That, anyway, is what I have learned.

The Beginning: Creation

I believe in two beginnings- the beginning of the earth and the beginning of me.

Have you ever seen a beautiful sunrise? I mean a truly beautiful, brilliant sunrise? As if Eos and Aphrodite are awaking and stretching across their canopied bed, tossing their duvets so it ripples across the sky, creating colors and patterns that could never be repeated. A sunrise that when you stared, if you watched intently enough you could see each ray emerge, tip to tip, forming a band across the sky, that would eventually be the illuminating vision of Earth opening her eyes for the first time that morning.

It’s a statistical fact (if that brings any credibility) that fear of the darkness is America’s most common fear. If the light brings so much beauty, then that “statistical fact” makes sense. It’s easy to be scared of things we can’t see or know.

I’ve been told that a sunrise is simply night evading the day, fading back down. If I were darkness, I’d be scared of the beauty that light could bring as well.

If you want to know my story, you have to go back to the beginning. The very beginning. I was born in New Jersey, right outside of Princeton, in a town called New Brunswick. I was born in a snowstorm and our car crashed on my way home from the hospital. Apparently car accidents a couple hours into a new life isn’t very good for an infant. That day, April 12, was the sunrise and almost the sunset of my life.

In the beginning, there was Adam and Eve. And Zeus. And Io. And the axis mundi. And the sun and the moon and all of the stars. But there was also nothing. And everything.

All at once.

That, anyway, is what I have learned.

The Middle: Suffering

I’ve heard that any life worth living is only valued by the suffering that it has endured. Suffering has to be the best teacher of any on this earth (sorry Dr. Sexson), because it teaches you about what your heart used to be. As Charles Dickens has said, “I have been bent and broken but –I hope- into a better shape.” It’s necessary to have a world of pain and suffering to school a brain into a soul.

Sometimes, we must undergo breakups, and losing friends, and losing lives. Hardships, difficult times, and narcissistic wounds. It’s hard, it seems like it lasts forever, and it can break a person. When these times happen, it’s easy to lose happiness and pleasure, because it feels like we are losing who we are. However, that loss of fleeting happiness doesn’t necessary mean that we’re losing our pure, natural, infinite joy. Sometimes joy is the voice at the end of the day saying, “The sun rose and the sun set, and you made it through both.”

Suffering is intense. It’s endless. And it’s self-inflicted. Everything we do has been done. Every thing we think has been thought. Every word we’ve spoken has already been said. Every sin we’ve committed has already been committed by Adam and Eve, by Zeus, by Persephone, by Europa. Every little thing that we have ever done, thought, said, believed- it has already been. I think the hardest part to believe about this is that all traces of originality and independence are erased from the very core of our being and all of our new experiences simply become others experiences that we seem to remember. I want to be original. I want to be new. I want to be an explorer, a wanderer, a discoverer, but I can’t. Because everything has been explored, everywhere has been wandered, and every thing has been discovered. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t recreate it. You see, everything has been found, discovered, and done, but I can re-find it, re-discover it, and re-do it and do it differently. I can make a difference simply by doing things differently. It’s not about originality, but rather about creativity.

That, anyway, is what I have learned.

The End: Resolution

I guess I don’t know much about the end, because my full end hasn’t come yet. I’ve watched friendships end, I’ve watched love end, I’ve experienced many ends in my life, but I’ve yet to experience the end. What is the end? Do you know when it comes? Are you comfortable when Hades sneaks up and wraps his arms around you and takes you down to the underworld? Or are you ripped from a perfect moment, a perfect time, a perfect love- do you leave in an instant or do you fade? As you slip from the world, where do your memories go? Are they still here? Are they floating around, reminding everyone of you? I lost my grandpa on my fourth birthday. Every year, I hear him through my dad’s tears. Every year, I feel him through my dad’s hugs. He’s not here, but isn't he? It doesn’t seem like he went willingly to the underworld called death, it seems like he’s still fighting it every day. Fighting for life, even in death… 

I know another end is coming soon; I’ve been feeling it since September. Montana is ending for me. In December, I’ll return home to Georgia. I’ll return home to the smell of maple every morning, and the sound of the wind blowing through the willow trees that surround my childhood home. I’ll return home and leave this chapter behind. I’ll leave the suffering that has happened here. I’ll leave the experiences that have dictated the past two years of my life. I’ll leave the people who have seen me at my worst and my best. Montana, as an experience for me, will be ending. But Montana will live on, and even though I'll be 2,000 miles away, I'll see the same thing as each of you every night. The Gods are still there, living reincarnated in the stars, watching over us, getting closer and farther away every day, and in the same way, as constellations present themselves across the world, Montana will be as close to me as it will be to some of you. 

I think that THE end is simply the place you go when you’re looking for a new beginning. Some people choose to go to the end, and some people are simply put there, but either way, I think we all end up at the end when it’s time for our new beginning.

Or at least that’s what I’ve learned.

