Help Wanted: Shadow Catcher

This morning was one of the first warm and sunny ones of the season. The kids were waiting for the bus to pull up and haul them off to school. I was dragging our over-filled, broken garbage cans down the driveway. The 3 year-old was digging in the dirt and everything seemed right with the world.

My six year-old son discovered his shadow and the shadows of his sister and our neighbors, long and tall in the early morning sun, and he decided to catch them all. He would run really fast, almost fall down and then jump as far as he could on to the shadow he was "catching". Then he would say, "Got it."

I reminded him to grab his backpack from the driveway as the bus arrived. "I'm really good at that mom--at catching shadows!" he told me.

What he said made me think of how we are all always looking for what we are good at in life and hoping that what we are good at and what we end up spending most of our time doing are closely related. Sometimes it's not, and we move on to other things. Sometimes we work and work until we become good at it, or at least good enough at it. Being a friend, a daughter, a role model, an employee, a partner, a neighbor, a shoulder to lean on, a listener----all things I am trying to learn to be good at.

I remember reading a book in my early twenties called "What Color is Your Parachute?" It was a resource for figuring out what career path would be best for you based on some quizzes that analyzed your strengths and skills. It said I should be a primary teacher--something I've been told over and over in my life that I would be good at. I'm not so sure about that.

I believe you have to be passionate about something to really be good at it. You have to really care or it won't work. When my son said he he was good at catching shadows, he meant that he not only could do it, but felt great about himself when he was doing it. He loved it. He was passionate about catching shadows.

Whatever my children choose to do in life will be fine with me as long as it really means something to them and they are living the way that works best for them. They may find their perfect life's work on the first try and stick with it. Or they may test out many different routes before they settle into the one that feels right. And in the meantime, if there are any openings for a shadow catcher, I know a good one.

K