Simple Joys
On Tuesday, during our first ever remote assembly, we had the opportunity to listen to a mesmerizing performance on guitar from one of our Year 4 pupils. In the intense, pared down world of social distancing it was a wonderful moment of connection with the whole School community and one of the week’s highlights for our household. It was a simple joy magnified by forced isolation. Another has been going for a run (more like a hectic walk) with the children early in the morning and noticing flowers blooming and a blue tit, which is a regular visitor to a tree outside our block. The challenges of the last few weeks have made us more appreciative of our surroundings and of the connections with our community.
Over the next few weeks, pupils will be learning poems by heart, will record themselves reciting them and will send their videos to teachers. Our annual recitation competition is one of my favourite times of the year and I am sure that this spring it will carry special meaning and value for all us. With that in mind, I will share with you a poem our Headmaster Mr Lock read in assembly, and that has resonated strongly with me, particularly at this time.
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.