Passing Ithaka

As you set out for Ithaka

hope the voyage is a long one,

full of adventure, full of discovery.

Climbing the stairs to Deck Ten I am in deep thought, trying to recollect C. P. Cavafy’s poem.

May there be many a summer morning when,

with what pleasure, what joy,

you come into harbors seen for the first time.

Venice, Dobrovnik, Kusadasi, Santorini, Corfu - I say to myself. Harbors seen or to be seen for the first time, either from the balcony of our room or from the top deck. But on this summer morning I am thinking of a special harbor, one of which I have no concrete image. One I will not explore, though its name is quite familiar to me: Ithaka! Abstract thoughts run ahead of me as I reach the exercise deck. I whisper the Greek word nostos. I scan the horizon; dark islands appear in the distance. I wonder if I will actually see Ithaka on the trip south. Nostos I repeat – that’s what I have named my travel journal. The Homecoming.

Whether I am accused of traveling in my mind or whether I am admired for it, Ithaka itself - Ithake as the young Greek waiter pronounces it – is a reality. This island in the Ionian chain occupies an area of 45 square miles and has around three thousand inhabitants. Modern Ithaka is most often identified with Homer’s Ithaka, the home of Odysseus. When Mother introduced me to the most famous poem by one of Greece’s most famous poets, Constantine Petrou Cavafy, I interpreted Ithaka as the ultimate goal of a life-long journey. A place, most desirable, to be saved until one has learned all that is needed to be worthy of final grace: the homecoming.

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.

I already finished my morning mile earlier; now, after breakfast with Pat, I come to Deck 10 to participate in a charity event. By purchasing a “Wishes at Sea” t-shirt and walking a mile I will support the Make-A-Wish Foundation. When I arrive at the Rock Climbing Wall I am the only customer. The young man who sells the shirts lets me know that he has watched several terminally ill children enjoy their Mediterranean cruises. “It gets to you,” he says.

I tell him that I knit teddy bears for sick children in Africa. We talk about the Make-A-Wish Foundation and the Mother Bear Project. I shake his hand, tell him that his enthusiasm touches me.

The still crisp morning air, the blue water, and the thought that I am helping a child fulfill a dream make me giddy. Making my way between runners, joggers, photographers, deck hands, and people chatting with each other, I’ve all but forgotten Homer and Cavafy and Ithaka, when a voice on the loudspeaker announces that we are about to pass between the islands of Kefalonia and Ithaka. I pull the camera from my fanny pack.

When the ship is flanked by the islands on either side the young man at the rock wall offers to take my photograph in front of Ithaka. I am overwhelmed and confide my absolute delight to have this moment on record. For the second time I shake his hand.

“I am passing Ithaka,” I announce. “It is August 9, 2010. 9:45am.”

Of course I don’t tell him that all my photographs so far are of Kefalonia. Only his suggestion to pose at a certain spot – portside he says and points to the left - makes me realize that I have been concentrating on the wrong island. In my eagerness to attribute symbolic value to the German transmission of information I lacked concentration and confused starboard and portside – a subject of endless speculation at our dinner conversations for days to come. I take another twenty pictures, aiming my camera up and down the shoreline of Ithaka, the mountainous interior where a tiny smoke cloud hovers over a divide, the wake our ship creates as we continue our journey.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.

Without her you would not have set out.

She has nothing left to give you now.

I finish my second mile and go to the solarium to write into my journal. “Not much to see since the harbors are located on the east side.” But as I scan the last passage of the poem I grasp and adore its meaning.

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.

Reading the poem again – it is attached to the inside of my journal’s front cover – I smile. Tomorrow I will fulfill a few more lines by shopping in Kusadasi and visiting Ephesus.

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.

My amber and ebony will probably be cloth and stone; my scholars will be past emperors and philosophers and a modern-day tour guide with a list of facts he has committed to memory.

For a moment I feel the need for a witness and try to invoke Dr. Steinfeld, but relaxed silence spreads across my body. “All my corners are rounded,” I write without questioning the metaphor.

Laistrygonians and Cyclops,

Angry Posidon – don’t be afraid of them:

You’ll never find things like that on your way

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.

My mind is almost empty now. I close the journal and my eyes. My soul is free of cannibals and monsters as Ithaka glides into past tense. Thank you, Mr. Cavafy.

