You know that old thing about having a notepad by your bedside so you can write down that idea that comes to you, unbidden, in the middle of the night? Well, I wasn’t awakened by a thought in the night but I was sure I had lost an idea from lack of writing it down.
Started routinely enough: I had a thought for a poem, one of those clear, in-the-moment thoughts that was just so clear. I rolled it around for a moment but I was in the middle of something else. It was so clear I wasn’t worried at all.
The next day, the same thought came wafting back in, again while I was away from any way of recording it. But – came to me again, rolled it around a bit inside my head, no worries.
And then – gone. I waited. I wasn’t too worried, and then I was actually sad for awhile. All I had was the knowledge that I had had a good idea and now it was totally gone. I couldn’t even remember what I had been doing when I’d had the good idea, let alone what the idea was.
This morning I locked myself out of the house on the way out the door. Jolly. I had an emergency key. As I drove I reviewed how to get into the house when I get home and wondered how it was I didn’t have a key hidden somewhere. And in fact, where was the spare set I always carry with me? Oh – took it out during all my recent travels. And where were they now? Hmmmmm. Ok check when I get back in tonight. As I mulled it over, I suddenly thought about the sadness of losing the good idea. And even more suddenly – there was the good idea!
Who knows. Moral of the story – write it down ASAP.
