Elder

It was a long stretch, maybe too long, when his instructor said it was time. 

“Time for what?” he asked. 

“Time for you to start producing. Up until now, I have been nursing you. You are ready!” 

He left the room where he had spent some years learning to write, something he felt he could do well. He sat at his desk that evening. He felt empty. His office faced the river and the village. He would often sit for hours drifting, looking out, waiting for inspiration. Waiting for a story to bubble to the surface. He had an imagination. A writer needs more than that. He needs to work hard. He needs to exercise his talent daily. He needs to drag himself to the task of being alone each and every day. 

He remembered his instructor making a comment about a piece he wrote in the beginning. She found it boring. He’d thought it was good. It could have ended then, but he picked up the gauntlet, swallowed his pride and dug in his heels, determined to make a go of it. He valued her candor. 

He often thought back to that moment. He could have walked out of that room, but he would have been the loser. And that would have been the path most traveled. 

Eventually, he grasped what she’d meant. Now, after years of filling up his composition books and scraps of paper with ideas and notes – all piled up on shelves – he felt it was time to write.  To leave the nest. 

He dimmed the lights, closed the shades so there would be no visual distractions. It was time to fly. 

He thought of a quote by Hemingway: “There is nothing to writing. All you have to do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” He felt a growing strength in his gut. He felt empowered like one does after the light goes on. His time had come. 

He looked back on the years and realized he’d crossed a threshold. He said to himself, I am glad I did not walk out that day.