Midnight Chocolate

Midnight Chocolate on the Monarch of the Seas

Tyana befriends the towel critter


Sunbathing deck

Tyana on Catalina Island

Most of my journeys start with a mission and end with an insight - a measure of success. The word Dachlawine (roof avalanche) for instance was the accomplishment of last year’s Munich trip. Dachlawine became the marching song for the exploration of childhood experiences and old fears. And it became the cornerstone for a newfound sense of humor about the “things your mother warned you about.”

Baksheesh, the Arabic expression for a well-deserved tip, a handout, a bribe, cast shadows over my wish to embrace the ancient culture of Cairo a few years ago. Baksheesh, baksheesh, backsheesh rang in my ears for weeks after my return home. The mantra was a result of my exposure to the agonizing truths of poverty and exploitation and made me appreciate my luck of being born into an affluent society.

My latest excursion was the fulfillment of a promise. I had told my friend Margie that I would take a cruise with her as soon as she retired. She knows my aversion to group vacations; I understand her hesitations about travel in general. We settled on a short trip to explore the much talked about pampering and abundance that seem to be an intricate part of cruising. A four-day Los Angeles to Ensenada voyage with Royal Caribbean.

My mission statement was: “This is not a real mission. This is only a test run. Lets just have fun.” After several hours of waiting, after luggage checks, security procedures, and other formalities, we walked onto the ship. And the instant I set foot onto the Monarch of the Seas a word pressed itself into my mind. The word was opulence. It pulsed through me for hours and demanded to be thought about.

We arrived on Deck 4, at the center of the Monarch, appropriately called Centrum, surrounded by circling staircases, shiny brass railings, glittering lights, and seductively understated guitar music. The musician, perfectly groomed into white shirt and black trousers, sat on a white bench on a raised, inlaid wooden platform, adjacent to a glass elevator, surrounded by tall green plants. I tried to absorb the images of a white piano on the far side, the flow of cocktails in front of me, the movement of people in and out of elevators, up and down the stairs all around, and I was reminded of the glamour of a shopping mall in Saudi Arabia. I had seen it on television. Of course most of the shoppers there had been covered from head to toe; here, on the Monarch of the Seas, the dress code seemed to say anything goes.

Though we circled for half an hour, took pictures, familiarized ourselves with the layout, my mind could not assimilate and compare the scene to anything real. I have seen castles, mosques, golden shrines and other historical riches, but that’s what they all were, historical riches. Places one viewed with respect, with disbelief, or even irreverence. Places of the past. Places unrelated to my life. This ship would be at the center of my life for the next few days and I had to give it a space in my head. That’s when the word formed on my lips.

I looked at Margie and said it out loud, “Opulence. This is opulence. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Then we went to lunch on Deck 11 at the Windjammer Café. Unbelievable! Tables filled with salads. Tables filled with fruits. Tables with entrees. Breads. Desserts. A lemonade and ice-tea stand. A coffee corner. An army of waiters. A full house of patrons. I tasted an array of exotic dishes, one better than the last. Though my perception had shifted slightly and had settled on abundance for a while, I returned to opulence by the end of lunch. Abundance would fit a pizza parlor with boxes piled high; this was an extremely well prepared feast of diversity, from Asian meat pockets and vegetable salads to pasta creations and, amid pies, cakes, cookies, a lovely bread pudding that spoke my language and topped my grandmother’s wartime dessert in taste.

After lunch we settled into our room, number 3610, aft, portside. I photographed the floor plan and hoped I would not get lost. But I did. Almost every time I left a staircase or elevator I took a wrong turn and had to backtrack. I think it’s my lot in life to get lost on foreign streets, in large hotels, and now on Deck 3 between Vincent’s dining room, the photo gallery and the long rows of cabins that crawled along 880 feet of ship. No matter how many times I repeated “portside is on the left,” trying to establish a sense of direction, the square between elevators and staircases was daunting and I just followed whatever exercise fanatics, sun bathers, fortune hunters, food addicts, and drink seekers spilled into the open. After a few steps, usually in the wrong direction, I’d organize my mind around the arrowed numbers and find my way.

Our room was small. The promised window was a porthole; the two single beds stood at right angles to each other; the bathroom was carefully designed for optimum use at minimum space. But everything we needed was available. The watchful attendant always knew when we left the room. This was his signal to make beds or turn down beds, decorate the room with a towel folded into a swan or a dog, leave a piece of chocolate on the pillow, and replenish the bottled water and soft drink supply. The first day I bought one small bottle of water for $2.90. After that I climbed the stairs to refill my bottle at the watering hole on Deck 11. I realized quickly that all drinks except coffee, lemonade, and ice water required a signature, which meant that they were added up on the all-in-one charge card/room key/identification tool – the SeaPass.

