I took my mom to the airport this morning. As the time to depart came near, I could feel her nervousness fluttering about. She works hard at not being nervous about everything. But she was worried about her bags (three) and carrying them (�how?�) and navigating the Atlanta airport (�they have people movers don�t they?�) and the hotel desk clerk in Kansas City (�They always have to follow the rules and I don�t know what the rules are.� And later, �I feel sorry for them, those desk clerks. Why do they have to follow the rules?�) She wanted me to just drop her off in front of the terminal. I parked, I carried her bags in, I showed her that she could check two of the bags, I showed her she could put everything she�d need for the journey into one bag and all of this sudden switching up of her plans made her even more fluttery. I think she must have thought out every move she�d make during this brief journey as she lay in bed this morning. Thing is, she hates hates hates being dependent. This physical dependency she has on the people around her is anathema to her. She wants to figure out the way to make it, to do it, so that no one has to help her. She fluttered about which line she should be in and asked again if they�d have people movers in Atlanta. Oh ma. She�s so good at showing other people how to calm their anxiety, but sometimes her own just gets the best of us all. I worry now, though while I was with her I was magically suffused with an anti-anxiety persona. But now. Who will help her with her bags in Kansas? Who will help her if, perchance, someone knocks into her? Who will tell her, kindly and helpfully, what the rules are? When I hugged her goodbye she felt like straw. That brittle and breakable and light.

The past days seem to have existed outside of time. I feel so completely relaxed and expansive about my life. I feel good.

It rained just now, unexpectedly. Magic, I tell you, is in the air.

One last thing about my mother if you promise not to read it or think it like a clich�. Deal? Because what I am writing is the literal truth. No symbolism. No metaphor.

Four years ago she lost her sense of smell. Phfft. Gone. But lately, she says, she has been able to smell roses again.