Birthday Boy

I love birthdays. Some people get a little squirrely and what not, but I think they're gifts. Today was a great day. The only birthday I struggled with was my 25 and I don't remember why. But that was a lifetime ago.

Today I celebrate my 65 birthday and it's been a great day. We ran out after lunch and the clouds were grey, but I took my sunglasses. It's a good thing I did because the rain clouds parted (for a while) and the sun came out for just for me.  I snapped the picture below during the respite...but I digress.

I'm not sure what it is about birthdays that makes people dread them. In thinking about what to say tonight, I thought of a poem that Jilda told me about entitled Ithaka. It's a Greek poem with a beautiful twist. It was read at Jackie Kennedy Onassis' funeral. I hope you'll take a moment and read it.

Ithaka
As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and 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 and 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 the voyage is a long one.

May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen 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 gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvellous journey.
Without her you would not 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 will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.