I groped for the words—desperately, anxiously, my only goal to find them. I wrote on the paper, scratched out the cursive words. But they were meaningless. They were void. They were empty and unemotional—there was no feeling, no thought, no purpose behind them. Discouraged, I tossed them to the wind and watched as they floated across the air—tiny wings against the blue sky. I tightened a fist around the pen, so tight my knuckles were white, so tight my face turned red. I was a writer. This wasn't suppose to happen...the words weren't suppose to arrive at such an empty abatement—such a desolate end.
     The pen in my fingers loosened. I leaned back against the tree under which I was sitting. I tried to think—tried to frame a story, a feeling, a song. Anything that would unleash these tormenting thoughts...these unwanted warnings of failure. I had to write! Somehow, someway, I must rid myself of this! And yet, it were as if I were under a big wave, and try as I may, I could not come up—couldn't breath. Every time I thought the water would fade away, every time I could see the sunlight and smell the air...I was plunged back under again, and every time it got darker and darker until finally I was in a blackness that was inescapable.
      As I sat there, underneath the large tree, I thought perhaps the world had finally come to an end. I never fancied such a thing could happen—never even dreamed it existed. Did words vanish from the heart of a writer? Did her fingers stop releasing the flow that gave her the title of an author?
      I reached out and snatched a paper that the wind sent hurling back at me. I believed, in my heart, that it did that on purpose, for even the wind has a demeanor—and a very haughty one at that. I imagined that if the wind could speak, it would tell me that I was a sorry fool. It would say, in it's whispering and quiet way, that to fail was quite near death, and even it had not yet failed.
      And I would answer it, you see, and ask, “How does the wind fail? Nor yet, how does it cease existence and die?”
      I am most sure it would laugh at me then. And it would say that it never lost its power to blow through the hair of a very lovely maiden. Nor did it ever lose its gust to blow the desert sand, nor sing through the leaves. Nor did it ever lose its power to rattle the shutters of an old house, or frighten a young child with a moaning song. The wind, you see, had no use for words at all. And what a pity I was! I had lost words, useless as they may be, and now sat under a tree with a feeling of failure washing over me, and the thoughts of death not far from my mind.
     And then the wind, having thus said, would blow away just as quickly as it had come. Only I would sit there longer, pondering over the strange words, and I would wonder why I had ever chosen writing to be my life.
     And I knew, quite suddenly that I had not chosen writing. Indeed, nor had I decided or reasoned with myself to do it. It had come to me, beckoning to me, choosing me. And then I did the strangest thing, sitting under that tree. I began to laugh, much as the wind had done, and I smoothed out that paper and I took that pen...
      And I began to write the words that were in my heart—the flow was returning, sweet and melancholy, joyous and painful. I wrote about the wind and writer and the words and the worry...
     And I wrote about a very happy young maiden who sat under a large shade tree with the wind breezing past her every now and again.