politricks and other distractions

It's hard to find photos of Odysseus. Here he is hanging out with a bunch o' sirens.

"I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known: cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move." [Tennyson 1809-1892. Ulysses]

I just caught a few minutes of Oh, Brother Where Art Thou? - because evidently George Clooney needs residual checks this month on TOP of everything else great currently happening to him - and was reminded of the happy fact that the movie was based on the Odyssey.

Being an Immaculata girl, I read the Odyssey in sophomore year high school, I believe, translating it ourselves from the original Latin. I remember how dry and dull it seemed as the nuns dragged us from chapter to chapter, following his tragic, bloody, and I guess heroic exploits around the world. Like many a fairy tale, the hero just wants to get home. In Oh, Brother... we follow George and the boys as they trip through post-jail time and we want them to succeed.

Somehow the story looks different to me from this age. At 14, I had no experience of Trojan horses or the pull of Scylla and Charybdis. I hadn't had all my fellow travelers eaten alive by monsters or fought back at Cyclopses with spears to blind them.

Now, I kinda think I've done all those things, one way or another.

I look around me and see friends going through divorces at middle age... through bold career changes... finally adopting kids... or getting onboard the spiritual voyage train. With a certain number of years and success/failures hanging over our belts, we note the scenery changing with varying degrees of horror.

So I'm happy the nuns made us read about Odysseus when we were too young to understand it. Maybe the only way to handle the tale is to take it in small bites like we had to when translating it. Of course, I did my Latin homework while watching the Partridge Family, so it's amazing I got it at all.

However, even David Cassidy has gone through being buffeted by the winds of an angry ocean god and gotten out the other side. I guess we're all in the middle of the waves right about now.

Maybe if I'd never read that story, I'd never have wandered the world like I did. I certainly wouldn't have taken even the first step if it had been laid out in a book before me like that.

Unless, of course, the story featured George Clooney.