Growing up PK, I performed in dozens of holiday programs but this was my first in a parental role. I wasn’t embarrassed when CD abandoned the stage – who could expect more of a three-year-old? I hoped he’d enjoy the performance but I don’t think he did. A live audience flicks a switch in some kids – not CD, at least at age three.
I was a show-off at his age, desperate to drown out my younger sister Janet. After I belted all four verses of “Oh Come all Ye Faithful”, my father would gently suggest I let Janet take her turn. “No, Daddy, she’s too little, she doesn’t know the words, I’ll sing it! Joy to the World, the Lord is come…” All of this was recorded for posterity on reel-to-reel tape.
I’m not sure when I lost my taste for performing – probably when we moved to California and I was the uncomfortable new kid in kindergarten. My concern shifted from wanting to share my genius with the world to obsessing about how the world rated me (as yet unaware that most people weren’t paying that much attention.) My fear of not being good enough silenced the raging diva deep inside.
