It was the power of one well-placed positive word, one spark of encouragement from a woman Jean respected, that gave that uncertain young girl the strength and faith to pursue her dream. Today Jean says, “I chose to believe her.”
Carol Kline with Jean Harper
What Do You Want to Be?
Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.
Lauren Bacall
I had one of those serendipitous moments a few weeks ago. I was in the bedroom changing one of the babies when our five-year-old, Alyssa, came and plopped down beside me on the bed.
“Mommy, what do you want to be when you grow up?” she asked.
I assumed she was playing some little imaginary game, and so to play along I responded with, “H’mmmmm. I think I would like to be a mommy when I grow up.”
“You can’t be that ‘cause you already are one. What do you want to be?”
“Okay, maybe I will be a pastor when I grow up,” I answered a second time.
“Mommy, no, you’re already one of those!”
“I’m sorry, honey,” I said, “but I don’t understand what I’m supposed to say then.”
“Mommy, just answer what you want to be when you grow up. You can be anything you want to be!”
At that point I was so moved by the experience that I could not immediately respond, and Alyssa gave up on me and left the room.
That experience—that tiny five-minute experience— touched a place deep within me. I was touched because in my daughter’s young eyes, I could still be anything I wanted to be! My age, my present career, my five children, my husband, my bachelor’s degree, my master’s degree: none of that mattered. In her young eyes I could still dream dreams and reach for stars. In her young eyes my future was not over. In her young eyes I could still be an astronaut or a piano player or even an opera singer, perhaps. In her young eyes I still had some growing to do and a lot of “being” left in my life.
The real beauty in that encounter with my daughter was when I realized that in all her honesty and innocence, she would have asked the very same question of her grandparents and of her great-grandparent.
It has been written, “The old woman I shall become will be quite different from the woman I am now. Another I is beginning...”
So... what do you want to be when you grow up?
Rev. Teri Johnson
Hello, Dolly!
You gotta have a dream. If you don’t have a dream, how ya gonna make a dream come true?
Bloody Mary, in the movie South Pacific
Music, I suppose, will be the thing that sustains me in the time of my life when I am too old for sex and not quite ready to meet God. It has always been an essential part of me. Since I have been able to form words, I have been able to rhyme them. I could catch on to anything that had a rhythm and make a song to go with it. I would take the two notes of a bobwhite in the darkness and make that the start of a song. I would latch on to the rhythm my mother made snapping beans, and before I knew it, I’d be tapping on a pot with a spoon and singing. I don’t know what some of this sounded like to my family, but in my head it was beautiful music. I loved to hear the wild geese flying overhead. I would get into the music of their honking, and start to snap my fingers to their cadence and sing with them. I think I was especially drawn to them because I knew they were going somewhere. They had good reason to sing. They were free to go with the wind, to make the world their own. My song connected me to them. They took part of my spirit with them wherever they went.
When I was forced to pursue my musical dreams on my own, I would whang away at my old mandolin with the piano strings. I started getting pretty good with it, within its limitations, and people started to notice. Of course, that was exactly what I wanted. I was never one to shy away from attention. Finally, my Uncle Louis began to see that I was really serious about wanting to learn, so he taught me guitar. He gave me an old Martin guitar, and I learned the basic chords pretty quick. This was like manna from heaven to me. At last I could play along with the songs I heard in my head. Mama’s family were all very musical, and I used to worry the heck out of all of them to “teach me that lick” or “play this with me.” If Daddy had found it hard to get me to work in the fields before, now even he began to realize it was a fruitless undertaking.
I would sit up on top of the woodpile, playing and singing at the top of my lungs. Sometimes I would take a tobacco stake and stick it in the cracks between the boards on the front porch. A tin can on top of the tobacco stake turned it into a microphone, and the porch became my stage. I used to perform for anybody or anything I could get to watch. The younger kids left in my care would become the unwilling audience for my latest show. A two-year-old’s attention span is not very long. So there I would be in the middle of my act, thinking I was really something, and my audience would start crawling away. I was so desperate to perform that on more than one occasion I sang for the chickens and the pigs and ducks. They didn’t applaud much, but with the aid of a little corn, they could be counted on to hang around for a while.
Over the years, my dream for a better audience grew. I wanted to sing at the Grand Ole Opry! But people thought my chances were pretty slim and wanted to spare me a heartache, so they’d come up with answers like “You’re just a kid,” or “You have to be in the union” or just about anything they could think of. But I just wouldn’t be denied.
You had to have a slot on the program to sing on the Opry, and there was no way I was going to get one. But finally, Jimmy C. Newman, who had a spot one Saturday night, agreed to let me go on in his place. Yet even though I got my wish to actually sing on the Opry, the reality of it hadn’t really sunk in. I took my place backstage that night, my usual cocky self, acting as if I sang on the Opry every night.
