Thoughts on Cavafy

Today’s lecture on Cavafy was amazing and it made me think about many different things. The first poem made me think about military service and the price that the soldiers and their families have to pay. Personally, coming from a family with a military background, it made me think about my grandmother’s brother who had fought in the war back in 1991 between Armenia and Azerbaijan for the occupation of Nagorno Karabakh. He was the head military official of his village which is located very close to the Azeri border. He had fought for over 3 months and was killed by one of the Azeri spies that was able to sneak into the military base where he was stationed. I unfortunately never got to know my grandmother’s brother but I have grown up hearing stories about him. He was a man of great dignity and respect. He loved his family very much and was a father of 4 children. At the time of war, he had just had a baby boy who was only 4 months old. When he was killed in the war, the family, and especially his wife had many difficulties. She had to raise 4 little children on her own. Even though my family greatly helped, it was still very hard for her because of all the responsibilities that she had. When today the professor mentioned the price that each soldier has to pay it directly made me think about her struggle and the price that she had to pay because her husband was fighting in the war. Many times we forget the real burden that each soldier faces and their families as well. I was also mesmerized by how Cafavy presents time and how he makes it almost seem like that time is not relevant. When we were walking through the streets and seeing all the different buildings from ancient times, it struck me that my eighteen years that seems long to me, in fact, is nothing compared to history overall. I think I have a bad understanding of how time works but the lecture and the different cities that we saw helps me to better get an understanding of how time moves and where I personally stand currently in relation to time and history. You really get a sense that you are a little particle of the thousands and millions of years of history that is known to us. Time is one thing that is out of our control and whether we want to slow it down or fast forward it, we can’t and I think many people including myself still have a long way to come to know how it really works.