so, we needed to replace a section of gutter on our house. and we have trees that shed lots of little bits. and it’s rained here recently. so, rather than immediately fill our new gutters with all of the little bits that were piling up on the roof, the man (should we call him mr. happy or mr. stuff?) asked me to hop up on the roof and sweep the bits down to the ground. we have a very large, not very steep roof. some parts of it are quite high off the ground, but the slope is so shallow that i’m not totally freaked out to stand up there. usually, i have a quite active fear of edges. heights don’t really bother me, it’s just the edges that overlook long drops. see, my brain has this irrational fear that my body will suddenly mutiny and throw itself (carrying my brain along) off of the edge and down the long drop and splat at the bottom. but up on our roof, i only get the slightest zing of vertigo, just enough to make me feel a little giddy. but i can get past that because i love the novelty of being on the roof and not having to cling on for dear life. i love the idea of someday having a picnic up there. i love the new perspective i get from being on top of the house. everything looks so different. i balanced carefully across some open beams to the roof of my carport to sweep the bits off of that roof. it’s a pretty wide beam and not that far of a fall, but it still made me a little bit nervous in a “this is really actually pretty safe as far as risky things go” kind of way.
other roof memories for me include being on the roof of a house in the dominican republic watching the sun rise one morning after a long night of dealing with someone who had had too much to drink and kept waving a knife around, threatening to harm himself. the sunrise felt so clean and hopeful and i was so happy that we’d all survived the night unscathed. i also remember sneaking out of the dormer windows of my cousin’s house on an oklahoma summer night when we were all younger, sitting on top of the roof and joking around. my cousin put his hand on top of my head and moved it around and asked “do you know what this is?” and when i asked what, he most likely wanted to say the classic answer, “it’s a brain sucker and it’s starving” but what he actually said was, “it’s a brainless sucker.”
hmmm…maybe i will have a picnic on the roof tomorrow night.
