Dearest Rachel –
If I’m to be honest with you – as well as myself – about this series of letters to you, that they’re as much a record of life happening in the days after your absence as anything else, I should be telling you about the events of the past evening. For some reason, however, there’s this reluctance to do so. The thing is, there’s this nagging insistence that the moment wasn’t one to advance the plot of my life. No progress (or regress, for that matter) toward self-improvement or finding ‘Megumi,’ for instance, just a moment of hanging out with (most of) the gang in a static tableau. What’s to report about it?
At the same time, there’s another part of my mind that insists that these objections are every bit as frivolous and arbitrary as the first part claims the moment itself was. It isn’t as if you haven’t been told about things more ephemeral than this; I’ve sent you letters describing my dreams, for crying out loud. Why should I find the recounting of this evening to be so objectionable, especially considering how rare it’s been that we’ve been able to do this sort of thing together like this? Indeed, maybe the answer will come to me – or perhaps you’ll spot it as I unwittingly and unknowingly reveal it – in the telling.
If nothing else, there’s the fact that, even if this truly was an otherwise pointless moment of time, there is holy writ that spells out that such moments are basically what life is made of:
…Enjoy all the useless [1:2] days of this useless [1:2] life God has given you ·here on earth [L under the sun; 1:3], because it is ·all you have [L your lot/reward/portion in life]…
Taken from Ecclesiastes 9:9, Expanded Bible
We had these sorts of moments together as a couple – our home is built with them, you could say – and this is just an example of a new one being manufactured, this time with the gang, paving the path toward the future. It may look like just another brick on the road, leading nowhere that can be ascertained by simply peering forward, but there it is, as I step and stand on it. Why shouldn’t I be telling you about it?
So here it is.
I should mention – although this is probably obvious to you already – this wasn’t something I was asking for. Most Fridays, there’s someone else in the group chat who asks the rest of us if we’re all willing and able to go and do something about getting together. It may have been Logan this time around, it may have been Kerstin. The point is, it wasn’t me this time around, and I try not to make it so. If nothing else, I’ve learned not to look too desperate, even among friends. Besides, while I can get the boys to go along with just about anything I suggest with virtually no effort, I have no control over the girls, and they’re the real challenge to round up. Best to let them propose an idea (or ask for suggestions) before throwing any of my own thoughts into the mix. At the same time, I’ve also learned how to content myself with evenings at home alone, because I know it’s as likely as not to end up that way.
Since the boys and I had already taken Kris out for lunch after she’d cleaned the house (she likes to do Asian food, but none of her family like the stuff. Meanwhile, we’re into it to an almost ridiculous extent, so we hardly need the excuse to do so), we weren’t about to suggest meeting for a meal. Besides, it had been mentioned more than one that some of the group were actually getting tired of just eating every time we got together (even though that is something that everyone needs to do on a regular basis, multiple times a day, so why not make an outing of it?), so it seemed like an opportunity to suggest something else. But what?
I don’t know why it occurred to me, but it did; it’s not like Daniel and I haven’t played a few rounds of miniature golf in the last few months, be it on South Bass or the Brilliance of the Seas (to be fair, that only happened on our last sea day; prior to that, it had been too cold and windy to head up to the top deck for any reason). Although if you compare it to our going out to eat at one place or another – and especially with the group – it’s been a much longer time since we’d done anything like this. It may be a relatively pedestrian form of entertainment, but when you think about it, it’s rare enough that we get together and do this to make this worth looking into, I suppose.
It took a while before everyone who was going (Ellen still has a lot on her plate; it’s going to be a few more weeks before she joins us for anything, unless she needs more help clearing out her mom’s old place in Macomb) was ready to go. Even the boys had engrossed themselves in another series while the other girls went back and forth on the whethers and whens. Finally, at around seven o’clock, the boys wrapped up their watch party, and we headed out to Des Plaines, where the nearest such place still remains.
