I write….

…in blank documents that exist only on a computer screen.

…in slim, Moleskine notebooks full of creamy, unlined pages.

…in the Twitter composition window under the watchful eye of the character counter, ticking off every precious letter, space and ampersand.

…in the journal on my nightstand where I log my daily comings and goings.

…in my mind in fleeting moments of solitude as I wash dishes or take a shower or watch my daughters play.

…and in times of true desperation (as I write these words) on scraps of paper found deep in the recesses of my bag or in moments of even greater desperation on the backs of crumpled receipts for our dry cleaning or our groceries.

And I will never be sure which medium I prefer because none of them are truly permanent. Because data bytes are saved in the air and fire could consume paper. Scraps of brilliance are easily lost or trashed. And the brain is no place to save ideas.

And so I wonder what can be trusted. And then I wonder whether it is worth thinking thoughts or writing words in the first place.

And when the word purge is over, I click save, close the book, stuff the scraps, retire the pen and sigh deeply because what weighed heavily on my mind exists somewhere else now.