All That Matters

Dearest Rachel –

One of the peculiar effects (I’m not sure if they should be considered advantages or drawbacks; I’m sure it could go either way, depending on one’s perspective) of my making a point of writing you as soon as I can on any given morning – so as to “get it out of the way,” what a horrible way of putting it – is that the topics tend to skew toward the first things that occur or happen to me in the day, regardless of their relative importance to whatever else might be going on in my life. There may be more significant things to tell you about, more important thoughts to share with you, but it’s whatever’s in my head first thing in the morning (or thereabouts; I don’t always wake up with something to say, and have to wait for something to happen before I commit anything to text) that gets written down and sent off to you.

I should be telling you about our trip to Mitsuwa, to stock up on provisions for this weekend (although perhaps I could justify that somewhat by telling myself I’d include some of that as I describe the weekend when it happens). But this was more than just a shopping trip, or even a meal out (which is essentially inevitable when we go there); I’d invited the girls (apart from Ellen, who has scheduling conflicts until seven, between work and home, which is basically when the food court closes) to join us boys as we ran this little errand, and, much to my surprise, they were both quite enthusiastic about doing so. Perhaps a little less so once we sat down to eat; Erin, in particular, seemed quite put off by the bonito flakes on the takoyaki (“It’s alive!” she squeaked when I offered her one, as they swayed from the heat generated by the food they were resting on) and refused to eat it until it had cooled off and stopped moving. I wish I could tell whether she was genuinely grossed out, or if she was putting on an act – and if the latter, why. Meanwhile, Kerstin continued to exercise her talent of drawing Daniel out; I can’t get him to talk the way she does (although I also have a bad habit of getting in the way of what he’s trying to say, so there’s that).

Likewise (and in something of a similar vein), I ought to be telling you about certain future plans. You’d probably be amused at the fact that I’d literally waited until the last day to send my R.S.V.P. to the wedding of a member of the extended family (and possibly dismayed that I let Daniel opt out of going, as he would have no ‘cocktail wear’ to appear in, and even if he did, he wouldn’t want to ever have to wear any of it). The next step is to go searching for an appropriate gift to bring to this event. And speaking of events like that, I still have to get a something for our niece’s graduation dinner this evening – which I probably won’t get around to telling you about tomorrow, especially since I told Lars I would be joining him at a conference involving Christian lawyers and other advocates for justice (which I pointed out to him has taken on a different and sinister meaning these past few years; you may have seen a little of it during your final year here, but consider yourself lucky to have missed out on where the concept of ‘social justice’ has been taken since. Still, he tells me that this group isn’t like that, and I’ve no cause to mistrust him). I also have to draft a letter regarding the business proposition he’d brought up several months back; it looks like that’s fallen through, but writing back to the business to that effect is so much more difficult than writing to you. I don’t know when or how I’ll put that together.

All of these subjects seem so much more important than the fact that – having run out of both milk and juice for breakfast – I went to pick up food from your favorite place, Taco Bell

Moreover, I was using a prepaid card that I’m pretty sure I got you as a gift for your last Christmas. It seems a bit churlish to use ‘your’ gift to eat at ‘your’ favorite place without you, and I started this morning with this sense of needing to tell you and to apologize for it, even as I realize that, at this point, it wouldn’t matter to you any more than anything else that goes on around here these days. If you were here, you would be peeved at me for going behind your back to do this (although in you were here, I wouldn’t be doing this behind your back in the first place – we’d be going there together, and you’d be as enthusiastic about doing so as the girls were about meeting us at Mitsuwa yesterday afternoon).

It seems like a relatively insignificant thing to be relating to you – even the internal need I have to apologize to you about it is rather meaningless, given your position and perspective. Then again, with that in mind, it may well be that any of these other topics that I might think are more important – and thus should get more ink in my letters to you than they have – aren’t truly any more so than this. Everything that goes on down here is so unimportant in the grand scheme of creation and existence that, as far as you’re able to see, they are pretty much equal in their pointlessness. All that matters, I suppose, is that I’m keeping you informed as to what’s going on; and maybe that doesn’t matter all that much, either.

I wish I knew.

Anyway, keep an eye on me for the rest of the day, honey, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.