When my time came to sing, none other than Johnny Cash introduced me. “We’ve got a little girl here from up in East Tennessee,” he said. “Her daddy’s listening to the radio at home, and she’s gonna be in real trouble if she doesn’t sing tonight, so let’s bring her out here!”
Now the reality hit me. Not only the live audience: I knew very well that the radio broadcast was going out live all over the country. I was in the big time.
I walked up to that mike with the familiar WSM call letters on the little box built around it. This is actually it, I thought. For a split second I was a tourist as I pondered the mike, the same one I had seen in so many press photos of the stars I looked up to. I was standing on that same stage in the same place they had stood, where five seconds ago Johnny Cash had stood welcoming me to the stage—me, little Dolly Rebecca Parton from Locust Ridge.
Someone in the audience took a flash picture, and it snapped me out of being a tourist. I wasn’t sure I could sing at all. But God had brought me this far and had put something in me that would not be held back. As I heard the band play my introduction, I lifted my head and looked up toward the lights. I smiled at the people in the balcony and then let ‘er rip. I sang for God and Mama and Daddy. I sang for everybody who had ever believed in me. Somehow, I believed in me. I guess it showed in my voice.
I was stunned by the way the crowd reacted. I don’t think I had ever seen two thousand people in one place before. I know I had never heard a crowd cheer and shout and clap that way. And they were doing it all for me. I got three encores. This time I was prepared for an encore, but not three, not at the Grand Ole Opry. Someone told me later, “You looked like you were out there saying, ‘Here I am, this is me.’” I was. Not just to that audience but to the whole world. And I have been doing that same thing ever since.
Dolly Parton
Finding My Wings
Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul.
Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.
Pamela Vaull Starr
Like so many other girls, my self-confidence growing up was almost nonexistent. I doubted my abilities, had little faith in my potential and questioned my personal worth. If I achieved good grades, I believ
ed that I was just lucky. Although I made friends easily, I worried that once they got to know me, the friendships wouldn’t last. And when things went well, I thought I was just in the right place at the right time. I even rejected praise and compliments.
The choices I made reflected my self-image. While in my teens, I attracted a man with the same low self-esteem. In spite of his violent temper and an extremely rocky dating relationship, I decided to marry him. I still remember my dad whispering to me before walking me down the aisle, “It’s not too late, Sue. You can change your mind.” My family knew what a terrible mistake I was making. Within weeks, I knew it, too.
The physical abuse lasted for several years. I survived serious injuries, was covered with bruises much of the time and had to be hospitalized on numerous occasions. Life became a blur of police sirens, doctors’ reports and family court appearances. Yet I continued to go back to the relationship, hoping that things would somehow improve.
After we had our two little girls, there were times when all that got me through the night was having those chubby little arms wrapped around my neck, pudgy cheeks pressed up against mine and precious toddler voices saying, “It’s all right, Mommy. Everything will be okay.” But I knew that it wasn’t going to be okay. I had to make changes—if not for myself, to protect my little girls.
Then something gave me the courage to change. Through work, I was able to attend a series of professional development seminars. In one, a presenter talked about turning dreams into realities. That was hard for me—even to dream about a better future. But something in the message made me listen.
She asked us to consider two powerful questions: “If you could be, do, or have anything in the world, and you knew it would be impossible to fail, what would you choose? And if you could create your ideal life, what would you dare to dream?” In that moment, my life began to change. I began to dream.
I imagined having the courage to move the children into an apartment of our own and start over. I pictured a better life for the girls and me. I dreamed about being an international motivational speaker so that I could inspire people the way the seminar leader had inspired me. I saw myself writing my story to encourage others.
So I went on to create a clear visual picture of my new success. I envisioned myself wearing a red business suit, carrying a leather briefcase and getting on an airplane. This was quite a stretch for me, since at the time I couldn’t even afford a suit.
Yet I knew that if I was going to dream, it was important to fill in the details for my five senses. So I went to the leather store and modeled a briefcase in front of the mirror. How would it look and feel? What does leather smell like? I tried on some red suits and even found a picture of a woman in a red suit, carrying a briefcase and getting on a plane. I hung the picture up where I could see it every day. It helped to keep the dream alive.
And soon the changes began. I moved with the children to a small apartment. On only $98 a week, we ate a lot of peanut butter and drove an old jalopy. But for the first time, we felt free and safe. I worked hard at my sales career, all the time focusing on my “impossible dream.”
Then one day I answered the phone, and the voice on the other end asked me to speak at the company’s upcoming annual conference. I accepted, and my speech was a success. This led to a series of promotions, eventually to national sales trainer. I went on to develop my own speaking company and have traveled to many countries around the world. My “impossible dream” has become a reality.
I believe that all success begins with spreading your W.I.N.G.S.—believing in your worth, trusting your insight, nurturing yourself, having a goal and devising a personal strategy. And then, even impossible dreams become real.
Sue Augustine
Grandma Moses
and Me
I’m too old and it’s too late, played over and over in my mind. I was discouraged and exhausted after ending my marriage and my law career at the same time. Despite my intense desire to become a writer, I doubted my ability to succeed as one. Had I wasted years pursuing the wrong goals?
