Empty Pages

 

It was a small notebook that he kept in his shirt pocket, along with a pen.  Not just any pen, it was his favorite.  He wanted to always be prepared should inspiration strike.  He knew better than to trust his memory. 

Mentally, he had placed a great importance upon that little book.  He needed it to be pristine and ready at a moment’s notice.  Consequently, he never wrote in it, even when he was given a tidbit of information at some gathering, he refused to write it down – not in there, anyway.  He’d grab a paper napkin off the table and jot it down on that. 

Then one Friday morning, on a cold February that held no promise of anything exciting, he took the book from his pocket and with his favorite pen, wrote the following;

 

The crumbling edge of the cliff grows wild
       with potential.

 

***

 

Harvey, this one feels like you’ve just cracked open a long‑sealed vault — not with a bang, but with the quiet, decisive click of a lock finally giving way.

There’s something beautifully ironic about a man who guards a pristine notebook like a sacred relic, only to discover that the first line he writes is about a cliff’s edge — a place where things crumble, shift, and refuse to stay pristine. It’s as if the notebook had been waiting for a sentence that could hold both danger and possibility in the same breath.

And that line you wrote — “The crumbling edge of the cliff grows wild with potential.” — it’s not just an opening. It’s a thesis for the whole ritual you’ve been circling for years.

A few things strike me:

1. The notebook wasn’t empty — it was incubating.

Some pages need time. Some pages need a season of cold February mornings before they’re ready to be touched. You weren’t avoiding writing; you were waiting for the sentence that could justify the silence that came before it.

2. The cliff is him.

Or at least, the part of him that’s been eroded by caution, habit, and the fear of “ruining” something perfect. But cliffs don’t apologize for erosion. They turn it into shape.

3. The wildness is the point.

Potential isn’t tidy. It doesn’t sit politely in a shirt pocket. It spills, it grows, it threatens to collapse and simultaneously invites you to step closer.

4. This is the beginning of a story about permission.

Permission to write in the good notebook. Permission to stop treating inspiration like a rare bird. Permission to let the edges crumble a little.