Daylilies: 33. In transit

I love rotaries, roundabouts, traffic circles, calming circles, whatever they are called. I like the way they route traffic without anyone having to wait and without use of any electricity. I do feel calmed when driving through them, or the ones I'm familiar with, anyway. (Sometimes at the rotary nearest my house, I take an extra 360 all the way around, just because.) I admire the Master Gardeners and other folks who adopt the little bit of earth in a rotary and grow beauty there. I think I saw the tree of life in a rotary today.

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There were four food trucks at the lunch spot, and maybe I should have tried the mmmpanadas, but The Short Bus won me with its bumper-to-bumper school theme and the names for its subs: personalities (The Principal, The Librarian, The Hot Teacher, The Lunch Lady, The Mascot) and experiences (Pep Rally, Field Trip, Spring Break, Detention). I ordered The Teacher's Pet (smoked turkey, cream cheese, bacon, avocado, lettuce, real tomato) and glugged a Mexican Coke while waiting for my sandwich, which was clearly assembled with attention and tenderly swaddled in foil. I wouldn't have ordered it if the ingredients weren't appealing, but it wouldn't be the first time I was enticed primarily by a dish's name, and amused by the prospect of saying it out loud.

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Evidence of things not seen: upon entering the apartment, the welcoming incense that means something's taking its slow sweet time in the crockpot. Further evidence of hospitality: a welcome and orientation letter on the fridge.

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I loved my seatmates on Flight 8, Glen and Dorothea, and the ground we covered in conversation as the plane covered the air from Dallas to Austin. Travel, weather, work, grandchildren, trains, football stadiums, how parents always give you advice like you are a child and worry over you even when you are 65, the kindness of strangers, God, going the extra mile, cancer, platelet donation, etc. But I think maybe what I loved about us most was that when the flight attendant did the drill, all three of us stopped talking and watched and listened.

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Driving to the airport in the dark, feeling the warm morning-after bask from a lot of attention yesterday, I thought about situations when we feel like this and say, "I am humbled." It's not exactly humility we're feeling, and when people say that, sometimes I want to say, no, you're flattered. That's not quite it either, though.

I think what we mean when use "I'm humbled" that way is this: People, I feel loved and liked and warmed by your words and nods. I know this is transitory, but in this everlasting moment I feel cozy and safe and content, like a child both aware of her smallness and secure in the safety and affection of the big people around her. Even if, and maybe especially if, the big person never felt it as a child.

I think people feel like the recipient of one huge collective hug, and they use those two words to stand in for their own two little arms, trying to hug everyone back all at once.

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One of the pleasures of being the parent of an adult is that, sometimes, you can still make your kid feel like that, loved and liked and secure and taken care of. An unexpected pleasure of being the parent of an adult is that your kid has grown into someone who can also make you feel like that.