And so our (sometimes crazy, but surprisingly enjoyable) bucket list family road trip has come to an end. We have all scattered into our own directions again, and the sharing of photos has slowed down to a trickle.
I feel a little like an orphan tonight.
I actually miss the busyness and the togetherness and the differences. While the group dynamic does bring a certain level of chaos, it occupies and stretches and distracts and teaches. It prevents over-analysis. It re-prioritizes. It holds up mirrors. It supports and holds together. It provides a structure to lean into or lean against or push away from.
While we were driving across Namibia in our little white bus, two concepts presented themselves to me:
1. We all share the same ‘factory settings’.
We are all very different individuals, but at our core – sometimes evident in the way we look or in how we react in certain circumstances or in our memories- we are all the same. We are different models from the same brand. We use and access individualized ‘apps’, but our operating systems are all the same.
2. This trip was like a the making of a powerful homeopathic remedy for us as a family
- Let like be cured by like
- The characteristics of the chosen medicine should be as similar as possible to the characteristics of the illness in the patient
- Vigorous shaking of the solution together with impact or ‘elastic collision’, known as succussion, during the manufacturing process is a key element in the production of homeopathic medicine (all the way through Etosha)
I’m afraid I don’t have a powerfully insightful way of ending this post. There isn’t even a particularly graceful one, or a photo, or a quote. There is always the danger of over-romanticising things and attempt to tie the experience up in a pretty bow and file it away.
What I know is this:
I feel better, and rested, and able to lift my arms again. I slept better. I am less afraid. I feel as if I can carry on. I feel as if I belong to a tribe, however odd and different we are, individually and as a group. I feel connected. I feel compassion, and as if I know everyone a little better. There are some things I still hold on to, but there are some things I can let go.
I feel that things have fundamentally shifted, and if I/we would look back one day, I would say that it all began with Ouma’s bucket list trip in 2016.
End scene. Roll credits.
Daily Braveries 