30th April, 2023

Anticipation

I have been trying to determine when I began this fascination with elephants. I definitely didn’t carry it with me from my childhood. When I think back I remember a time when I took my son, Alex, to the Los Angeles Zoo.

We came upon an enclosure where they were offering a ride on an elephant. I don’t particularly like zoos and the idea of an elephant forced to give us a ride seemed, well, wrong. But I was trying to cheer up my two-year old who was suffering from cancer. (That is a story for another day.) Hence the ride on the elephant.

Maybe it was the cloud that was hanging over us that day but my memory is of a sad mama on a sad elephant holding on to her baby weak from chemo. I was looking to share some kind of joy with Alex, if only for a moment. Perhaps it was then that I began to long for a time when I could see elephants in their natural habitat, free from human exploitation.

So here we are, thirty-three years later on our way to Africa.

Jay and I decided to leave Martha’s Vineyard a day early after watching the weather. A storm with high winds was predicted for the day we were supposed to leave. High winds and fluctuating tides are a recipe for cancellation of the ferries. No ferries. No way to get off the island. There are flights but that could be a gamble too. We decided it wasn’t worth the risk.

Now I sit on the 15th floor of the Hyatt Regency overlooking the Boston Harbor dreaming of Africa.

Will it be everything I hope it to be? Have I too many expectations? Will Jay find it as enjoyable as me? After all, this is on my bucket list, not his.

I never really expected to travel to Africa. It was always a fantasy that I would entertain when I was bored. Then one day, I saw a blurb on the internet that caught my eye. It was about a man who had a game reserve in South Africa. While visiting another continent, he had a heart attack and died. Somehow his herd of wild elephants knew this and traveled to his home and stood for two days mourning. One year to the date, they came back to his home and did the same thing. I was intrigued by this connection he had to the elephants. There began my journey that has led us here today.