Our first dinner, at eight on the dot, at Vincent’s dining room, Deck 3, table 393, introduced us to our waiter from Yugoslavia, Milos, the headwaiter Romeo, and the assistant waiter Rosemary. We sat with Carol and Erv, who celebrated their 47th wedding anniversary, and two younger women, Emilia and Janet. After tasting a few appetizers like onion pie with Gruyere cheese, salmon tempanada, escargot, a melon slice with ginger sauce, prosciutto and mozzarella antipasti, I was ready for the main course, which was lamb shank. White chocolate truffle with strawberry sauce was my choice of dessert. When Milos tempted me with a pastry swan, filled with whip cream, I only took one bite. Others were offered Grand Marnier crème or tiramisu, whatever they hadn’t tried yet. I added the word waste to my mantra when Rosemary collected all the leftover desserts. Opulence and waste.

Margie and I live on different schedules and favor different entertainment and so we played on opposite decks, opposite ends of ship culture. She went to bed early. I stayed up late. She is an indoor person and avoids water and heights. I spent my mornings walking the track on Deck 12. When she gambled at the casino in the evenings, I gazed at the stars from the very top of the ship. I took a tour to the Botanical Garden on Catalina Island while Margie attended a wine tasting seminar at Claude’s dining room. But we found time to do things together too; we shared a tram ride safari at San Diego’s Wild Animal Park and a bus trip through Ensenada to La Bufadora, a tourist attraction twenty-five miles away. When I didn’t feel like one more lavish dinner, accompanied by singing and dancing waiters, Margie went alone and brought back key lime pie for me. I picked up a banana for her at breakfast because she doesn’t usually eat until later in the day. I enjoyed coffee and croissants outdoors, with the wind blowing in my face and the subdued noises of morning chores like window washing and deck sweeping around me.

Nothing stopped me from allowing my inner wild child to listen to the reggae band or peek in at the karaoke bar. I had a dragon airbrushed on my arm and befriended a young boy named Christian, who offered to pose for me. I chased the sunshine eight flights of stairs to the upper deck and watched wine-fortified men twist and twirl their bare legs in an effort to win the sexiest legs contest.

And one evening, after walking in the cool night air for an hour, I crowded into the midnight chocolate bar with all the other chocoholics. I speculate that 2,500 of the 2,700 guests on board attended the half hour event. Avoiding the wait for jam-packed elevators I had squeezed onto the stairs and eventually arrived at Deck 3, where the atrium and the photo gallery were filled with fabulous creations. The table by the entrance was decorated with a huge carved ice fish, turning slowly, lit from below in blue, and a life-size white chocolate unicorn head. Rows and rows of pastry were dominated by a chocolate dragon, a chocolate eagle, a chocolate guitar. For those who didn’t care for midnight chocolate – and there were very few of those– carved watermelons, veggie flower bouquets, and fruit kabobs offered alternatives. Vincent’s dining room was open but almost everybody piled tarts, torts, teacakes and chocolate-moussed dream puffs onto their plates and disappeared into their cabins.

On my way back to my room I thought about the orderly progress of activities. How well organized the Monarch was. Sure, on Deck 11, by the pool, a few heat-stroked and liquor-infused guests had gotten into arguments earlier. A teen-aged girl cried because her mother didn’t allow her to be with certain new friends, and the mother, waving a cocktail into the air, threatened her with “room arrest.” An oversized man who was covered with tattoos seemed to stagger just a bit on his way to the bar. A young couple discussed their money situation loudly, shouting accusatory obscenities at each other while waiting for the elevator. But then, in the morning, all would be quiet, sober, washed clean, and sparkling in the rising sun.

It had been difficult to ignore the word decadence while filling my plate with black forest cake, strawberries dipped in chocolate sauce, and some other cream-filled concoction, but my sense of humor won as I sat in the tiny bathroom, guiding the fork into my chocolate loving mouth. I grinned at my mirrored image, sitting on the toilet seat under the fluorescent light, reading Mark Twain’s “A Tramp Abroad,” while Margie was sound asleep in her narrow bed. It was my first cruise, probably also my last, but I would never forget the midnight chocolate buffet. Though I had written very little in my journal on this trip, this spectacular world of cruising in a bizarre way taught me that every trip has a real mission and that there is no such thing as a test run.