walking around but still writing

Terri Gross was interviewing the rapper JZ yesterday. He was telling about the start of his career - he was dealing drugs and that kept him so busy that when rhymes started to come he would have a notebook ready if possible to write things down. but he was so busy that rather then depend on having a paper and pen nearby he learned to memorize the inspired parts that were streaming through. and he got so good at it that he no longer worried about having the notebook around.

later that day, one of the perpetual characters that hover in my subconscious, a neurotic woman who has been stunned by eons of psychic family hand-me-downs had a particularly telling conversation. i was working in the lab and she was talking, giving herself away. no notebook at hand, i told myself i'd get that conversation down later.

that evening as i sat to recreate this dialogue the computer output was as scratchy and dry as an out of ink pen. two sentences forced and rigid. delete. angst. resignation. tv.

where was the inner taskmaster to insist - "don't you dare get up from this chair until a juicy, green sentence - (you know it is there) - is tapped out and saved".

isn't a creative process simple? a practice of remembering and then recreating the light that is flowing out at the store, at the lab, walking down 18th street to starbucks?

remembering is a very present capacity within me, us, everyone. like showing a finished canvas to others.