The World Is A Dream We Once Had

A brief meditation, ultimately on choice, under the “smoke that thunders,” Mosi-oa-Tunya (Victoria Falls), Zimbabwe.

“Some of us may have imagined, from time to time, that we are living in the hippest, coolest, most happening place in the world. New York? London? Berlin? Montreal? Shanghai? Barcelona? I can recall having delusions like that myself.

But the truth is, as far as I can tell, that everywhere is the center of the world.”

— My fav astrologer and curator of the feel good, Rob Brezsny

What words can be added that the photos cannot capture? Very few, I would say. The weekend found us at the feet of wild animals that recall a prehistoric time — listen to the loud grind of rhinoceros teeth as she snaps a tree in two and chews. An island floats in the Zambezi full of grazing elephants.

A hippo pops its head out of water, it’s grey skin smooth like wet stone. An owl stops our car at night, standing dead center road. Many monkeys hold babies on the back, newborns under the belly. A pride of female lions and their cubs stalk for giraffes — did we see one headed the wrong way?

Watch how the kudu (or impala? I can’t remember) stand one at a time to keep guard for the others who lay in the dirt to rest. The giraffe bends its knees to drink from the waterhole, how funny their bendy legs growing wider like two stilts! The vultures know when they will be fed and flock to the trees, circle above our heads.

The disco ball of lightning on a horizon was so far in the distance the sky otherwise smelled silent, and then became an instrument under the first rain fall of the year, everything vibrating.

What I gleaned from the falls is that we are very small, thank god. Enjoy this touch of delicious madness — the first reaction to all this knock-you-in-the-face beauty.

But on a less poetic note, there is this memory in the back of my mind. It is of myself as envious witness. At times when viewing another’s amazing photos, I have thought something to the effect of: well, they can afford it.

I wish I had allowed myself to feel inspired instead. I now understand that with a little elbow grease and some different choices, over time, I could have found myself on a plane, too.

Choices.

“Could you imagine this when you were young,” we often joke about finding each other.

Never.

But to not lean in would be, well, very limited. I have been very limited for many years but no longer, something watered inside me with these first showers of the season, turning the dusty grass green.