Power On! (from TEA WITH ATLANTA MCBRIDE)

I had took Tanisha down to my mama’s house like I usually do on Fridays. After she get out of school we go check out a new book from the library then spend a little bit of time at the Park. She love the swings. Sometimes when we don’t go to the Park we go down to the Jungle to hear the brothas play drums. That day we went to the Jungle and the Park and then stopped to get somethin’ to eat. It was the beginning of her summer break, so Toby was gon pick her up on Monday from mama’s and was gon have her till the end of summer. Things worked all out at the right time ‘cause soon as I pulled up I saw the yellow slip stuck on my door. Thas ok though. It wasn’t no big surprise or nothin’ like that. But then these things is never no surprise, you know? I just thought I was gon get a couple more days is all. I was tryina come up with the money but when somebody gotta choose between her baby and a bill due, then down here we usually gon feed our kids. I don’t know how it work where you at. But then again, y’all probly never even heard a somebody havin’ to make that choice huh? Anyways, I was just glad the man come after Tanisha was already at Mama’s.

I put my key in the door, walked in, put down my bag, grabbed some juice from the fridge and went and sat out on the front porch. This a four-plex and as I’m sure you can tell, it’s always four times the drama around here, so I knew I wasn’t gon miss no entertainment as long as I sit with my eyes and ears open. My power out or not. Well, I was just sittin’ there just about to feel sorry for myself and then here come Marla walkin’ up the walkway with all them grocery bags like she finna feed the whole neighborhood or somethin'. She say she saw the man come as she was on her way out. She even gave him a whole half a fresh baked sweet potato pie to give me a few more days. Wouldn’t you know it, he took the pie and turned the power off after she left. Some people don’t have no kinda honor. So while she was out she picked up a buncha candles for me. I helped her carry the bags upstairs and we sat and talked awhile and ate the rest of the sweet potato pie.

I tole her I didn’t know what I was gon do with my power off. Marla know just what to say at the right time. She tell me my power don’t come from no lights on or lights off. She say lights on was probly part of the problem in the first place. Sometimes you have the lights on for so long that you stop lookin’ from yo real power altogether.

Marla was right too. I went on downstairs and bagged up the milk and cheese and vegetables and everything like that that I had in the fridge and put ‘em in her fridge. Then put the candles in my bedroom and some in the kitchen and the bathroom too.

I couldn’t turn on the tv or the radio. Couldn’t even read no books neither, but thas ok. I sat there. With myself. A lotta people ain neva sat with theyself before. It's good for everybody to do that every now and then. Then you get to see what other folks have to deal with when they with you. If it’s hard for you to be by yoself then its probly hard for other folks to be with you too. But we don’t like to look at that though. We just think everybody out of they mind not to wanna be with us.

Anyways, I sat there. Sometimes it was hard and sometimes it was scary and sometimes it was the best thing I could think of to do. I sat. I prayed. I even started cryin’ about stuff I had been too busy for too long to cry about. I sang songs to myself and remembered scriptures, and sat on my couch to look out the window. I watched folks walkin’ by, children playin’, I even watched the grass growin’. I shol did. By myself. By my hard, scary, fun, peaceful self. It seem like the longer I sat there, the more I could feel God movin’ and alive inside of me. Then when the night got late, I would take me a hot bath with soap powder bubbles. The water only stayed hot for three four days. After that I would go boil some water upstairs in two or three of Marla’s big ole pots she cook greens in and I pour the water in my tub. I sleep like a baby then wake up when the sun wake up and read a little and pray and write some and draw some too. Then I a go to work, then hustle best I could and start the whole routine all over again the very next day. I did that forty and seven days.

See, I learned that it wasn’t no lights on that give me power. I already had the power. And I learned too that I didn’t need no man to do for me neither. Not to say that I didn’t need no man ‘cause I still am after all, a woman. But I need any man like any man need me. I shol do know now after spending time with myself that what I depended on one boyfriend after the next to do for me, I could do for me. And thas to see my power.

You know, God a teach you yo lessons the best ways you can learn ‘em. For me, I had to be in the dark over a month and a half to see my light.