Walking on glass, in a room without a roof.

by Emma Noel-Pinnock

I am writing this on a rainy Sunday afternoon in lockdown 2.0 in the UK and surprisingly I don’t feel too down cast.  Instead, I am watching my news feeds confirm the results that the USA has a new Vice President who happens to be a woman.  A woman who connects an array of hearts and minds because of the cultures she has been born into and this brings a sense of expectant curiosity across the world, not unlike the US elections of 2008.

Why this is still such a sought-after occasion in 2020 should probably be questioned but it does bring a sense of tangible reality to my own story and I am sure I am not alone in this thinking.   See, my story is of a person who happens  to be a woman and also happens to be a Black woman, who set out many years ago to set her own rules,  defy the external rhetoric about who she was meant to be and claim my unique place in the world.

I was brought up by a strong Mother who told us to go forth and be and a father who told us that the world was ours to experience without apology.    Despite this dynamic combination, life did not stop my identity and journey being periodically tied up in popular opinion about who I, as a woman, as a Black woman, should be and it did not stop me from asking myself; Emma, can you really have it all?

When the glass began to crack.

The first time I remember asking that doubtful and fearful question out loud was in my last year of university. Sitting in a MacDonald’s booth with one of my closest confidants, slowly eating cold fries as we delayed the inevitable mountain of work we had to complete in the next month, in order to achieve the dizzy heights of a Bachelors degree.  We sat there quietly and periodically thinking out loud; are we even capable, applicable or powerful enough to gain one of the first degrees either of our families would have seen?    Are we really the generation of young black women who were finally going to get it all, do it all and have no one say no to our ambitions? Could we really smash that glass ceiling and dance in a room without a roof?

This question was so large for us, such a pipe dream because you see, for us, as we sat at that table, we didn’t have a reference to a Michelle Obama or a Kamala Harris or a Ruth Ginsburg.  We only had a reference to a history of struggle, a much documented dream, an expectation and an unknown path.

This is why today, I sit here with a sense of content grounding, that women like the First lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Kamala Harris and Justice Ruth Ginsburg have confirmed that yes you can have it all.    You can have the path that YOU have written for you, not the path that was predestined by your biology, race or religion.

Now, don’t get me wrong,  I am under no illusions that all of these women  and many before them must have had their own proverbial MacDonald’s moment, that as that glass ceiling started to crack and they stood in the gap, that they hold wounds and cuts that are a constant reminder of a journey not all the way won yet.   But, in real-time, they have shown that through character, belief and opportunity you can confidently move towards your ALL and achieve beyond hemmed in perimeters, beyond the glass ceiling, beyond yourself.

I am happy to say that both myself and my friend have had successful careers in our chosen fields and both of us have diverted our tracks as our lives have moved on to becoming mothers, wives and business owners but periodically  we  still ask each other and ourselves, can we really have it all?     Maybe this is because we want too much or more applicably these references were still few and far between when we hit our own challenges, when we had to dig deep and believe it is completely possible for us.   We contiued to believe in our possibiilties, even when we found ourselves on the path of gender and race resistance.  We continued to push through even when we became weary of staring at the absent vision of one who looked like us, standing  in the places we strived to be, the paths we dared to walk, in the dreams we were too scared to share.

But, Now I think it is time to dance beneath the stars,

To remove our own limiting thoughts and ideas, to forge untameable paths which cause us to stumble and retreat into the hemmed in perimeters of our minds.  Its time to ensure that the glass ceiling is a myth to the next generation, that they wonder and question our view of the ceiling because all they have experienced is dancing under the stars.

So, my friend and I are now mothers, I have been blessed with a son who will have to continue the journey of defying the worlds view of who he is and who he will become ( another story for another blog) and my friend is blessed with a daughter who already commands that the world knows that she is unapologetically here and that she is worthy at the tender age of three.

As much as it makes her mother raise the maternal eyebrow,  we absolutely love this about her and more interestingly we curiously love the fact that she is now living in a world where any doubts that creep into her mind can be thwarted by tangible, real points of reference that will ensure that she stands on the shoulders of giants, sets her own path and dances in a room without a roof.

Watch out world, there is a new generation of women waiting to take their place, on their terms.

To read more about my Covid-reflections blog – click here 

Or you can find out more about me here