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But who would be reading this now?  We've all headed off in our various directions, the world we'd constituted on the ship now dispersed, new folks in our cabins.  Parents of students on the voyage--the main intended readers of this page from the start--can be relieved to have their children home or at least on land.  In San Diego, where my family spent a few days before heading home, we had, at the Zoo, what had become a typical sort of Semester at Sea experience, finding a familiar face in an unexpected setting, as we boarded the SkySafari or Skyfari or whatever it was called: there was a Semester at Sea student!--only this time with his dad, who thanked me, in the kind way many of you have through your kids, for this blog.  I've very much appreciated those comments, I can assure you, as the form's been new to me, and the 18th century poetic convention of setting one's words out on the water ("Go, little boat"), for anyone who might find them, necessarily occurred to me more than once.

In the end there were final exams and papers, the Alumni Ball, Convocation, packing, computer glitches, more packing, tears, more tears, rowdy waiting parents at the dock, a few last blasts of the ship's horn, last hugs, relinquishing our ship id's, customs, and land.  Though we'd seen a game in Yokohama, my family headed right for the ballpark, where, on the very first pitch of the game, my wife caught a foul ball: we were back; nothing to it.  I'm going to end this as I began it, with Cavafy's "Ithaka," which is as much a poem of returning as of venturing out--I heartily recommend my friend Theo Dorgan's response, if you want to know what comes after--but for us the end came at the end of two drives in San Diego, the first to Legoland, which, on the way home, gave us our last view of the ship, dwarfed by a big cruise liner but still solid, real, and ours, and the second to the airport, along the waterfront, which looked just like and completely different from so many we'd seen, and past the Broadway Pier, where our ship had been.  Now it was gone.

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 marvelous 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.

(C.P. Cavafy, Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Edited by George Savidis. Revised Edition. Princeton University Press, 1992)

--   Victor Luftig, Associate Professor  and Director, Center for the Liberal Arts  University of Virginia  Department of English  PO Box 400121  219 Bryan Hall  Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121  (434-98)2-5205  luftig@virginia.edu