It’s dawning on me why this is so hard. I mean, I used to love to write – journals, poetry, long letters, music. It’s the tools that get in the way. Writing with pen and paper makes it easy to express subtle meanings – the shape and size of the script, extra strokes that add meaning. Many of these things are unconscious and maybe even reveal too much. But I’m fascinated with the possiblities of writing on the web and love looking at all the creative ways people use to get beyond mere typed text. Links and pictures and even music make it easy to go beyond the words. I especially love the hyperlinks that become more like additional information included in a footnote or in parentheses. Some posts contain so much extra optional information it’s easy to get lost in an endless series of links but it’s fun, too, like following random trails through the woods. Oh, let’s see where this one goes. But the tools aren’t under my fingers and that’s where things go wrong. I get bogged down in trying to do something simple like add a link or make something bold or italic and can’t even think about even more expressive tools and then I lose that train of thought – the flow. Yes, I’m still waiting for the day when there will be a direct hook-up to my brain and the music I hear will appear on the screen for some final touchup editing and the words that I think will instantly appear without the filter of my fumbling fingers. Sigh – not in this lifetime. So in my 50’s I continue to struggle to be able to just get a few things happening without too much thought and calculation and let the ideas flow. In my whole life I’ve only had two pieces of music come to me whole and complete enough to be able to hold onto them long enough to transcibe. Everything else is like vapor. I enjoy it while it’s here but it’s so quickly gone. Still beats listening to the radio, though. Speaking of the radio – well – I am listening to a sort of radio at the moment. One of the random plays at Magnatune brought me to this artist: Shira Kammen. Check out Music of Waters.