My Place...

I believe emphatically in the idea of "place". I think our bodies and our souls and our senses root themselves to certain places and forever we are linked. For some, their place is right around the corner from home and they are able to visit it regularly. When they have a bad day or want to celebrate something, they can drive or walk or a ride a bike to the place that their soul longs for. That is not true for me. The place my soul longs for is a world away. In fact, it's about a 24 hour plane ride away. Sometimes when I tell people about my place they ask how I can be tied to somewhere that I've only been three times. They ask how it can be my place if I hardly ever go there. Here's how...

Some days when I close my eyes I find myself in the back of a truck, on a dirt path, in the middle of the night. I am staring up at this giant expanse of thick black and I see millions of stars littered across it. I feel the cool wind whipping against my cheek. Other days I will be going about my life and my breath will catch in my chest at the sound of a horn honking. In an instant I'm walking down a busy street in Durban. Teenagers are laughing and carrying their surfboards on their way to the water. I can taste the salt in the air. Or there are those days when I catch the scent of sweet grass and I am transported to the side of a grassy hill. The sun feels hot on my neck and I only have energy to put one foot in front of the other. As my legs carry me towards the top I can feel the anticipation of the view waiting for me. At the top I sit with friends in the dirt and the grass and we share the cold fizz of an orange Fanta and dream about the people we are going to become.

I visit my place when I think about what it felt like to stand in Nelson Mandela's cell on Robbin Island. I see my place when I remember the awe I felt at the sight of my first giraffe. I am in Africa with every zulu song imprinted on my heart.

No matter how long passes, no matter how many days or months or years it's been since I've seen those stars, part of me is always in Africa and I carry part of Africa with me. I carry the faces of the people who slowly transformed me. I carry the sound of rain on a tin roof. I carry the feeling of adventure and new growth and confidence.

I ache for this place always and yet in so many ways I'm always there.