Hello, and welcome to your first Grace-A-Gram! It's like a telegram, but from me, Grace!
With a little negotiation (read: by asking nicely) I was able to persuade Rocky to give me a guest column. After all, if push came to shove this newsletter would notionally be considered a joint asset! (A little family law joke for you there so you know it's really me.)
At our first briefing meeting, the night our tour began, we were given a gentle but pointed reminder about the adventures to come.
"Remember guys," said our tour leader, Linda,* "these are safaris, eh? It's not a zoo."
She - and every guide we've met since - has been very clear on this point. There are no promises about what, if anything, we'll spot out there. We jump in the 4x4 and drive, and although we hope for the best and keep our eyes peeled, there are absolutely no guarantees.
And yet, that simple fact has made our safari drives undeniably more exciting. With every 'spotto', there is a ripple of glee through the group. It's actually quite wholesome to see six thirty-somethings crane their necks to see an elephant, or a group of hippos, or a lion cub.
I've been reading a bit lately about serendipity, and its relationship to experiences of delight - and I think it applies here, too.
One writer on the topic compared the experience of playing your favourite song on Spotify to hearing your favourite song on the radio. The former is great, sure - but the latter is joyous. Others point to the delight we all feel when seeing a rainbow, or a shooting star. There is a magic to the unexpected and the unplanned.
In our case, we simply wouldn't be as excited to see these animals if we were in a zoo, where sightings would be more or less a given. And I think the excitement comes from more than being "in the wild". It's the luck of it all, the happenstance, that makes it so thrilling.
I'm part of a generation that likes to feel in control. Until the pandemic hit, a lot of us had a disproportionate sense of the influence we could have on the course of our lives. And look, I get it - thinking about how little control we really have can be terrifying.
But I'm trying to remember that the chaos and the unexpected is a big part of what makes life wonderful, too. Maybe we all need to learn to make like we're on safari - sit back, enjoy the ride, and enjoy the proverbial rare leopard sightings we have along the way.
Anyway, is this too much navel-gazing for a vacation newsletter? Possibly. I can't promise there won't be more. We have a lot of time to think on these long, bumpy drives. It's glorious.
Lots of love
Grace x
*I think some readers would be interested/impressed to read that Linda is leading us on this tour while SIX MONTHS PREGNANT. What a badass.