Sitting, Waiting, Wishing

Seems to be what I'm up to tonight... No not singing the Jack Johnson song that above title probably reminds you of.

I'm content... I just ate a crawfish salad (field greens, tomato, black bean and corn salsa, pickled oninons, avacado, crawfish and REMOULADE!) Then for dessert I had a lemon bar... mmmm mmmm. I know you are dying to know what I eat for dinner, so I thought I'd share.

I'm sitting here in Austin Java, content. My belly is full, I'm eavesdropping, writing, and feeling much better than yesterday's post.

My grandmother sent me a poem today in the mail and it gave me a perspective on what's going on in this life I was loathing yesterday. I'm a hare, not a tortoise. I want to be at the end as soon as I can, and take the shortest route possible. Slow and steady wins the race right? Oh but its so hard for me to become a tortoise.

Right now I want to be married, kids in college, with someone I love and have grown an old with. Silly huh? I want to be there. Not that I am ready to be there, but it pains me not to be. I don't want the pain, the falling flat on my face, the wrong turns. I haven't quite figured out why I'm so leary of the rough patches.

It takes reminding, like this poem did for me, that its the JOURNEY ("Don't stop believin!!") that's going to make the kids in college, retiring from a career, and sitting on the porch with the one I love in our rocking chairs watching the sun go down, feel so rewarding.

Thank you Grandma Sandy for your timing in sending me this:

ITHAKA

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 one 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 harbours 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 perfumes 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 marvellous 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

An alternative translation of "Ithaka"

Constantine P. Cavafy