda woman that you would think could have adventures. I'm not brave or smart. Not pretty or important. I ain't nobody you ever heard of. Ha! I'll never be anybody you heard of! And to most folks, I ain't much. But that's OK. I was smart enough to know that I couldn't stay here. Couldn't keep living the same old piece of life, doing the same old thing. Somebody said "life is not a dress rehearsal." I know what that means. You don't get a second chance. I think it's time to leave. Juanita's great adventure. Even if I don't get very far, it will still be farther than I've been. If Swee' Pea can have an adventure, then so can I. Now, I didn't come to this way of thinking overnight. It took a long time. "Momma?" Bertie's voice took me out of my daydream. "Momma!" "Momma in there?" I heard my daughter yell back to her brother. "Bertie, she in there," Rashawn yelled back. "She just writin' in that notebook again, that's all. You know how she gets." "Momma, you in there, or what?" Bertie's pounding was starting to get on my nerves. "Whatchu want, Bertie? And quit banging on my door! You gonna tear it down?" "Sorry, Momma," Bertie said. But she didn't sound like she was sorry. "Momma, can you keep Teishia for me? Me and Cheryl goin' to the Do Drop." "Then you and Cheryl needs to take Teishia with you," I said. "I want some peace and quiet tonight." "Aw, Momma! I ain't been out in two days!" she whined. I hate it when Bertie whines. "I won't be gone long, I promise," she lied. "Besides, Teishia'll be good. She go right to sleep." I sighed. That was the right word. Sigh . . . I closed my notebook and went to put it away. "Bertie, the last time you said that, that baby kept me up till two. And you and Cheryl didn't come home till mornin'." I opened the bedroom door. My daughter was standing there, dressed and ready to go. Teishia was sitting in the middle of the floor, playing with a Bic lighter. I ran over to her and snatched it away. "Bertie, you a fool or what? You got t' watch that child every minute! She mighta set herself-and us-on fire! And put these up!" I clicked the lighter. The flame jumped up an inch. Bertie rolled her eyes like she thought I was stupid. "Girl, you roll those eyes like that again, you be pickin' them up offWilliams, Sheila is the author of 'Dancing on the Edge of the Roof ', published 2005 under ISBN 9780345448743 and ISBN 034544874X.