Dearest Rachel –
Given that it was an interesting way to spend part of the weekend – and that these letters are, in part, a means for me to record the days of my life since you left, because I’ve discovered how quickly my memories fade if I don’t – I would be remiss if I let the events of Saturday pass without mention. Even though most of what we (she?) wanted to accomplish couldn’t actually be done (due to circumstances beyond our control, mostly having to do with timing), it was certainly more of an event than how I usually spend a given weekend, and so it ought to be committed to paper – or at least pixels.
At the same time, this is going to be as much of a relating of “just the facts” as possible. I have thoughts and opinions about the events of the day (and perhaps some of the subtext of it all), don’t get me wrong, but to commit them to print at this point might be… imprudent, I think. If nothing else, I only have one perspective – my own – and I’ve no right to speak for others around me. I know full well how wrong I can be about things, and have no desire to venture opinions that could easily be called out by those who read over your shoulder (which in itself is getting to be a topic worth relating to you at some point, but I’m going to wait to see if the situation holds before telling you about it).
Besides, the facts are unusual enough to merit plenty of comment; after all, it’s been a while since I headed into the city. It’s also about that time of year when you and Daniel and I would make our way down here to kick off the Christmas shopping season for ourselves. Granted, it’s a little early for that, but then again, said shopping season seems to have been moved up from the day after Thanksgiving to the day after Halloween, so maybe it’s right on time.
Nowadays, there’s no need to go downtown – or even outside, should one so choose – in order to go Christmas shopping; everything can be done from the comfort of one’s own home, on one’s own computer. And while I may be fine with that in practice, there’s a part of me that knows I need to step away from the computer now and again and get out there into the real world. Besides, I was just mentioning the other day about how I need to treat the city more like the tourist destination that it is and can be.
Yes, Kerstin was with me, as I just mentioned. Neither of us would have been willing to head to the city on our own (although this was, in part, a dry run for her to figure our how best to make her way to Moody for a symposium next week, which I wouldn’t be able to attend even if I wanted to, as I’m assigned to the booth this coming weekend); her out of trepidation, and me out of inertia. But with each other’s assistance, it wasn’t all that hard to do; we’d looked up the locations she wanted to visit, and which “L” stops to get off at in order to get to each place (although it so happened that the German consulate was such a short walk from Moody that taking transport between the two would be superfluous), and we had everything pretty much planned out from the start of the day.
Although we did throw in a little flexibility. We were going to ride to the station in her car, but I decided that would be complicated in terms of parking at her place – why pull into her driveway and have her pull her own car out around mine? Best to just keep going in my car. The parking spots at the station were a little on the tight side, but that would have been just as much of a problem with her car as mine. We also had to change trains in order to get to Moody – which was part of our plan – but upon arriving at the first station on the brown line, she mentioned that she’d “never been to the Merchandise Mart,” and asked to check it out – which was not part of the plan, but so what? We wandered about for a bit – although there wasn’t much going on of a Saturday, for some reason – before making our way on foot up to Moody.
It was somewhere between two and three when we arrived at the Berghoff, and we spent a good couple of hours there at lunch, recovering from our walk. We had covered something like four miles, and while I’m used to that sort of thing, Kerstin wasn’t, and had worn boots rather than gym shoes like I had. As she put it, those boots weren’t made for walking… at least, not to such an extent. On the other hand, she had put in twice the distance that she’d intended to had she gone on the walk scheduled for the following day, so she should have given herself some credit.
But that’s really the extent of the day; the Monroe Street station was just around the corner from the restaurant, and we just headed down to the subway and rode our way back from there. We didn’t get much done out there, but that wasn’t really the point of the trip. It was just a chance to get out and mess about the city. You would have enjoyed it – apart from the coffee place – and in fact, you had enjoyed similar trips in the past. Now, if I want to do something like this, I’ve got to make my way down there on my own, or at the urging of someone else.
Which is where I’ll end this narrative, honey, as anything further will move from story and facts to thoughts and opinion, and I promised myself to steer clear. For now, keep an eye on me, and wish me luck; I’m going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 