hearts get broken and slow is fine with me

to those of you who know me well, i dont need to tell you that im a feelings kind of girl.

i feel things acutely, and in wonderful ways. 

and i say what i feel when i feel it.

and it has actually served me quite well most of my life.

but now im learning something new.

slow is sometimes better.

broken hearts are slow to mend.

but im really good at mending and fixing.

and whats more i really love to do it.

i just have to be told sometimes.

to slow down

because the journey is better than the destination.

when i was in high school, my english teacher gave me this poem called Ithaka.

back then i thought it was beautiful, but i didn't understand it.  i asked her about it and she said that there would come a time in my life that i would need that poem and it's meaning would become clear to me in a way she couldn't tell me.  

so i folded it up and kept it in a little folder of things i keep.

and today, half way through my double period with my 10th grade girls i realized that i understood.

and part of me hopes you are reading and part of me hopes you arent.

because i dont want to say the wrong words.

but im speaking to all of you.

slow is better.  there are many things to see along the way.  and im actually ready and willing to take a slow journey.

i hope you will come along.  i think there are many wonderful things to see.

and for the rest of you, i hope your journeys are just as beautiful as the one in this poem.

and, the wonderful thing is, you don't have to know where you are going to take a journey.  you can just set out with person you want to set out with, and set out.

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.

colie.