Second Wind

Out at the edge of your will and stamina, there is always a place where you come upon despair. Then, comes the rush of your second wind…Tom Brown, Jr. paraphrased from The Tracker.

Stepping outside just as the sun began burning off the muffling fog; I hear the faint chickadeedee, chickadadeedeedee call of a black-capped chickadee. I stop and listen, heartened, somehow.

You see, talent is not enough. You also have to have perseverance. Over and over, writers are told if we persist long enough we will succeed. Often, I don’t know which will hold out longest, my persistence or my heartache. Heartache, discouragement goes with the territory. Ask any writer. But it isn’t unique to writers either.

Dieters, smokers, athletes, musicians and artists push to do better, to succeed. And sometimes…the grind of it, the utter hopelessness wins. And…that’s all right, if it only winds one day.
Think about the ocean waves, the dripping spring run-off, the wind. Think about the Grand Canyon, the Cliffs of Dover, those bowed trees at the mouth of Weber Canyon. That beauty wasn’t made with a quick slash of a knife, a blast of dynamite, or one hard wind. It took steady pressure, perseverance of thousands of years, by patience of each little headway. “The force of the waves is in their perseverance,” said Gila Guri.

Little successes count. Rejoice in every little one. The paragraph you’ve written over and over that finally says exactly what you meant. The contest you didn’t win but received an insightful criticism from. The day you turned on your computer even though you could barely dare to look at the blank screen. Every step, every single step, however small, we take toward our goal, counts.

Getting published is not required to be a writer. Not ever. A musician does not have to give a concert in Carnegie Hall to be considered a musician, he only has to play his instrument with everything he has, body, heart and soul. That is all that is required of a writer, too. Write—body, heart, and soul.

A writer will write even into despair. A writer will write until that rush of second wind blesses us. A writer will write all the days of their lives, regardless of publishing status. Through heartbreak, rejection and the high that comes when the words flow freely onto the paper, rich, full and exact. A writer will write through it all…’cause that’s the deal.