The list she knows by heart

A woman in Alexandria is a month away from putting her first small range of children's swimwear online. Ask her how it is going and she does not talk about the swimwear. She recites the list.

A bigger seller could copy the cut. Somebody will leave a cruel review. The courier will lose the first parcel. Fabric will cost more by summer. A friend who promised to buy has gone quiet.

She knows it by heart, because she goes through it most nights.

It is a poor list. It is built from whatever is vivid and close, not from what is likely or important. Nothing on it asks whether the right parents will ever hear about the swimwear, which is the thing that will actually decide her year. Reciting it prevents nothing. It does not make a better seam.

What it does do is let her live through every bad outcome ahead of time, including the many that will never arrive. And it is very good at filling the hours that the hard part needs. Writing to the first fifty mothers who might buy is frightening. Reading the list again is not.

That is the real job the list does. It keeps the frightening work politely out of reach, and it feels responsible while it does it.

So the useful thing to do with the list is to write it out once, properly, with nothing missing. Then seal it in an envelope, push it to the back of a cupboard, and go and finish the swimwear.