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I.

I’m sitting in a Starbucks in South Jersey reading Cavafy’s “Ithaka” and crying.

This is because I am finally back home.

I don’t remember The Odyssey well enough to know whether Ulysses cried upon his own return. This is the risk of feeding classic literature to teenagers — they will forget it or, worse, will be left with a bad taste in their mouths for something that was meant to taste good.

You could say the same thing about love.

II.