Along the Road to Ithaca

While on the trip one of my friends, Lynn, picked up Paulo Coelho's book "The Zahir." A day or so later she tells me there was a poem in the Forward that reminded her of me. Huh? Turns out it was Cavafy's "Ithaca." Sharped eyed readers of this blog will recognize it from my post of 16 October 2005.

I told her I have a book of Cavafy's poems, which I bought in American University of Cairo's bookstore. Hani (of Hani's blog) reps for AUC and was on this trip too.

But, it gets better. The next day I'm getting off the elevator. Another of our group was there. We chit-chatted for a moment, about what I forget. As I was walking down the hall toward my room I tossed off one of my usual lines, "Just another stop along the road to Ithaca."

"What did you say?" she cried.

"What?"

"What did you say about Ithaca?"

"Oh, it''s just something I say from this poem."

"That poem is the inspiration for my life," she said. "How is it you know Ithaca?"

Kharma? Maybe.

If so there was one more little bit left.

In Nice I ran into my good friend Eva. You remember her. She's the one who Sharon Stone almost is good looking enough to look like. (Is that convoluted enough? You get my point.) Eva was the person who introduced "Ithaca" to me. And I completed the circle then and there (sort of) by introducing her to Lynn.

Just another stop along the road to Ithaca...