Sometimes I have really great thoughts that astound me and I want to write them down, but there is no pen or journal with me, so they just float around inside me for a while. Sometimes I remember them again and write them down, but what about all those precious thoughts that I have lost? That is why I am almost frantic sometimes.

I'm usually by myself (volunteering at the nursing home gift shop, driving, or drifting into sleep) when I become overwhelmed with insight and thoughts and stories. And I feel frantic because I know I'm not capturing them all. They're escaping me, lost inside my own head.

I don't want to have to write everything down, but I'm so sad that I haven't. Every day I must think about a billion things, experience about 50 new things, and feel about a thousand things, and unless I write them down, they're gone. Gone the next day or gone ten years from now, it doesn't matter because once they're gone that's it.

(I realize I'm not being very coherent, but I'm sure a lot of people understand my panic about this. Especially writers. I can never write enough poems. There is no such thing as "enough poems.")

I just remembered something that Christie told me. Life is like reading a book, and if you read a book to finish it, you're missing out on the substance each page holds. You shouldn't always be anticipating the end, but experiencing the now. I shouldn't worry about capturing every moment and thought in ink. My heart won't forget what is really important, and I'll appreciate everything I have written down.

Is anything more interesting than our own inner-dialogue?