Dear Dad
I've been thinking about Africa again. I don't know why. For me, last year had so much travel and big landmarks, like my 30th Wedding anniversary. I didn't forget Africa but the trip and the place receded. Lately, what has brought it back is the feeling. I miss the feeling of Africa.
The first way to call up the feeling is the image of being in a car, passing people going about their daily business in a country with so many cultures, people and such immensity of space. Africa is three times the size of the United States. So many times as we traveled in Tanzania, I saw many people gathered together in one place. Eating, drinking, selling shoes, clothes or food. Talking, laughing, seeing each other. Through the open window, I could smell and breathe in air full of so much; cooking corn, fine dirt dust, thick gray exhaust. I could hang my head out the window, completely ignored, taking big breaths of my own insignificance. I was passing them as much as they were passing me. One look and forgotten.
One of the great benefits of travel is to feel this place that I see myself in daily, expanding to include other places. Africa is huge, empty, has crowded cities, is wild and sophisticated, with beautiful, exotic looking people and nature and ugly with poverty, all at the same time. We have all seen pictures of Africa in this internet savvy world. I'm sure you would be summoning those pictures into your head right now. But that doesn't completely explain the feeling.
Another part of the feeling is about sharing a continent, a land space with wild animals. I miss the smell of hot, bright sunlight with the finest drift of green underneath from standing near water and hippos. The unpleasant, wild smell of monkey. The sheen of sweat on the skin of a running giraffe. And amazingly, the smell of the warm fur of lions which makes me remember the jolt of terror looking into the eyes of an animal that could kill you.
That is a piece of knowledge I am glad to have from Africa. I was literally, meat, to feed on. I won't forget the lioness who taught me this. In Africa, I could see myself on the same level as an animal/predator and as prey.
The feeling has to do with climbing Kilimanjaro too. Spending a week looking at a big mountain and walking the pink gray rock moonscape on the way to the big mountain. Seeing the desert like twisted branches of tall green plants, white green lichen growing in perfect circles on rock. Seeing a trickle of water running through a thin line of green in the middle of a slope of volcanic rock. Feeling the freedom of life simplified into walk, camp, eat and sleep and breathe.
It's a bit mind opening feel your heart beating when your level of exertion is simply walking. To stop and force deep breaths in the thin, dry air. No easy breaths, no unconscious breathing. Life can be reduced to needing air to live.
It was good for my soul to have my life reduced. And to see myself as a insignificant. To know that the journey to the top of the mountain was only important to me. I feel around mountains like, if they could be alive, they would laugh at us. They are so old. They would say something like, really Margot, you think climbing this mountain, you are afraid you won't make it, you think this is a big event in your life. This is nothing, a drop of water instantly drying on rock, to us. Centuries of wind, snow, the shifting earth below....those are the big things.
Africa and climbing Kilimanjaro made me understand how simple my life is while at the same time making me feel a part of a large place; another animal in a wild place among other animals. I think this kind of learning has to be felt, experienced, seen. It's another reason among many to fight, to preserve wild places. And it's a feeling I just can't find at home. Why don't I feel that sense of being a part of a larger place at home?
Most of my friends come from big families; three or more siblings. Not sure how that happened but all of them spend time with their families fairly frequently. I know you grew up an only child as did Mom. But both of you had parents with large families. I've heard enough stories to know you spent time with your extended family fairly often. I won't ever have that experience. Ray's family is large but they aren't mine. Even my children live away these days. But, I'm an introvert. I'm guessing too much family experience would probably drive me crazy!
Anyway, I spent some time alone descending through a long scree field from the summit of Kilimanjaro. I saw dots who after a ridiculous amount of time became people who after even longer amounts of time, I reached and passed. I kept alternating between loving the alone time and reminding myself as I descended through this enormous landscape, someone would miss me if I didn't show up at camp.
Yes, I spent a lot of time with a group of ten people. Hiking hours together, eating every meal together, sleeping next to each other in tents. I hope it doesn't sound too pathetic but it is the closest I get to the family experience. I remain grateful that we all got along. (I've done trips like that where people don't get along. It changes the experience). Anyway, when you're alone in a very challenging place, it's comforting to know those ten people would have helped me as best they could.
The other thought I had descending was much simpler. I kept thinking, damn, stay alert! I had this really clear mental focus on the climb and descent. That day, I remember in amazing detail and colors. I kinda love that. And would love to repeat that.
Maybe, I can close my eyes and go to Africa in my mind, and see how my life isn't difficult after all. These choices, daily or life, are not so important. It's about sleeping, eating and being alive to a place and time. All the rest will pass. But I'd like to share space with them again. I'd like to see those exotic people, those mysterious wild animals, that immense mountain landscape. I'd like to feel a part of a wild place again... I guess that's how that wanting to go again thing works!
Love
Margot
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