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Honestly, so was mine. It was in the fields of my grandparents’ land, after all, that I found my imagination. There was no PlayStation or Xbox, no Netflix or iPad or any of the other easy distractions today’s kids lean on for entertainment. Back then, you had to find your fun, and I was damn good at that. In my hands, a long, pointy stick would turn into an explorer’s staff, perfect for pushing back wildflowers and brush in search of worms and ladybugs; a huge rock would be a dinosaur’s toe, stomping through the land in search of pterodactyl eggs to serve at Sunday brunch for my best imaginary girlfriends. I especially loved when dusk fell over the sky; I’d push away from the dinner table, rush out the front door, and fly down the porch steps, chasing after the magical lights bouncing on the booties of the fireflies. I loved how they tickled my palms when I cupped them in my hands; I’d whisper a quick “sorry” to every one of them before I’d squeeze them between my fingers, carefully removing the fluorescent yellow kernel of jelly and adding it to the “diamond” ring and bracelet I’d fashion for whatever evening festivities I’d conjured in my mind. I complained about being cooped up in my grandparents’ house with no one but my baby cousins to play with, but quietly I had me a good time.
It was in a tiny pink room there where I found my greatest joy—where I found my desire for stardom. That was my Aunt Glenda’s old bedroom. She was long gone from there, but her childhood sleeping quarters remained the same—down to the framed picture of Isaac Hayes in his “Black Moses” getup, the one in which he’s rocking some badass dark shades and his bald head is draped in the hood of a long, striped robe—as if frozen in time before she moved out on her own. I’d stare at that picture while I fiddled with the small portable radio sitting next to it; if I turned the dial just so, I could pick up a faint signal from the R&B radio station in Raleigh. If one of my songs was on, I’d crank up that music and tuck myself right in front of the floor-length mirror hanging on the back of the bedroom door, singing into my makeshift microphone fashioned from rolled-up pieces of construction paper, and gyrating my hips as if I were center stage on Soul Train. I would get lost in the music, imagining that the little girl smiling and singing hard and staring back at me with those great big ol’ eyes was famous, like Diana Ross, Goldie Hawn, or Lucille Ball. Some days, the hypnotic pull of my own fantasy was so strong that nothing else in the world existed, not time, not space, not fireflies or Grandma or even my mother and the friends I was missing back home.
Falling into my dramatic trances had its setbacks, though, and it sometimes got me into big trouble, as was the case on one particular afternoon when I took a break from watching my little cousins Tamera and Cliff to dance in that mirror. My grandmother was in the kitchen, no doubt getting a solid lunch ready for her grandchildren, and I, the oldest of the bunch at age eight, was supposed to be babysitting Cliff, who was about four, and Tamera, who, at almost two, was still in diapers, just learning how to walk and prone to getting into things. I needed to take a little break from watching them, though, because Teena Marie’s funk hit “Square Biz” was blasting on that tinny radio, and I wanted to put on my show in the long mirror. “I’m talkin’ square biz to ya, babaaaay,” I sang out from the depths of my gut, completely unaware of the drama that was unfolding just behind me: Tamera getting out of pocket with a jar of burgundy nail polish. I didn’t catch on until my grandmother rushed in the room and popped me square on my ass.
“I told you to watch these children, Taraji!” she yelled, wrestling the nail polish from Tamera’s hands. “You so busy in here twisting in that mirror you didn’t even see your cousin painting all over my floor!”
Startled by the hit and the screaming, I spun around, and was shocked by what I saw. That nail polish was everywhere—all on the floor, the walls, in the baby’s mouth and her hair. I think you can still see a swoosh or two of that burgundy polish in the wood grain on the floor. I was mortified, having been called out for falling down on my duties. For the rest of the day, I felt absolutely horrible and was mildly terrified that something awful would happen to my baby cousin because she drank some of the polish. “I’m sorry, Grandma,” was all I could muster. My head was hanging so low. That didn’t stop me, however, from singing in that mirror. Best believe I was back at it the next day, this time with one eye on my moves, the other on my cousins.