Artists were exalted ones in my little world. Singers, dancers, actors, writers—anyone on a platform or stage. In my little world we were the lowliest. Daddy was an auto mechanic who raced motorcycles for the thrill of it. He’d once been a sword swallower at a circus, but Mama let us know what a freak he had been. Mama could play piano and sing as well as anyone on the radio, but she was just a housewife. Earthbound, she never aimed for anything higher.
No one in our family dreamed big dreams. Maybe Daddy once did, and his dead mother who had been a traveling jazz singer probably did. But that was another life, a Daddy who couldn’t focus his talent on any one thing. Especially a family.
I saw it all through my trusting child’s eyes, absorbing the barriers into my own ambition like glass ceilings I could look through, but never penetrate.
It’s time I crush the glass ceiling.