What do you want to be?

About two months ago, I started working in a countryside kindergarten. Being a kindergarten teacher is something completely new for me. I am a biologist and spend a lot of time in universities during the last 9 years and felt that I strongly needed something else than the ivory tower of doing research. The job offer as a kindergarten teacher here in Iceland popped up unforeseen. When I was asked if I want to work in the kindergarten I felt like I would lack the skills to work with the little kids. I was being taught how to stand in the lab with a pipette and how to write research papers (over which I fell asleep several times) and how to identify little rare fungi (the fungi thing is a fun and usefull skill, though, a deep friendship with a bunch of highly interesting fungal nerds followed which is extremely cool). But nothing at all about kids. The lab is not a place for kids.
But then they were all around me. 18 kids of the age 18 months to 5 years. Laughing, running, crying, screaming, playing. Every day I learn a lot from them. Every day is different.
Today the "horses" (which is the name of the 5 year old kids) and I went into the basement of the kindergarten which is converted into an artist's workshop. I let them do a tree which shows all four seasons in its branches and they started talking about what they want to become when they are grown up. "What do you want to become when you grow up?", a little boy asked me. I paused. My first reflex was to say "But I am grown up already and I am a biologist." Period. But I swallowed this answer. It didn't feel appropriate. The way this little boy had asked me had made me one of them for a moment. And this was a great honour. So I replied: "I am a lot and have learnt a lot. I learnt about the plants and the animals outside and I learnt many languages to talk to many people. But what I want to be now is being an artist." The little boy nodded. This answer was accepted. And I was grateful. They made me one of them during that moment, sitting at one table talking about what we want to be when we are grown up. And we were all artists. I am already.