Life Chapter: Theme Parks, and Wolves

With my mental capacity back at 100%, I decided to ask people if they wanted to go to a theme park with me, and I extended the invitation to the dance community.

At the time of writing, we have six people going!

I am pretty excited. I have always loved theme parks. The rush you get from them. The silly laughter. The feeling of just letting go for a while.

I also looked over the black-and-white photos from the zoo, and I am really happy with them. Even though I didn’t have a lot of pictures from Blijdorp, I still liked the ones I had.

Blijdorp had been on my list for a while, but there is another zoo near the Belgian border called Beekse Bergen that I want to visit soon. When I started looking up zoos I hadn’t visited yet, there were a couple in the Netherlands I wanted to do, but first I need to visit two more in Belgium.

One is the animal park at Grotte de Han, and the other is the animal park in Bouillon, which I somehow didn’t know about.

A few more things added to my bucket list.

For now, I think I’ll go to the one near me soon. Maybe I’ll even go this weekend.

I feel very excited to go to zoos again and observe the animals. Dancing took over for a while, but it is time to balance things out. Dancing is part of my life now, and it needs to be properly balanced and integrated.

I have time to improve. There is no need to rush to every social or dance event. It is fun, but it needs to stay that way. I tend to overinvest in things I like and also in the people I love, so balance is important.

But there is one animal I really want to see again this year, and that would be wolves.

In Belgium, we have a wolf sanctuary in Bilstain near Verviers, close to Liège, and you can enter the enclosure. If you are lucky, they come and greet you.

Somehow, I have always felt connected to wolves. The reason why still eludes me completely. They have always been present in some way.

When I was a kid, there was this movie I liked called White Fang, based on the book by Jack London. When I was in Dawson City, Canada, some years ago, I was surprised to learn that Jack London had spent time there during the Klondike Gold Rush, and that those experiences later inspired books like The Call of the Wild and White Fang.

Maybe that movie is how it all started. Who knows?

Seeing wolves up close is an experience in itself. Several years ago, at that same sanctuary, one of the wolves ate a piece of cheese from my mouth.

I still have the video somewhere. If I find it, I’ll post it below. It is a very old video. I still had hair, so don’t ask me how old it was.

It is old. Hahah.

By the time I hit all the zoos I want to visit, I wonder where I will be in life. How much time will have passed? What will have changed?

Right now, I’ll enjoy this journey some more and see what comes next.

Since I started this journey, I feel more alive and more like myself again. I wanted to change and heal within one year of writing the letters, but now I understand that there is no rush.

One thing is certain: being around animals of any kind has always soothed my soul and mind.

couldn’t find the video but i found this pic.