The Full Circle: What I Have Learned

I’ve learned that the best way to learn about mythologies is to sit in Wilson 1-122 and listen to every single initiation rite, and displaced myth, and every comment that each of you say. I’ve learned that the best way to understand these “mythologies” is to understand that each life in this room is a mythology. That everything, and nothing, is true in the world. That all at once, everything, and nothing, is the origin of every being. We came from somewhere, called Nowhere, and will go nowhere, called Somewhere. I’ve learned that “we are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that death itself trembles to take us” (Thanks Bukowski). I knew from the moment I stepped into this class on August 27^th that something was different, something was better, and something was new in this classroom. Whether it was the professor, or all of you sitting in front of me, or simply the air of mystery that brought all of us together into Lit 285, something was different. And now, looking back on the last three months, I can say that what was different then is different now. I know the birth date and birthplace of a fellow student. I know about one of your uncle’s choices of career, if you call it that. I know about how some of you love Kobe Bryant and I know how there are some people in here that have witnessed and experience initiation at its most brutal. I know how writing has changed some of your lives and I know how a simple airplane trip can change someone’s life for the better. I know that some of you enter this room every day a new person, and I know that no one will walk out completely unchanged by what has happened in Wilson 1-122.

I’ve learned a lot this semester, but perhaps the most luminous thing I’ve learned is that I already knew all of this.

I already knew all of you.

I just hadn't realized it.

The Only Class I've Ever Regretted Skipping

Things I heard in class:

• People cannot accept unanswered truth
• Truth and myth are one and the same
• The beginning feels like forever ago while the end feels like forever away
• 'The forgotten land of the past'
• You always find yourself back home
• Each time a story spirals through a lifetime, it gathers momentum
• We calculate the best person we can be, and we calculate the worst person we can be
• We are saturated with our own stories
• If you can't have fun with words, why did we work so hard to learn our language?
• Initiation has taken until the end of this class; our entire semester was initiation
• The journey never ends
• Bob Dylan rocks
• Skepticism is a necessity growing up
• Emotional sparagmos
• "Depression had raped me of all my purpose"
• Life is immersed in a pool of suffering
• July 25th is a scarily precedented date
• Chaos is a type of order we haven't discovered yet
• Myths always start on days like these
• Separation is either escape or exile
• Our initiation may be our only time to enjoy our experiences
• Telling stories is the most important thing we can do
• People demand explanations, even when there isn't one
• "All kinds of kinds"
• It all comes down to who you spend your time with
• Don't ask for the moral of the story, ask for the actual story
• No separation between the whole story and the moral, they are one and the same
• We are 'insignificant"
• We are the family.
• Just tell the story.
• The answer to all of our questions, the ones that haunt us at night, the ones that keep us up, the ones that refuse to leave us alone- the answer in the story.

I cannot believe that today was our last day of class. As the speeches winded down, I found myself getting sad that there were fewer and fewer left, because those stories were the last of the initiation stage and now we're arriving at the end. As Michelle said, we all say we aren't scared of death because it hasn't approached us, but as I was leaving class today, I felt the reaper breathing on my shoulder, whispering into my ear that I had reached the end. I have loved this class so much more than I can express on a blogpost online, because you can't hear my tone of voice and can't see my face as I type this, but rest assured that this is a bittersweet moment. I have adored and appreciated the people that make up this class and this family, and have learned more about each of you than I would had we been in a Calculus or Chemistry class together, because this class allowed to us to know ourselves and each other. For some of us, the friendships have traveled outside of the four walls of Wilson 1-122, and for that I could not be more grateful. And for those that I have only had the pleasure of interacting with twice a week for 75 minutes, know that I have enjoyed, and will continue to enjoy, getting to know you even if only through rereading your blog posts years down the road. 

Trees and Chi Omega

This is the Christmas Tree that lives at Chi Omega! Chi Omega is my home, albeit only for 14 more days. As my time in Montana winds down quickly, I'm starting to see myth and realize the little things are more important than I think. 

I know a lot of people have a lot of stigmas towards greek life and sororities. We're portrayed in media as vapid women that care about alcohol and sex and have no intellectual value; TV shows such as Greek and every other show/movie based at any college send this message to people across our culture.

I joined Chi Omega is August of 2012 and have never made a better decision in my life. These women, these 76 women, have bettered, served, and grown me as a human being. The assignment we had earlier in the class, to hug a tree, was something I laughed at as I asked one of my sisters to take a picture of me hugging a tree. However, what it led to was about 4 of us running around downtown Bozeman hugging and climbing trees (and getting yelled at by a homeowner for trespassing, oops). Yes, quite a few of us have danced with Dionysus on a couple different occasions, however, not a single one of us has ever danced alone.

Chi Omega is greek by nature. Made up of two of the twenty four letters that make up the greek alphabet, Chi and Omega hold special meaning to those who have initiated into the sisterhood of Chi Omega. Sisterhood and family is a huge theme throughout all of greek mythology, and it would be a lie to say that our sisterhood is anything but true. Sororities and fraternities started with students that wanted to meet secretly for discussion and debate that was not deemed appropriate by their administrations. Today, sororities and fraternities are groups of individuals who place value in scholarship, high standards of personnel, friendship, community service, campus involvement, and career development. 

