Harvest

Though I have plenty of reasons to feel otherwise, the first days of September remain my favorite time of year. The narrowing window of daylight and the cool mornings signal the close of summer, which, for most of my young life, was no reason to celebrate. I had no fear of or animosity toward school, but it did look like the end of freedom compared to the months I spent lolling about my house in Rhode Island’s dense heat. As August’s calendar counted down, my attention was frequently split between the day’s potential fun and the oncoming routine and responsibilities of the classroom. It was a reminder that the vacation’s dream was temporary, that everything was temporary, except school and its adult extension, work, which go on and on forever.

Soon the day would come. The calendar’s page would turn, Labor Day would pass, and I would be gathering fresh notebooks and pencils in a clean backpack. I couldn’t help liking new things, no matter how banal. And if I were honest, I was often bored on those empty summer days, my brother and me staring at one another across the living room, asking, “What do you want to do?” Such afternoons gave freedom a bad name. Why, all it did was expose life’s aimlessness, which the busyness of work allowed us to otherwise ignore.

It's been a long time since my life was tied in any meaningful way to school’s cycle, and yet I felt that familiar relief and gratitude when I stepped outside and caught the first glint of autumn in the day’s softening sunlight. There is no difference between the work I do in July and the work I do October. I write at the same time every morning, interview and coach on the same schedule, and am always done working by three – the very hour the school’s final bell would ring. I built this routine entirely on my own. I could certainly change it, but I don’t seem to want to.

There has never been a moment in my life when I have not wanted to be free, though I have frequently felt constrained and trapped by forces outside of my control. How tempting then a day with nothing in it seems, but such a time was only the opportunity to know true freedom. That would only come when I brought my full attention to the story, the song, or the friend, and saw what grew when I did so. A fish is only free when it swims, as we are when we create. Let then the new season come, the time to harvest what we grew in idle stillness.

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Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt
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