LOOKING IN A MIRROR

My oldest daughter- she's 5- is running around the house, screaming and kicking and wailing about not wanting to eat breakfast, not wanting to brush her teeth, not wanting to get dressed. In essence, she doesn't want to go to school.

She wants to stay home and groom her toy horses and then set up a pretend horse corral (animals are her passion right now... she wants to be an animal rescuer like Diego- from the kid's tv show-when she grows up).

And here I sit, listening to the ET soundtrack, working on an amazing creative project with an amazing creative team, and doing exactly what I love to do. There is nothing else I want to be doing other than what I am doing right now. This work is my passion.

And it occurs to me: When I was a kid, I was JUST like my daughter.

Sitting here typing this, I am having vivid recollections of my own childhood, of me reading a behind- the- scenes/making of magazine for INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM before school one morning. I so did not want to go to class. I can see the magazine in my mind so clearly, see myself, sitting at the kitchen table and looking at those pictures, the pictures of the people who got to wake up and - instead of going to school- got to go and MAKE the movies I loved. And I remember LONGING, FANTASIZING about getting to wake up and go do those sorts of amazing,creative jobs, instead of going to school, where I had to study stuff I had no interest in at all.

And now, my youngest- at only 5- is doing the exact same thing!

Granted, she likes school more than I ever did. She gets that from her mom, thank God. And hopefully- because she's she's a good mix of me and her mom- she'll be a lot more balanced than I ever was/am :)

And she'll also have parents like I had: parents who totally allowed me and supported me and encouraged me to follow my passions.

But man...right now? Right now I so feel her pain. I so know- to this day- exactly what she is feeling.

And at the same time, I am so lucky and so happy and so grateful to be doing what I do, doing what I love.

And if I could- and perhaps somehow in writing this, I am- I would love to reach back through the years and whisper in the ear of that kid pouring over the Indiana Jones magazine: 'hang in there kid...you'll get to where you want to be...I promise....'