Several things occurred to me as we made our way around in the dark but fairly well-lit grounds. One was that of what the girls thought of having one of the few such places left within a mile or so of their homes; was it as overlooked by them as so many other rare things we have close at hand, simply because it is so close at hand? We don’t notice what we have because we have it; we assume it’s commonplace to all, even as I could check a map from a decade or two ago and easily demonstrate how these places have rapidly begun to disappear from the landscape. We need to enjoy them while they’re still here, because who knows how long they’ll still be here (although it seems a shame that future generations will be deprived of such an outing option – I hesitate to call it a ‘date spot,’ for obvious reasons, but you get the idea).
The other thought was how the four of us – and yes, there were only four of us, as it turned out; Erin didn’t show up until we were making our way to the 16th or 17th hole, well on our way to wrapping things up (she did, however, express willingness to go out with the rest of us afterward, if we were in the mood for ice cream, as she knew about a new spot that had just opened while we were abroad) – probably looked more like a family than just a group of friends. It wouldn’t have been the first time someone would have noticed and commented upon it, either. And I don’t know what to do about it; this time around, I decided not to speak or think about it, but just to enjoy the moment, as Qoheleth instructs. Whether it’s the right course of action or not is hard to say.
In any event, while we may not have necessarily have been in the mood for food (and Daniel just doesn’t care that much for ice cream, period) with regard to our getting together in the first place, once it was suggested, we were more than willing to make our way to the parlor. Several of us were intrigued by its offering of lavender-flavored ice cream, although after a sample of the stuff, Daniel opted with a sweet cream flavor, claiming that the lavender was “like eating perfume.” For my own part, I stuck with a more conventional combination of coffee (which you would not have liked) and chocolate (which you would have appreciated, but not wanted to sample, since it would have been contaminated by the coffee flavor).
Now, I mentioned that no progress was made last night, honey, or that no lessons were learned; that wasn’t entirely true. While at the counter, Erin not only refused to have me pay for her order (in fact, she paid for herself and Kerstin – funny how it’s okay for her to pay for others, but not for someone else to pay for her), but proceeded to offer me recompense for the meal at the restaurant we all met up at last week. It would seem that ‘owing’ someone leaves her so anxious as to render her almost physically sick. Apparently, the only thing that she can do to eliminate the anxiety is to constantly make an effort to balance the ledger.
Which I guess I understand; if something is nagging at you that keeps you from enjoying yourself in a given situation, you have to do what you can to mitigate that issue. If this is the way she thinks it has to be done, so be it. It probably doesn’t help that she sees having her way paid for by someone else as being indirectly akin to being paid for her time and presence, and most professions that involve such transactions (aside from therapists, that I can think of) don’t have the most savory of reputations – like lawyers.
Honestly, I could probably write a whole letter to you about this situation (which we used to puzzle over back in the day, as you might recall), but I think this would just upset me. I know the things I write when I’m upset – I’ve re-read some of my letters about Chompers keeping me up at two in the morning to go out and pee in the freezing cold and snow – and I don’t like that person very much. So I’ll just mention what I think I’ve learned (it’s not as if I can actually get into her head, anyway), and leave it at that, for now.
We actually hung out there for the better part of an hour, between the parlor and the resale shop nearby – both of the girls were making mental notes to drop by there at some point during its actual operating hours (and I imagine that you would be joining them in their plans, had you been with us) – before saying our farewells and going our separate ways. It was an enjoyable time, and little more than that. But perhaps, that’s all we can ask for in the days we have, and we should stop worrying about whether one thing or another advances our narrative or not. Sometimes, we need to just get out and do something because it’s fun and we’ll have fun – as long as we make a point of not thinking too hard about it all.
And before I spend too much more time doing just that (I know, I know… “too late,” you’d say), I should wrap this up and let you go, honey. Keep an eye on us in the meantime, and wish us luck; we’re going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 