I’d been dragging my feet about this, putting on the brakes. The necessity to change my driver’s license from the great Empire state of New York to the Magnolia state of Mississippi.  Now it was January of the new year.  1/6/15, the traditional day of Epiphany.

The local office of the DPS, Department of Public Safety, is in a small town ten miles north as the Pelican flies. Kiln Mississippi, often referred to as “the Kill”, often with an implied smirk and country wink. Though I had the GPS set, when “she” said “turn left”, I answered to no one in the car, “What? where?” because I didn’t see anything other than some scattered buildings, gravel parking lots, trees. I went a mile farther on and stopped to ask directions at a convenience store. The clerk said it was “a biddy building” just before the stop light I had passed.

Sure enough. A biddy building. You check in at the door on an electronic touch screen that reminds you about the documents you need if you are over 17 and applying to change your state license. Original raised seal birth certificate, original Social Security Card, two proofs of local residence like utility bills with your current address. I had checked the web site in advance and was prepared. And nervous. Take a number and join the other 19 people sitting in government chairs facing one direction. Paper signs saying things like No Cell Phone Use.

The website had said that if you are changing your license from another state, “you may not have to take the written test.” I had a vision of giving up my license, flunking the test, and asking to get my NYS license back until I could study the booklet. Worse case scenario. Wendy says I worry too much. It’s true, and I worry about worrying too much.

When my number was called, the friendly clerk said, “Okay, let’s see what documents you have,” in a cheerful voice and she was impressed that I had everything prepared, including the application form I had printed online and completed.

As she went over my paper work and began to fill in some other information, she noted the NYS license I had just handed her.  She told me that she had moved here from New Rochelle, “actually the Bronx”, thirteen years ago just before her son was set to start middle school. (In an unscientific survey where the N is 2, this was another African American mom who talked about how pleased they were to leave NYC years ago to come south just as their children were reaching middle school).

New York! As she continued to work her magic to make me a legal driver, we shared North to South stories. She missed the variety of food here on the Gulf Coast vs NYC. Her father used to be a chef at a prestigious NYC restaurant. I told her about the great Chinese restaurant we had just discovered in Pass Christian and she was delighted to hear this. She almost forgot to ask me to take the vision test. Read the top line, the big print. I did great until the last set of four letters that were a bit blurry. Apparently my answers sufficed. “Good enough,” she said. Bless her heart.

It just took a minute to print the shiny new license with its not-bad photo. We said goodbye to each other. When I stepped outside to the gravel parking lot, I had an unexpected sense of having arrived. The sun was shining.  I pulled out onto the two lane highway that leads back to the coast,  put in the CD “L.A. Treasures Project,” with its whooping Count Basie-like swinging drive.

There are these moments.