Invictus

One of the exciting things about travel is sitting in a movie-house and recognizing places I've visited. As a New Yorker it's fairly commonplace but it doesn't dampen the thrill of recognition. Oh, that's the boathouse, I love that restaurant. Or, they're on the Staten Island ferry, that's a fun trip. It gives a palatable sense of reality to the ultimate fantasy-land of film.

Invictus, starring Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela, was a great story of triumph and reconciliation. And for me, it had the added buzz of remembering my visit to Mandela's cell on Robben Island, and the view from his long-walk to freedom when finally released from Victor Verster Prison. Seeing his office at Parliament in Pretoria was not just a fairy-tale building, I frolicked on the steps in the garden. I know it's a real place because my feet touched its grass.

The inspiration from Invictus was for me, two-fold. Yes, there was the human example, the impulse to rise above persecution, to subdue personal comforts and wants in order to better a little corner of the world. But there was also the impetus to embark on new journeys. To become the "master of my fate" ... and "captain of my soul." To build a life that allows me to look back and say, "I have followed my dreams. I have been there." To every place that there may be.

Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley