The start of an adventure

As I sat listening to the graduation speeches at the high school I work at, a stanza from the poem, Ithaka, was read aloud.  A poster of this poem hangs right outside my office, which also happens to be named after the Ithaka Foundation.  Despite walking by the poem numerous times a day, five days a week, and for three years now, I have never taken the time to read it fully --- until I heard a colleague read it aloud.  The words resonated, and the message seemed to hit home: it described much of what I hope my summer to be.  Check it out for yourself below.
 
As I prepare to fly to Southeast Asia for a two-month journey, I think over these words.  I wonder what  my time will be like.  Who will I meet?  What will I see?  What is life going to be on the road?  How will it change me?  I travel to see.  To live.  To try something new.  To see how just how spicy food can be.  I'm trying out this whole "blogging" thing while I am gone.  I hope to share my travels, both the good, the bad, and the odd, and I hope to inspire others with the possibilities out there in the world.  There is no time like the present, no excuse to just go out there and do something, see something.

Enjoy.  I plan to.

Ithaca

When you set out for Ithaka
ask that your way be long,
full of adventure, full of instruction.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - do not fear them:
such as these you will never find
as long as your thought is lofty, as long as a rare
emotion touch your spirit and your body.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - you will not meet them
unless you carry them in your soul,
unless your soul raise them up before you.

Ask that your way be long.
At many a Summer dawn to enter
with what gratitude, what joy -
ports seen for the first time;
to stop at Phoenician trading centres,
and to buy good merchandise,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensuous perfumes of every kind,
sensuous perfumes as lavishly as you can;
to visit many Egyptian cities,
to gather stores of knowledge from the learned.

Have Ithaka always in your mind.
Your arrival there is what you are destined for.
But don't in the least hurry the journey.
Better it last for years,
so that when you reach the island you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to give you wealth.
Ithaka gave you a splendid journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She hasn't anything else to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka hasn't deceived you.
So wise you have become, of such experience,
that already you'll have understood what these Ithakas mean. 

Constantine P. Cavafy