Ithaca

Generally blogging is like one of my many interests--it comes and goes and there is a general lack of consistency. This time I have a valid excuse, not that I'm making any apologies. Mark and I spent our summer (and continue to work on) packing, moving, unpacking, and cleaning an entire sorority house. I'm not gonna lie to you. Life has been miserable. You know how people always ask you how you are, or how your summer was? I sort of just stare at them sizing them up to decide if they really want to hear my answer.

Anyhow, complaining doesn't accomplish anything, so moving onward.

I have sort of had Ithaca on my mind lately. A place that has come to mean so many different things to me over the course of three years. I've almost forgotten how much I hated it here when we came. What made it so awful? I remember desperately needing a job in a town with no industry but Cornell (and consequently working as a cashier at Wegmans for a year). I remember being yelled at on the phone by the telephone company when I was simply trying to set up my telephone (I hung up on someone for the first time in my life, then was terrified to call back and possibly get the same lady). I remember weeks of straight, drizzling rain. Followed by months of a greyish cocoon of sky that blocked the sun most days. My seriously crazy upstairs neighbor, Paul. The list could go on, but I'll stop.

And the interesting thing is, these are all such tiny things in my eyes now. I've been through much worse since I decided I liked this place. Heart-breaking, gut-wrenching, stomach-sickening times of stress and pain and overwhelming responsibility. And yet this place has become home to me. I'm sure there are plenty of reasons for that, and a lot of profound ideas to be drawn from it, but the thing that sticks with me the most is that it is the hard times that make us stronger as a family. I have no desire to relive some of the things of the past three years, but I do know for sure that these experiences have knit our marriage together more tightly and have given me confidence in the life ahead of us.

Once upon a time I spent my days in the JKHB at BYU. (That's Jesse Knight Humanities Building at Brigham Young University.) It was one of those gross buildings that reminds you of an old high school bathroom. But I loved it because of the colorful flyers posted throughout the halls and doorways. One day I came across a poem posted on a Philosophy professor's office, and it sort of became my mantra for life (how fitting that not long after that I began my own journey to Ithaca).

Ithaca
by: Constantine Cavafy

When you set out on your journey to Ithaca,
pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the angry Poseidon -- do not fear them:
You will never find such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your spirit and your body.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the fierce Poseidon you will never encounter,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your soul does not set them up before you.

Pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many, when,
with such pleasure, with such joy
you will enter ports seen for the first time;
stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and coral, amber, and ebony,
and sensual perfumes of all kinds,
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
visit many Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from scholars.

Always keep Ithaca on your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.

Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would have never set out on the road.
She has nothing more to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
you must already have understood what these Ithacas mean.