An Inconvenient Life

Letting go of the life I was expected to lead.

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One journey ends and another begins


Oh I know that you were a sailor,
Till you came too close to the shore,
And like any shipwrecked sailor, now
You live by an open door.

-Al Stewart



Ithaka

BY C. P. CAVAFY
TRANSLATED BY EDMUND KEELEY

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.



Photo by GEORGE DESIPRIS on Pexels.com

2 thoughts on “One journey ends and another begins”

  1. Cherie says:
    02/03/2020 at 9:25 pm

    I admire you and your retirement lifestyle Sam!

    Reply
    1. margrad80 says:
      03/03/2020 at 2:13 pm

      Thanks Cherie, For some reason your comment didn’t come in through the normal notifications. So I am just now seeing it.

      Reply

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My Inconvenient Live

I am a retired American Merchant Mariner.  l was living a nomadic lifestyle somewhere between being a nomad and an expat, before Covid19. I moved from country to country as my visas ran out. This blog covered my travels and the random thoughts about life, technology, travel, and the Oxford comma. Now I am stuck waiting for the pandemic to pass. During this time my posts will have very little to do with traveling, and more to do with keeping myself entertained during lockdown.

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