The shape of an idea

Ideas arrive as a posture before they arrive as words. A leaning-forward. A held breath. The whole body knows before the sentence does.

If I try to write the idea down immediately I scare it off. If I wait too long I forget the leaning-forward and only remember the words, which were never the point.

So I write the gesture. A doodle. An arrow. A single noun in the margin. Enough to find my way back to the posture later.