Odyssey

Those of you who know me, know that like Odysseus, I've been searching for home most of my life.  I fell in love with The Odyssey when I first read it as a child, not the actual poem but some child's version of it, maybe in Edith Hamilton's Mythology or Bullfinch's, or both.  I do love my mythology and did from my beginnings.  It wasn't long before I read the Samuel Butler translation and later, in college, Robert Fagles'.  Every few years I would pick it up and read through it again, finding new resonances as I continued to search for my Ithaca.


After my heart attack in 2009, I gave up on home.  I came to think that maybe, for me, the journey was home, although this never really sat well.  I read The Odyssey again during my recovery and felt the tug of hope and home, and as I walked myself back into well, assumed my old life, I felt in my heart a hunger that had no name, at least none I would admit to.  I tried to make do, to force myself back into what once seemed enough, and I did a pretty good job, or at least seemed too.  The thing was, my heart broke open and there was no more making do.


A few of you know the sudden changes in my life; many of you don't.  In January I reconnected with two old loves - a man, Bryan, and a sailboat, Susurru - and realized I had found my home.  Since then, I have been making my way toward a new life, another adventure in what has been my Odyssey.  I am spending Easter Week sailing in the Virgin Islands on Susurru, and by June, if not sooner, I'll be spending all my days on her, home at last.


I always thought of myself as patient Penelope and I was, but I'm also wily Odysseus, she of the twists and turns as Robert Fagles calls him.  If you want to follow my odyssey, please come along.  There will be tales and adventures, and if not zombies, maybe pirates ... or maybe zombie pirates.