A Quick Chat with Margherita Amodeo

Margherita Amodeo chats with us this week from Malta where she retired after a career with UNICEF and UN Peacekeeping. Margherita has been a frequent contributor to our newsletters and you can see some of her past articles by clicking here. In October 2020 she was our 'Artist of the Week'. Be sure to visit the gallery of paintings she contributed at that time.

Today, Margherita continues to pursue her life-long passions for art, music, poetry and travel. After retirement, she pursued studies in Expressive Arts and Gestalt psychotherapy. Nowadays, she works professionally with patients as a psychotherapist, and, through a church group at the Millennium Chapel, where she coordinates a team of volunteer psychotherapists offering therapy to people with low-income. Recently, she has introduced art therapy workshops for Ukrainian mothers and children, where her golden retriever, Honey, provides much-needed canine affection and therapy.

Summing up her life so far, she reads for us her poem, 'Life Journey', inspired by the poem 'Ithaca' by the Greek poet Constantine Cavafy. This she describes as 'her own Ithaca' which will surely strike a chord for many of us.

The Quick Chat with Margherita appears below her poem. We apologize for the sometimes poor quality of the video and audio in the recording. This was due to difficulties with the internet connection.

Life journey (d'après Cavafy)

My life has been an adventure

Full of surprises, full of instruction.
Never afraid to tread where no man would,
I found myself in places and situations
Where I was lucky to come out unscathed.
I wandered far and wide.
My spirit was touched by discovery
A rare emotion overcame me
Time and time again:
An emotion I cannot put a name to.
I’ll simply call it sublime.

What gratitude, what joy –
To open myself to the magic of the orient,
The wild expanses of Africa,
The delicate blossoms of the Far East.

To find spices, teas, coffee, chocolate in their own habitat
To buy amber, pearls, coral and ebony and sensuous perfumes of every kind
To visit the treasures of Timbuctoo, Luxor, Babylon, Angkor Wat, Petra and Cappadoccia
To meet women and men of wisdom and knowledge,
To open my mind and heart to learning I had no idea existed.

Yes, I have gained so much from all my travels
I belong to all these places
Those wonderful people are my family
They are part of me.
My life has been a splendid journey
Always heartbroken to leave but so excited to embark
On the next adventure.
I never want it to stop
I will continue until I reach my Ithaca.