The same thing happens every time I come home…I find it impossible to hold on to where I’ve just been. Everything is all so quickly displaced with the current time and space.

But I have a trick to counter this. By writing and putting together photos and video footage, I can claim some of it back. By reflecting and remembering, I bring the memories back to life.

Whether listening and watching the blood-chilling roar of the lions at their kill or the screams of my fellow-travelers as we flung ourselves into the Oribi Gorge, or while reviewing my journal notes about the delicate green and smoke smell of the bushveld, I can eventually pull it the pieces back together to rebuild the journey…and briefly, just briefly, I am no longer in our Vancouver apartment…

Instead,

• I am shivering in the back of the Toyota Land Cruiser as the sun flames out behind the silhouetted acacias.
• I am huddled under the fleece blanket as shadowy rhinos pass on either side of the vehicle.
• I’m listening as we all whisper the word ‘amazing’ over and over as lions roll and paw, stretch and groom their impossibly golden bodies.
• I am sipping wine in the dark, head tipped back to view a black sky studded with the starry bling of the South African constellations.
• I am wrapped in a crisp cotton robe, sitting on the deck of the Oyster Box Hotel as the Indian Ocean rushes the shore.
• I am high in the silent sky, suspended in a wicker basket under a massive balloon as we drift over the Blyde River Canyon. 

I am back in South Africa.

I am smiling.