smokingboot

One very bright star shining above a tiny crescent of moonlight last night. It's out there, all that beauty.

A good night's sleep helped me after yesterday. Today we have a long Zoom sesh with people who don't irritate the bejasus out of me. Looking forward to it.

I like this house very much, but my romantic soul craves something far and away in the West of Scotland, close to the islands. I am never sure about living on the islands themselves because for all their beauty, something drives me to keep travelling and I'm never quite sure about the road's end. Like Odysseus, I'm happier with the ship sailing off to some none too specific destination rather than turning up in Ithaca after a decade's terrible navigation only to discover it's not where I want to be at all.

For all my doubts about location, this house has a lovely feel to it as well as being well and truly big enough. It has excellent transport connections to Edinburgh and Glasgow; the irony is that R may not need the former much after the pandemic because home working may become a very real permanent thing. But still, for all I enjoy glorious isolation, it's a lot of fun getting to gigs. I'm in a good place. All this house has ever needed is cherishing.

There are worse places to spend a pandemic, and one way or another, in time I'll get to Ithaca.

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.