After basketball today, the kids and I made a promise.

If you have followed the previous entries, you may have noticed that the geocaching content is reaching suspiciously high levels. The truth is that I have become thoroughly obsessed with this game, born in the year 2000. After finding so many caches, it was time to hide one of my own!

We happened to need someone to give a short talk after basketball, so I told the story of me and geocaching. To me, searching for hidden things carries the strange pull of exploring the unknown. Judging by the children’s half-understanding expressions, they may not have shared my enthusiasm.

I continued anyway and produced a tiny test tube prepared over lunch, with a folded logsheet inside:

By my calculations, this is our second-to-last basketball session here. You may still see Brother David afterward, but you probably will not see me for a while. So I wanted to leave a gift for all of you—and for this park, which witnessed my basketball skills grow from complete beginner to slightly more impressive beginner. I will hide this little tube beneath the bench where Coach is sitting, and I have already published the coordinates and other information on the official Geocaching website. I left a message there too: “If you see a particularly kind old gentleman teaching basketball to a crowd of children near the cache, please say hello to them for me!” And if you happen to see somebody feeling around under this bench, you can always drop the great name of Flare. After all, I still haven’t met a single living geocacher in the wild. (Everyone laughs.)

The kids: “Will you come back to Beijing?”

Of course I will. When I do, I will come back to see you—and check whether this little thing is still here!

If a farewell can be accompanied by laughter, it may become a beautiful memory after all.