Twilight

To effectively meditate the mind needs to be able to sit for a prolonged period between being awake and being asleep. Very few people will claim to have really achieved a meditative state but when you really think about it we do witness this in many ways, sometimes occasionally and other times on a daily basis.

There is the state somewhere between sobriety and drunkeness, the time that seems to hang between the day and the night, the start of the day when it is light but the sun is yet to appear, and the gap between work and home where time seems to stand still albeit for a brief moment. You are not quite there yet but you have also left the recent past.

Zimbabwe, but more specifically Victoria Falls is my twilight.

I still have several days left on my 10 week break but my mind is very much shifting to being at home. Though I am consciously somewhere in between. Today and tonight I said goodbye (for now) to the people who I have lived with almost 24 hours a day for the past couple of weeks. I also did this only two weeks ago. I love the hellos but the goodbyes are much harder. For this moment in time only we have seen what we have seen, met who we have met and photos may help explain but really it's situational. That is the same for everyone, so while I have been in this reality I am also aware that everyone else has been in theirs, their own meditative states that only they can explain.

So back to Vic Falls. One of the 7 natural wonders of the world. Victoria graced us yesterday with a fine mist on our faces to sooth the heat of the day and in one brief moment she shone her rainbow across the gorge to remind us why she sits proudly above many other beautiful bodies of water on the wonders list. I felt peaceful and in no hurry to be anywhere in particular. Just totally in the moment.

For me, Vic Falls is the perfect place to sit between home and away. Tonight I took a cruise with some others from my group along the Zambezi to see the sunset. I have eaten good steak, drank a Bombay Sapphire and Schweppes tonic, and this morning for the first time since Lake Malawi, I tasted coffee.

Tomorrow I am planning to spend my last day here not being annoyed by and maybe even enjoying the barrage of sales people outside the gate with their stone carvings asking where I am from, to not be at all bothered by the red dust that has soaked into my skin and my clothes, and somewhere in middle of it all enjoying the tranquilly (or not) of an African Day Spa where I have booked a body scrub to remove the Serengeti and a massage that doesn't involve the seat of the truck.

So thanks Africa for the amazing days, nights and every bit in between. And to all those who were there along the way, thanks for the memories. It's been fantastic. I hope to see you all again sometime in the twilight zone.Read more