“As you set out for Ithaca, hope your road is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery.” writes the great poet, K. Cavafis, and these verses cannot leave us untouched. Cavafy’s journey is not a return journey – in contrast to the Odyssean one- but a journey of departure and Cavafy’s Ithaca appears as the final destination, the purpose of the journey. In fact, it is nothing but a symbolism.
In these verses that have been read, spoken, and loved by thousands, the island stands as a symbol to the goal, the destination of the journey. This destination wasn’t and isn’t going to be the same for everyone. If you ask different people, you will get different answers. I asked them, anyway, where they would like to travel.
T. told us about Ithaca: “At 19, the quarantine broke out. A failure at my exams made me try again. And then I realized something very important. It was January and my mind was in Ithaca. In difficult times my mind would turn there. My decision to retake the exams combined with the coronavirus had taken a toll on me.The thought that, when all this is over, summer will come and I will go to Ithaca again gave me strength. Even Cavafy’s poem now had a different meaning in me. “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.” Summer came, everything went well, the journey to Ithaca had never seemed so long to me. I couldn’t wait to see the island again on the horizon, to smell its air. When I finally arrived, I couldn’t hold back my smile. A part of my heart belongs there. It’s not just a summer destination for me. It’s home.”
K. told us: “I would like to travel somewhere where everything I have learned will be disproven. The technology I am used to using and being comfortable with will take another form. Education and literacy too. All the “ideal things” will be able to become real and the world will not be colored with this feeling of pessimism. Dreams will not only exist in our sleep, and we will have some time to actually have a conversation with someone every day. Flirting will become as it was back then, personal. The world will love, be loved, and will have fun relentlessly in this effort of exorcizing all evil. So, I would like to take a trip to a concert that will last for ages. In this concert, we come together, sing, and think about the reasons that we are thankful for. I want to go on a journey, the purpose of which will be to surround myself with people who are like songs and circumstances similar to the ones in concerts.”
A. confessed: “the beauty of words lies in the plethora of interpretations we decide to give. A journey can be a plane flight from Thessaloniki to Edinburgh or meeting a person with whom you will travel, through him, to the indefinite everywhere. A station may come and go. I remember the journey of our first meeting, how it started without planning and ended with a non-return ticket. We traveled together on roads in the rain, on beaches with mango flavored ice cream under the sun; we traveled to explore together. Since then, you’ve been constantly traveling through the synapses and neurons of my brain, producing an array of chemical reactions. Let it be considered that our journey is now over. Indeed, a journey must end no matter how bittersweet the destination that marks the end. How else would you taste the realization of the specialness of a trip if you enjoyed it forever? Only then would I realize that you were a station of mine.”
M. shared: “travel through time, to different places, with different faces, for different purposes and dreams. There will always be a deeper meaning behind it. My desired journey is a deep journey, a journey of self-discovery. A journey into aspects of me that are always eager to rise to the surface, yet something is always suppressing them. I determine the route I will follow on this journey on my own. And that makes it even more open to challenge. You find new destinations that will give meaning to your destination, to the overall life you’re living. All this moves in the realm of the unreal, the elusive. And yet, for me there is also this destination that I want to travel to every day. It never ends. But it has a beginning. And we are the beginning.”
Everyone’s destination – Ithaca – is different. It can be either a person, an era, a hug, or a moment. The journeys one chooses to take in life do not always have a ticket, they are not located in some – near or far – place. They cannot be done by any means of transport or determined in their duration. But they are also the ones that can shape us. The goal may be different for everyone, but the path is always the same at its core.
It’s true, the journey remains the same. Travelers may not encounter Laistrygonians, Cyclopes, Poseidon, or the Phoenicians. But they will meet conveniences, difficulties, joys, sorrows, and people. They will create memories, learn things about themselves and the world around them. At some point in their journey, they may dare, hold back, fight, or even win. Ithaca is the destination of the journey through life and, no matter which life we choose, the journey towards it will give us everything.
“As you set out for Ithaca, hope your road is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery.” writes the great poet, K. Cavafis. And I wish you all the best of knowledge during your journey. But above all, I wish many more Ithacas to come for you.
The initials of the names were used for the purposes of the article and are fictional. There is no correlation with reality. The forms, in which the answers are provided by the audience, are and will remain anonymous.
