Dearest Rachel –
One last travel story before we move on. Yes, there’s a lot to deal with at home, with Dad’s passing and everything that has to be done both to commemorate him and figure out how to move on with life after him (all of which should sound familiar, since that’s basically been the whole point of these letters to you, honey). But upon landing in Chicago last night, we had ourselves a small misadventure that, while it happens all the time to people (and I think it may have happened to us at least once in our lives), hasn’t happened to us for a long time, so it’s worthy of note.
And while I’d like to think I handled the situation well – especially when compared to times past – Daniel ultimately wound up showing me a better way to deal with things by following your way instead (albeit not until exemplifying a bit of my own former approach).
Actually, the whole flight back was something of a misadventure. Getting to the airport itself wasn’t such a big deal, although we did find ourselves sitting in the bus at the port terminal for an inordinate period of time – the fact that we had some measure of wi-fi while waiting made that less of an ordeal. It’s much easier to be ‘patient’ these days, when you have something to distract you like that; it makes it seem like less of a virtue, in fact, since it’s so easy to bury yourself in the internet like that. But hey, it works, doesn’t it?
We continued to use that method once we got to the airport, too; not only had we made it to our gate with over an hour to spare, based on the posted departure time, but the plane had to undergo a certain amount of unplanned maintenance once it arrived, delaying our flight by more than half an hour. Nothing serious, in terms of making the craft airworthy; from what we were told, there were some serious issues with the lavatories that needed to be resolved. In fact, at one point, it was announced that passengers ought to just use the facilities at the airport before boarding, because the situation might not actually be fixed in a reasonable amount of time, and they would have to fly with them still out of order. During all this, Daniel was going through his various YouTube channels, and I was editing and uploading to mine, so we weren’t too concerned about the delay. We would leave when the airplane was good and ready, and since we had no real concerns about date and time, we could maintain a certain amount of equanimity.
The flight itself was more or less uneventful, although, given the warnings we had received about the restrooms, neither of us bothered to test whether the situation had been resolved or not. The plane itself flew like a dream – quite literally, in fact, since I actually nodded off for about an hour and a half, which I’d had trouble with on the trip over to Tokyo.
However, upon landing, there was another issue. I’m not sure how it works, but as far as I could tell, the initial delay in taking off (never mind that the captain managed to make up some of that in flight) meant that the gate we were originally supposed to wind up at had been taken up by a subsequent flight, in order to otherwise keep up with the overall schedule. This meant we needed to wait for a different gate to open up, so that we could slide in and take it and disembark. The process took nearly an hour, during which we had to keep Logan informed of the situation; there was no point in having him show up to collect us when we were still sitting on the plane as it taxied across what felt like every inch of tarmac apart from actual runway surface. Again, since we were back in the States, we were connected to the internet by way of 5G, so this managed to pass the time for us; that, and exchanging sympathetic looks for the families with ever-more-restless kids and babies squalling impatiently.
In fact, Daniel and I got a little too accustomed to our place on the plane; several rows of passengers filtered past us before we could collect ourselves from our relatively comfortable position and get up and out. And the walk to baggage claim wasn’t too excessive, either. But once we were there…
Well, you know the routine; you’d traveled enough with us to know. The bags come out and are carried along a conveyor belt in a loop for passengers to identify and collect. Simple in theory, and generally straightforward in practice. Only, once nearly everyone had gathered their luggage and left, and only a couple of items were forlornly riding the belt, I still hadn’t seen the carry-on that I’d checked with the airline. Meanwhile, Logan was calling, and I had to keep telling him to do another circuit of the terminal, because we weren’t ready to leave.
Once upon a time, I would be panicking, frantically worrying about the stuff that might have gone home with someone else or otherwise gone missing. This included my overnight bag (and a brush I’ve been using on my hair since I was five) and the shaker with your ashes that I’ve been taking on these trips for the past few years (although I haven’t been sprinkling them at every stop, as it would require being out of eyeshot of Daniel, who seems to disapprove). These things don’t have much in the way of value, but they’re priceless to me, as you might suppose.
And yet, I wasn’t too bothered, for some reason. The airline issues a claim check and each bag is scanned at multiple points along the way; I had faith in the system that this could be tracked down and managed.
I did take the opportunity to scan the QR code at the point where the barrier rope began, and it claimed that all of our bags had been delivered. But since I saw nothing else that could be done, I decided to wait. Meanwhile, Daniel asked permission to check the carousel one more time, and I granted it; it wasn’t as if we both had to stand around in line.
It wasn’t more than five minutes later that he came back, rolling my carry-on behind him. It had been nestled in some obscure corner of the carousel, but it had been there, overlooked, all that time. He told me – and this is something you would always do when you lost something – that he was praying it would turn up, and lo and behold, it did!
Obviously, this is one of those things that should be more of an object lesson to me than I’m likely to let it be. I was trusting the system the airline had to find the bag; Daniel was trusting Someone else. I’m not saying I was doing the wrong thing, but clearly it wasn’t what found the item I’d lost. I really have to do something about that in my life, don’t I, honey?
To that end, I guess I should ask you to keep an eye on me, give me a little nudge now and then, and wish me well. You should be able to tell that I’m always going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 