Sugar and Spice and Shattered Glass Ceilings

When I was young, I had a recurring dream about a woman in pink. Not pale pink, but not fuscha either. A pink jacket, and pink pants.

She was always standing on the same corner, catching my eye, strangely familiar but just out of reach. Her gaze was steady, but I had the sense she was not so much watching me as watching over me. Protective. Not unkind but serious, nurturing in a businesslike sort of way. She looked a bit like my mother, though I don't recall ever seeing my mother dressed in pink.

I thought about the woman in pink when I woke in the wee hours this morning. I thought about the woman in pink when I flipped on the television, saw Hillary in her red pantsuit, just where I had left off, several hours earlier. My friend had texted me a little after midnight, to tell me Hillary had won the kick off vote in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire. Eight people had voted. A good sign. Only 146,310,992 to go, give or take.

My friend -- she of the midnight news bulletin -- and I, and maybe one or two others, will be gathering later today to watch election returns, something I have often tended to think is like watching paint dry, without the suspense. We have yet to decide on the menu, but we have agreed on the dress code: pantsuits. Well, the closest thing we have to pantsuits, which would be flannel pajamas; probably, if I were to hazard a guess, pink.

Do I think the woman on the street corner of my girlhood dreams, the woman in pink pants and pink jacket, was Hillary? Of course not. She really did look a little bit like my mother, but she could have been any woman, maybe even me. Anything's possible. She was intimidating and enticing, a tad out of place but somehow sure of herself. Any woman, every woman, beautiful, strong, smart, competent, in a place where I would not expect a woman in a pink pantsuit to be.

My friends and I are hoping with every fiber of our beings -- every fiber of our flannel pantsuits -- that we will raise our glasses tonight to the sound of shattering glass. The dreams of little girls, everywhere.