When I first read the prompt, “discovering one’s shadow” I immediately thought of Peter Pan. Then I thought of the Vashta Nerada. Logically, next of course, was Green Day’s Boulevard of Broken Dreams. And finally, I remembered that I  once wrote a poem for my high school yearbook about spies hiding in the shadows. It was inspired by Roger Moore’s James Bond, an inside joke about a teacher we disliked, and them coupled with the new style of story music videos from Duran Duran – their Hungry Like the Wolf, Save A Prayer, New Moon on Monday, Nightboat – all different from the usual rock and roll guitar solo videos of live concerts that we were used to at that time. But shadows have both the reputation for being both scary and enlightening. You can’t have a shadow without a light source, can you? We hide ourselves in our shadows, waiting for the right opportunity to glide out quietly as if we’d always been in the light or we can jump out and surprise (or scare) whoever hadn’t noticed us near.

I continued to glance at my inbox at this prompt and never having anything to say, I moved on. Now that it’s the last day of February and I need to begin work on my monthly review, I thought I didn’t want to leave this prompt in the basket. Grasping onto one of my hidden agendas, stealthy goals is not so much to stop procrastinating on my writing, but to motivate, motivate, motivate or not only won’t anything ever get done, but nothing worth doing should wait.

I began to see visions of shadow; not the scary, hidden demons down the alley, but the shadows of things past, the shadows of things not yet done, the shadows of things I’m afraid of doing, and that maybe I shouldn’t run from the shadows, but embrace them as part of who I am; who I want to be.

This year has started out pretty badly. Some of that will be covered in my monthly review scheduled for later, but between getting sick, not really getting better, losing a friend, misplacing another  (or was I the one misplaced), not feeling as loved as I might want to be, misunderstanding more than I’ve been understanding, I’ve noticed the shadows closing in.

When I look directly at them, they mist away. They know that if I ever dared to confront them head on, they’re just not that scary. And the reality is that they were scary, but now, they are merely roadblocks. They are the future; my future.

I see the outline of who I want to be, and if I can breathe out and billow at the wisps until they swirl, it is much like a relief painting. The colors are hidden below the black paint, and you use the stylus to chip away at the blackness to reveal the picture beneath. Much like carving an ebony statue until what you have left is the masterpiece that you’ve been looking for.

That is discovering one’s shadow.

Discovering what lies beneath the darkness; the mind-space that is swirling just below the surface. You can feel what it should be, what it will become, but it’s not quite there yet and it is only upon discovering yourself that you see the shape of the shadow, and now can mold it in little places, shoring up where the mists try to waft and float away. The parts that essentially do slip away were the parts you didn’t need anymore; the shattered shards of a mirror. Look at your past in the broken bits and look for your future in the rest of it; carving out your niche, your belonging place, your you-ness that is inside, slowing becoming more real and less shadow like, expanding, broadening, extending, solidifying. More.

More you.