“Ithaka” by C.P. Cavafy (Translated by E. Keeley & P. Sherrard)
As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon-don't be afraid of them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon-you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you're seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind as
many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you're destined for.
But don't hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you're old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you've gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you'll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n3n2Ox4Yfk
I’ve been fortunate thus far in finding every last moment of my travels something new and interesting for me. However, I’m convinced that it’s this mentality that I take into every trip that allows for me to feel this way. With the exception of research and class obligations, I have had no expectations for myself when I go to a place. I (usually) do some reading on the place before and now have started using guide books for help, but regardless of how much I read or view a place beforehand, the first hand experience of a place is absolutely required if you intend on learning from it whatsoever. I studied the “Cyprus Problem” for almost an entire year before having the opportunity to get there, and I will never forget the first time I saw the green line/buffer zone/military posts… I had seen pictures in the past, but to be surrounded by buildings that have literally been frozen in time for 35 years as barracks, manned by real life soldiers standing guard, feeling the dirt sweep over the dark concrete by my legs as it radiates the sun back up at my face, and hearing the sound of a city still moving behind me; I felt that I had started completely fresh.
I leave Cyprus feeling accomplished. I spent many hours attempting to truly understand this place, which Lawrence Durrell (author of Bitter Lemons of Cyprus) says would take two years minimum, and could be a decade. Towards the end of our stay most people had gone off to holiday (most people in Cyprus leave for the last few weeks in August to the point that it’s a ghost town) which did allow us to get extreme amounts of work done, but didn’t allow us to continue the full Cypriot experience (unless heat is the experience because it was in the 40’s every day!). The data has been collected by meeting everyone I planned on and more as well as taking all the necessary photographs for my continued work to go smoothly.
Goodbye for now Cyprus (and your Souvla, Kleftiko, Sheftalia, Haloumi, and Karpousi [watermelon] – just a few of the great foods)…
Next Ithaka: Jerusalem
