Photo Booth
Mom called twice tonight. She says she’s losing her memory and when I ask what she may be forgetting or how she knows it’s happening, she deflects. “Tell me what you’ve been drawing lately,” she’ll ask instead. This time when she asks, I lazily make my way across the room to my sketch pad; the page it’s opened to is an unfinished landscape of dark greens and bright blues. I swipe my fingers across the smooth page and admire it for a moment. I’d forgotten about this one for quite some time – when I happened upon it this morning, I figured I ought to finally finish what I’d started. I describe the large pines against the sunny sky to Mom, “and there are mountains way off in the distance. They’re so far away, they look more like hills.” She compliments my creativity, though she’s never seen the drawing. She mentions how I drew nothing but clouds when I was a teenager and she’s glad I worked out of that phase in my 20s. I thank her as I internally diminish the praise as if it bears no weight, simply because it came from my own mother.
