On the Street Where You Live - Chapter 7

The novelist was standing in a driveway, having just paid ten dollars for a dusty, jammed typewriter at an estate sale, when the woman taking his money asked if he intended to use it or just collect it. He almost kept his plans to himself, but then thought: why not say what he intended to do? So he said aloud for the first time: "I want to write a book." Then, to make his intention clearer: "I'm going to write a book." That moment—speaking a long-held desire out loud to a stranger—is the quiet hinge on which this chapter turns.

The sympathetic restoration

The novelist has been circling this moment for years. He had a busy life in a big city, then his father started to struggle, and on their Sunday phone calls he sounded lonely, "like the spring had gone out of his step." So the novelist started coming home more often, and each time he noticed that the slower pace of his hometown felt good—"like a cool washcloth over tired eyes." Eventually he stopped waiting for some perfect moment, stopped waiting to feel ready, and moved home.