Odysseus Stories

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When I was a kid, my dad’s bedtime stories weren’t typically read from a book. Despite the professorial gravitas that he carried with him through everyday life, he still was a gifted storyteller, though I’m sure with two children now in their twenties, he’s a little out of practice in the fantasy genre. 

When my family moved to the United Kingdom for my first and second grade years as a function of my dad’s job, we were in a constant state of motion. My parents decided to take full advantage of the proximity of gorgeous European countries and a school system that allowed them to pull us out for days or even weeks citing “educational trips.” For an anxious kid like me, this meant a lot of new places and a lot of new beds. Often I had trouble settling down and sleeping, disoriented by the foreign city noise outside of the hotel or the shadows cast on the walls by light pollution that wasn’t present in the sleepy Norfolk “city” we temporarily called home. It also wasn’t very practical to carry a wide selection of books while we travelled, and in the pre-iPhone era, my brother and I raced through these on our many plane, train, and bus rides.  

So, instead, my father improvised what we called “Odysseus stories,” rambling tales of what that eponymous hero got up to during his ten years of oceanic wandering. After all, there’s a lot of time unaccounted for in the original book. In these stories, none of which were even partially conceived before my dad opened his mouth, Odysseus was clever, sassy, prideful, and resourceful. He landed on mysterious islands (catered to my elementary school tastes) with nothing but his confidence and his trusty crew. He got himself into sticky situations and had to learn how to unglue himself. He definitely visited “Pony Island,” by my request, more than twice. Most of all, he made mistakes and learned from them. Never afforded the luxury of a godly rescue by my prudent storyteller, he fashioned his own escape plans from whatever he found in his pockets: a bit of string, a bottle cap, a picture of his wife and kids. 

Don’t get me wrong-- I love Goodnight, Moon as much as the next kid. Still, there was a certain excitement in the unpredictability of my dad’s stories, and in the knowledge that they would always turn out okay. Once again, as an anxious kid (who still looks up the endings of scary movies to determine which characters she is allowed to form an attachment to without imminent heartbreak) this reassurance was essential. Sometimes, my dad themed the night’s Odysseus story in relation to the country or city that we were in: Gelato Island for a trip to Italy and Faerie Island for a stay in Dublin. In this way, he infused bits of local lore and culture into a familiar and comforting night time routine. At the same time, both of my parents encouraged my overly active imagination to reign free when we travelled, a welcome break from the step-by-step and memorization-based learning of early primary school. Sometimes this got in the way of an efficient travel day-- for example, when I insisted on stopping every fifteen minutes to “rest” my mental rolodex of around a hundred imaginary ponies. Did I mention I was a horse girl? Either way, convenient or not, I was grateful for the opportunity to be unapologetically bold with the resources of my imagination, something I learned from my dad’s bedtime narratives. 

I don’t remember when my dad stopped telling me Odysseus stories. I imagine it was when my family moved back stateside and settled down into the humid monotony of a central Pennsylvania existence; around the same time, I started reading myself voraciously. Perhaps the need for bedtime stories dwindled with our appetite for travel. Or, a more likely story, I decided I was simply too grown-up for them. 

Looking back, now twenty years old (oh, fuck), I wish I had allowed myself to relish in these stories for longer. Sometimes the written word can’t compare to the spoken, and I wish I had spent more quality time with my father growing up. Although we are both indescribably busy now, both of us dealing with the impacts of a virtual university model, our mutual love for reading, writing, and stories has yet to fade. Maybe in a practical sense--we don’t have much time for pleasure reading--but not in any way that matters. I’m forever grateful to my dad for Odysseus stories, for taking the time and effort to lull me to sleep, for patience, for love, for Pony Island.