One Final Trip (part 2)

Dearest Rachel –

So, it’s finally settled between the girls and me. You’ll be laid to rest, as per your wishes, on your 55th birthday. After all the wrangling about scheduling and the like, we’ve come to an approximate date far enough in the future for all of us to keep those schedules of ours clear enough to finally see you off.

Now, if you had been keeping an eye on us like I already ask you to nearly every day, you’d probably find yourself wondering, “Is that your takeaway from yesterday? I saw so much more going on last night; that topic of discussion would only account for a paragraph or two at best.” And you’d be right; last night did have a lot going on, especially keeping in mind how difficult it is to get all six of us together, for whatever reason.

I could tell you about the fact that the boys and I walked to the village alfresco district to meet the girls. This wouldn’t be all that unusual for myself, since I used to walk across town to go to the ‘office’ on a weekly basis last year. However, since signing up at the gym, most of my exercise has been confined to there, and this is the first lengthy stretch of walking through town I’ve done all year. Meanwhile, despite making it clear that they were welcome to drive there on their own, the boys actually volunteered to walk with me, and while Daniel was unfazed by the distance, Logan was pretty winded by the end of either leg of the journey, even as he allowed that he needed the exercise.

I could tell you that, despite misjudging the length of time it would take for us to walk from the house to the center of downtown, we were only a few minutes late to arrive at the agreed-upon intersection. Moreover, we had arrived before any of the girls – Kerstin was having particular difficulty finding a parking spot (understandably so – it was fairly crowded in the alfresco district, being Friday night and all), Ellen had driven past the district entirely before doubling back, and Erin… was literally running late, arriving a half hour after everyone else, red-faced from exertion, but still absolutely bounding with energy.

I could tell you about the usual challenges in deciding where to go, as you might recall how many restaurants there are in that otherwise quite confined area. This part of the story is probably the one you could easily picture in your mind without me telling you about, though, what with everyone not wishing to impose their opinion or preference (if they had one) on everyone else. I did produce a gift card I had for the Irish pub, and Erin conceded that she could set aside her craving for pizza for the night with that being established.

From there, though, I could tell you how, upon approaching the hostess’ stand, we were informed that, assuming we wanted a table for six outside (and on a night like last night, who wouldn’t?), it would be another half hour wait. Although Ellen and Erin each mentioned being particularly hungry, it was agreed that this was acceptable – especially since Erin had gotten wind of the mochi doughnut shop a few blocks down, and thought of getting some bubble tea from the place, as well. Given that we had the time, we marched our way down those couple of blocks, only for me to receive a text saying that our table was ready, and we needed to claim it immediately, barely five minutes into our walk. We had to split up – I led Ellen and Logan back to the restaurant, while the others continued to the doughnut shop.

I could tell you about my shock at Erin’s reaction to trying some of the pub’s curry chips, a modern Irish classic that we always enjoyed. I guess I remember her mentioning a time or two about how she didn’t like curry when we were at Mitsuwa, but I had no idea that this went beyond dislike, and more toward complete revulsion. I could have sworn she’d eaten at our place when you were still here and we would make curry for the gang for dinner, but she seemed torn as to whether she would rather eat a sausage (which she also despises, and you and I would occasionally attempt to parse why, considering that she was fine with pepperoni on pizza) than curry – which doubly dismayed Kerstin, as currywurst is apparently a beloved street food back home in Berlin. I might also wonder if what I’m looking for in Megumi is more of a cross between Kerstin and Erin, although as long as I’m wishing for impossible things, I’d rather just have you back.

I could tell you about the other stories at the table, such as the ones the boys related about last week’s convention to the girls (particularly Erin, who used to be part of that same fandom), or Ellen’s about the bag of D&D dice she bought from her favorite band, with signatures from the entire group on the bag (which is significant because one of them has officially retired from the group. It’s perfectly amiable, but he’d apparently never had any intentions of hitting the big time, and he’d just like to go back to being a regular bloke. So this is among the last merch with everybody’s names and signatures on it). But they aren’t really my stories to tell, and I’d likely leave out something important or otherwise screw them up.

The thing is, I had a few things to ask of the girls last night about future plans. Yes, I’d like them to see A Place Farther than the Universe with me, and with that in mind, I’d also like to show them a few places at some point, as well. It’s been sixteen years since 2007 and the trip we took with Ellen; I think we need to do something like that again, and continue to spread the karma of the many trips we were on with the folks. And Kerstin even suggested the possibility of visiting her home country while making up for the journey I missed out on barely a year and a half ago, which is more than worth considering.

But more importantly, or perhaps more necessary, for all the travels we might have in mind, we have your last trip to take into account first of all. I really thought we would have done this by now, but between Erin needing to establish her vacation schedule for a given year by the previous November, and the Clarks not really having any practice of scheduling the cottage any sooner than March of any given year, it’s next to impossible to coordinate a way for us all to see you off.

However, I think I’ve come up with a solution. The way I see it, the most significant days would be either your birthday in May or our anniversary in September, which both lie just outside of the basic tourist season on the island. Things will be running, but not to their full extent; so it shouldn’t be a problem for the Clarks to squeeze us into the calendar. And none of us have any school year issues that would render slightly off-season travel any more problematic than any other time. So I proposed the two possibilities, and at least two came back with a response that work life was busier in September than May, so May it will be.

The only thing is, this then conflicts with my own schedule, as I’m pretty sure I can be back in the States by your birthday next year, but I’m not sure if I could manage the turnaround to get to the island in time. So, it will have to wait until 2025; it’s still sooner until then compared to the time from your departure to now. Although, for what it’s worth, I plan to take a little bit of you with on next year’s trip, so I can spread you out among the ports along the way. It seems like something you’d appreciate, and I wish I’d have thought of it sooner. Still, we have all kinds of future plans to make this work on.

And until I can make this plan come to fruition, honey, keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.