Traveling Light

Quiz by Sharon Michiko Yoneda

"I'm traveling light."

I'm going to die.  I don't have many earthly things left.

artist:  Leonard Cohen

songwriters:  Songwriters: Adam Cohen / Leonard Cohen / Patrick Leonard

date released:   2016 by Leonard Cohen for his last album, "You Want It Darker"

The listener of a song can never know the real thoughts in a songwriter's heart and soul especially as he languishes on his death bed.  The album, "You Want It Darker" was written just months before Leonard Cohen passed away in Montreal in 1916.   I believe it was the purest of synchronicity that his beloved Marianne Ihlen, who had lived with him intermittently on Hydra Island from 1960 to 1967 died just short months in Norway at 81.  They were both felled by the same illness—leukemia, a disorder of the blood.   Although they had no children together, the pair remained great friends and were bonded in enduring love.   As the editor of this songbook, I've chosen this video which features Cohen's life with Marianne although I can't be sure the song was written for her.  The companion song, "So Long Marianne" is also contained in this songbook for your enjoyment.

Cohen's frail but resolute voice conveys a sense of resignation as he metaphorically “travels light,” shedding earthly attachments and emotional burdens.  This notion aligns with Buddhist principles of impermanence and non-attachment, which Cohen embraced through his decades-long Zen practice on Mount Baldy. 

Before Marianne died, Cohen sent her letters from Montreal, which were moving and tenderly cathartic.  His last letter arrived as Marianne was taking her last breath, and it was read to her.  Her family confirms that Marianne seemed coherent enough to receive the letter as it was intended.  It expressed Cohen's readiness to follow her.

Symbolically, "Traveling Light" serves as both a farewell and a meditative acknowledgment of human frailty and suffering, enduring love, and the inevitability of departure.