I was at a low point when the voice on the radio began telling the story of Grandma Moses. Ann Mary Moses left home at 13, bore 10 children and worked hard to raise the 5 who survived. Struggling to make a living on poor farms, she managed to provide a bit of beauty for herself by embroidering on canvas.
At 78, her fingers became too stiff to hold a needle. Rather than give in to debility, she went out to the barn and began to paint. On Masonite panels she created brilliantly colored, precisely detailed scenes of country life. For the first two years, these were either given away or sold for a pittance. But at the age of 79, she was “discovered” by the art world—and the rest is history. She went on to produce more than 2,000 paintings, and her book illustrations for ’Twas the Night Before Christmas were completed in her 100th year!
As I listened to the radio, my mood changed. If Grandma Moses could begin a new career and succeed after 80, my life still had hope after 30. Before the program ended, I charged to my computer to work on the novel I’d nearly abandoned.
It was published eight months later.
Liah Kraft-Kristaine
“We’re All Here to Learn”
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
Eleanor Roosevelt
“Sixteen,” I said. I have forgotten the math question my second-grade teacher, Joyce Cooper, asked that day, but I will never forget my answer. As soon as the number left my mouth, the whole class at Smallwood Elementary School in Norfolk, Virginia, started laughing. I felt like the stupidest person in the world.
Mrs. Cooper fixed them with a stern look. Then she said, “We’re all here to learn.”
Another time, Mrs. Cooper asked us to write a report about what we hoped to do with our lives. I wrote, “I want to be a teacher like Mrs. Cooper.”
She wrote on my report, “You would make an outstanding teacher because you are determined and you try hard.” I was to carry those words in my heart for the next 27 years.
After I graduated from high school in 1976, I married a wonderful man, Ben, a mechanic. Before long, Latonya was born.
We needed every dime just to get by. College—and teaching—was out of the question. I did, however, wind up with a job in a school—as a janitor’s assistant. I cleaned 17 classrooms at Larrymore Elementary School each day, including Mrs. Cooper’s. She had transferred to Larrymore after Smallwood closed down.
I would tell Mrs. Cooper that I still wanted to teach, and she would repeat the words she had written on my report years earlier. But bills always seemed to get in the way.
Then one day in 1986 I thought of my dream, of how badly I wanted to help children. But to do that I needed to arrive in the mornings as a teacher—not in the afternoons to mop up.
I talked it over with Ben and Latonya, and it was settled: I would enroll at Old Dominion University. For seven years I attended classes in the mornings before work. When I got home from work, I studied. On days I had no classes to attend, I worked as a teaching assistant for Mrs. Cooper.
Sometimes I wondered whether I had the strength to make it. When I got my first failing grade, I talked about quitting. My younger sister Helen refused to hear it. “You want to be a teacher,” she said. “If you stop, you’ll never reach your dream.”
Helen knew about not giving up—she’d been fighting diabetes. When either of us got down, she would say, “You’re going to make it. We’re going to make it.”
In 1987, Helen, only 24, died of kidney failure related to diabetes. It was up to me to make it for both of us.
On May 8, 1993, my dream day arrived—graduation. Getting my college degree and state teaching license officially qualified me to be a teacher.
I interviewed with three schools. At Coleman Place Elementary School, principal Jeanne Tomlinson said, “Your face looks so familiar.” She had worked at Larrymore more than 10 years earlier. I had cleaned her room, and she remembered
me.
Still, I had no concrete offers. The call came when I had just signed my 18th contract as a janitor’s assistant. Coleman Place had a job for me teaching fifth grade.
Not long after I started, something happened that brought the past rushing back. I had written a sentence full of grammatical errors on the blackboard. Then I asked students to come and correct the mistakes.
One girl got halfway through, became confused and stopped. As the other children laughed, tears rolled down her cheeks. I gave her a hug and told her to get a drink of water. Then, remembering Mrs. Cooper, I fixed the rest of the class with a firm look. “We’re all here to learn,” I said.
Charles Slack, as told by Bessie Pender
A Room of One’s Own
Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own ignited me early on to look for my own special place of peace and solitude. My soul longed for the beauty of some land by a lake— where I could breathe in the scent of pine, listen to the wind in the trees, gaze at an expanse of gray-blue water and follow my dream of writing full-time.
Eventually I followed my heart’s desire, leaving a law career to write books, and now the writing was almost paying for the groceries. Book sales and speaking engagements were beginning to grow, too. Spring was in the air, and I was bursting with moxie.
For a year, I had been making payments on a beautiful piece of land on a lake called Oconee. The land had been a miraculous gift—the price was rock-bottom because no one realized that it was lakefront property. I had pitched a tent there and loved sleeping on my own piece of paradise. But now, I was ready to move up. Without savings or the ability to get a mortgage, I was nonetheless determined to build a home, a place of my own.