the trip

My eldest is up in the air-literally flying in a plane with big silver wings over the Andes-and I have that weighted feeling that mothers get when their children are too far from arms reach to keep them safe. So I am walking around the house trying to get settled into an activity but my eyes keep going to the clock, to the computer, to the phone. I need to know that her feet are on the ground.
It is summer where she is going. It is hot and the air is dry, the breezes warm. It will hit her when she steps out of the airport into the brightness of day and the parking lot. It is so cold here her body will have momentarily forgotten what summer feels like and then after a few minutes it will remember and heave that sigh of relief for the sun. She will come home brown and chapped and speaking with a slight accent. The purple streaks in her hair will have faded to blonde. She will be that much closer to being a grown up kid with adventures and experiences of her own that I will never know about, only guess at and I will get snippets of this life in bits and pieces over then next few years.
16 more days until she returns.