What Do You Do When The One You Love Most Says She Must Leave?

On Cyclops and Selkies and Myself

Stamp series of the Seal Woman (Kópakonan) from the Faroe Islands, 2007, design by Edward Fuglø; Wikimedia Commons

In the summer of 2021, I met the woman who felt like my future.

In October 2023, after we had lived together for five months, she told me she had to leave.

I did not understand why. She said she had explained many times. We parted on those terms. And in my pain, I chose not to ask more. I closed down.

Hurricane Helene devastated Asheville in late September 2024, but it put us back in contact with each other. And I finally asked her, Why?

With boats they could have turned this island into
a fertile colony, with proper harvests.
By the gray shore there lie well-watered meadows
Where vines would never fail. There is flat land
for plowing, and abundant crops would grow
in the autumn…
(Odyssey 9.130–136, Emily Wilson translation)

It can be jarring to see something familiar in a new way.

I’ve taught the Odyssey dozens of times over dozens of years. In the lines above, Odysseus is describing the island of the Cyclopes as he first saw it. Years ago, I read them straightforwardly. The…