My mom would sit at our dining room table
With her laptop out
and paper spread out across the surface
The cold sunlight lighting the room from every angle
In my memory, there was also a palm pilot
Those days
She has a spreadsheet open, maybe more
Clicking through cells
Searching for a missing number
A lost formula
Something that isn’t right
It takes hours
I ask and ask and am generally unhelpful
I could be any age
It could be now
It isn’t now
Because now I spend my own hours
Clicking through cells
Writing formulas
Then checking formulas
Making sure I’m doing my averages right
And cross-references sums
Until I decide to have a beer
Because if this is going to take me
Three hours on a Sunday night
I might as well have a drink
And let the TV play in the background
I think of what I don’t need
–everything I was to my mother
When I whined at her for working at home
But to be fair, I whine at myself too
And these days, all work is at home
So the lines are a little fuzzy
I think of my mother again
When I bake store-bought cookie dough
And try not to think of how much better they’d be
If I’d pulled out her recipe instead
We do what we can
Again and again and again
With Love,
Natalie