Peking to Paris Motor Challenge, Day 32.
We had reached the port of Igoumenitsa a day ahead of the main group.
We found a room — hardly a hotel — and even so, for the first time in a while, we could lie in a bed
and sleep, and we got to eat good food too.
Towards evening today, the main group’s cars were due to come into the port one after another.
I would finally be reunited with everyone. I would see my friends.
I could hardly wait for that moment.
“Is the Japanese team out of the rally already?”
Since leaving Peking, we had left the official route more times than I could count.
Each time we broke down, we looked for a place to repair, drifted away from our friends, and went on ahead with the immobile car loaded onto a transporter truck.
Every time we dropped out of sight, I am sure everyone thought the same thing.
“Surely the Japanese team has retired this time?”
Even so, we came back.
Broken, stopped, off the route — we revived again and again and chased the main group.
A completely different route… even on days when we could not run,
there was not a single day when we gave up on the rally itself.
By now, when we showed up again, our friends greeted us not only with surprise but even with words of respect.
But I never felt I was doing anything special.
I just wanted to reach the finish in Paris.
I just did not want to give up until the end.
That feeling alone had kept us running all the way here.
The wound I had forgotten, five months old
During the long wait until the main group arrived, I packed up our luggage.
And then… I treated the surgical wound I had been putting off all this time.
Five months ago, I had a mastectomy for breast cancer.
Really, it should have been a time when I paid attention even to the smallest changes in my body.
But since leaving Peking I had been so absorbed in getting through each day that I had even forgotten the wound from the surgery.
Breakdowns, repairs, border crossings. And a ring gear that might never arrive.
As I faced one thing after another, I was living not as a woman who had had breast cancer,
but as “me, heading for Paris”.
Through this challenge I have kept sending out a message of “never give up”.
Not giving up does not mean pretending it doesn’t hurt.
Even with a wound, even with fear, it means borrowing other people’s strength and facing forward once more.
As I dressed the wound, I quietly looked back on the time that had brought me here.
A long, long day
However often I looked at the clock, time barely moved.
The ring gear had left New York, and arrangements were under way to receive it in Italy.
We had made it as far as the port.
All that was left was to wait for our friends, board the ship and cross the sea.
The more I thought that, the longer the day felt.
Every time I saw a car that had run the official route come into the port, I thought “Is that everyone?!” and
strained my eyes.
Then, from the WhatsApp messenger group that had become our line of contact with our friends,
came sad news: a car had burned… retired…
So close to the end… the heartbreak of their retirement struck me as if it were my own.
No, we can still run! We will definitely come back — for our friends, too, I absolutely will
run! I vowed once more in my heart.
Smiles, hugs — and dancing!
Towards evening, the main group’s cars came flooding into the port.
Familiar cars. Dear, familiar faces.
When our friends spotted us, their surprised faces quickly turned into big smiles.
At this moment when everyone was together, I captured photos with nearly everyone on my phone… this is only a small part of them.
“You’re back again!” “So good to see you!”
Even without words, smiles and hugs said everything.
I was so happy that I started dancing without thinking.
Unable to speak the language, I had danced many times on this journey.
Dancing was how I had communicated.
Embarrassed?? That’s nothing — if I didn’t, nobody would even remember I existed!
And when I dance, the people around me naturally start smiling too…
We dance together, and laugh.
However hard the days were, everyone’s smiles had always surrounded me.
Even if the car cannot run, even if we have no common language, if we dance our hearts connect.
The smiles we exchanged at that port were the best proof that “we can still go on with this journey together”.
Out to sea in the beautiful sunset
Before long the sky turned red, and a beautiful sunset enveloped the port.
When the lively reunion had passed, the ship quietly left the harbour.
Watching the Greek scenery recede, I thought in my heart:
However many times we have left the route, however many times we have broken down, we are still here.
On the same ship as our friends, heading for the same Paris.
Beyond the sea lies Italy.
And there, the miracle ring gear that flew in from New York should be waiting.
Could we really receive it? Would the 100-year-old Buick run again?
We still did not know the answer.
Even so, we will not give up.
With the beautiful sunset and our friends’ smiles in our hearts, the ship quietly set out for Italy.
To be continued in Day 33…