jump to navigation

Ithaca is gorgeous February 4, 2008

Posted by Liz Mead in : Coming Back , 3comments

A gorgeous bit of CanadaWhen you start on your journey to Ithaca,
then pray that the road is long. 

So starts the remarkable poem Ithaca by K. P. Kavafis. The message of the poem is a simple one that most travellers have figured out. It’s all about the journey and not about the end.

I wanted to write my first ever blog about the surprises you get on the journey if you keep your eyes open. Luckily I have a very patient friend, James – who teaches me all sorts of things on the new media journey -who told me to start my blog with a story. So here we go..

I re-discovered Ithaca on a transatlantic crossing, when I heard the poem read aloud by a  RADA trained, Greek actress one night on the QM2.  Does it get any better? Actually it does.

I took a copy of the poem with me for the remainder of my trip to USA and Canada determined that the meaning in the poem – to live in the moment – wouldn’t be lost on me. It was especially pertinent, as the journey to America was to be a circuit-breaker following the death of my darling husband “bloke”.  I had to get on with life, nothing was going to bring him back. And as I didn’t want to spend my 50th birthday alone - I took off on a whirlwind trip to spend it with my twin sister Cate, on a road trip through New England. 

On all trips there’s a balancing act between wanting to stay in a gorgeous new place, and moving on to what will undoubtedly be another gorgeous place. And so it was for me, leaving New England to go across Canada. So a couple of weeks later, after seeing Montreal and Quebec, I boarded a train in Toronto to make the trip across country to Vancouver. I had a sleeper, there was snow, I had my paints, and as far as I was concerned, I was happy to just look out the window. What I hadn’t expected was that I was to make some fabulous new friends on board. Friends who wouldn’t let me stay in the sleeper cabin, friends who taught me lots about loss, love, life and of course the journey. 

And at the heart of this group is my brand new mate, Ismail. Now there’s a whole other story about the synchronicity of names (given the time of my life and the state I was in, but that’s for another blog). Ismail turned my head, for the simple reason he was wearing a T-shirt that read, Ithaca is gorgeous.

He and I hit it off immediately. We talked about painting, about Vancouver, about tarot, about study, about Amsterdam, about life, about journeys and destinations. ”What’s your Go-to  (ie favourite) word?” he asked me one day.  “What’s the word you go to all the time, the word you use, the word people associate with you?” It only took a minute to answer. Gorgeous. My Go-to word is gorgeous, which made his first day T-shirt all the more significant. He and the trip, and the actress, and the poem were all part of a great and gorgeous circuit breaker. Journeys are about that. Going all the way across the world to come back changed, altered, somehow healed and to pick up where you left off and get on with what you need to do.

Ismail and I keep in contact and he will be a friend to other good mates who are moving over to Vancouver soon. We play it forward – how gorgeous is that! And this year I’m off again to spend time with my family, to celebrate the 21st birthday of my twin niece and nephew. Guess where? In Greece on Kefalonia – just across the water from Ithaca.