One of our symbols is an owl, and though I cannot tell you why, I can expand on some knowledge that interested me from the first day of class. Hades, who's lover is our beloved Persephone, was quite the fan of the owl. It was one of his favorite creatures. Moreover, Persephone, his consort, is part of our tradition and history (moreso in the way of her and Demeter rather than her love story with Hades). Chi Omega is rooted in greek mythology. Owls, carnations, skull and crossbones, Demeter and Persephone. Our seal is characterized by Demeter in the middle surrounded by 5 uneven scallops.

If you look hard enough, if you can get past the stereotypical sorority woman, then you can see that we are rooted in Greek mythology farther back than you can imagine. 

Presentations, Day 3

Statements/snippets from speeches that caught my attention today:

• Scars tell stories and teach lessons that we'll never forget
• I completely agree because there's a huge scar on my right knee that reminds me to never ride a razor scooter down a very steep hill and slam on the brakes, because you WILL go flipping over the handlebars and skid down the pavement on your knee
• What is more significant than history or culture?
• If I begin to understand something, I'm definitely wrong
• Interest is the most essential part of mythologies
• Scars are tattoos, only with better series
• Pain is temporary, yet lives forever because pain is symbolic of a story and stories never die
• To live a life of myth is to live the life of a God
• Our similarities are more prevalent than our differences
• Our destination is the same as our point of origin
• I'm seldom wrong
• Dr. Sexson is the arch nemesis of Google
• A legend is only a legend because of the story
• Success is realizing how unimportant you are and how important others are
• Trees symbolize the natural world
• "Please don't forget."

I think the worst part of this class is that it's forced me to understand that classes like Lit 285 with Dr. Sexson are the classes that make us who we are. Too often are classes about memorization and recognition of factual intelligence and the newest "discovery", but this class is about finding yourself in myth, and at least for me, losing a lot of what I prided myself in. The idea of leaving this class knowing that classes like these only come around once or twice is very sad to internalize.

Presentations, Day 2

I came to class today about ten minutes late because I had been out photographing our beautiful, snow-dusted campus with a couple friends of mine. I walked in, and Connor was giving his presentation and was talking about how we, as a class, as a family, have shown and shared our scars with each other. Too often, do people think that scars represent weakness, that showing that you've been hurt is a sign of inferiority. Scars are something to be proud of, to show and tell to people about your experiences, the things and moments that have made you who you are.
Siri talked next, following by Jean and Sarah and concluding with Ian. I jotted down notes for each of these speakers, hoping to gain insight to who they were, but upon getting home, I realized that I hadn't written down the speakers of each quote. So now, as I lay in my room trying to discern the different people that are the authors of my page of my notes from today, I am realizing that it doesn't matter who said what, because even if we haven't all said it, we've all meant it.
Here are some things I heard today:

• Beauty is found in the ordinary. 
• We find myths everywhere
• Breaking Bad is based off of some guy named Heisenburg.
• Sarah wrote a badass poem with a wonderfully intricate rhyme scheme.
• Bastille Day is important to someone.
• Home is the transformation we all seek.
• Hope, Perseverance, and Strength.
• Stories have the magical ability to weave the past and the future into the present.
• Romance is the appearance of pirates.
• Our own lifetimes and stories are neither more or less than those before us or after us.
• We remember the stories that make us who we are.
• We have, against all odds, lived happily ever after. We do, against all odds, live happily ever after. We will continue to, against all odds, live happily every after.

Air Quotations

As the semester comes to a close, I'm starting to realize that this blog is looking a little malnourished.
Between now and December 3rd, I'm going to be doing all of the "suggested" posts that Dr. Sexson has told us to do.

Last Friday, I went to Seven Sushi with my "friend" Griffin. We waited in line for "half an hour", according to the hostess, and finally were seated. Our waiter was friendly and personable but seemed a little too... "helpful". Griffin and I ordered sushi; his order was the "Jawdropper"roll and a salmon roll, and mine was the "Playboy" roll and a California roll. We talked for the 45 minutes it took for our sushi to come and we covered a lot of different topics. I told him while we were on our way there that I was going to be using air quotations at dinner and he laughed it off, not thinking I was serious. However, we were eating and talking about our "relationship" and how much we "loved" each other and whatnot, and he was starting to get freaked out at my uncanny ability to make him question every thing that I was saying. We started talking about how I was leaving to go back to Georgia for law school in December, but it didn't take long for him to be very confused about what I was saying. I told him I was "leaving" for "good" in December for "law school" and that I didn't know how the distance was going to affect us. I told him that "change" was good and that maybe 2,000 miles would be "enlightening" for us.
At this point, Griffin was having a heart attack.
I told him to try out using air quotations on random words and he obliged.
Soon enough, we were having a full on conversation with air quotations being used left and right, and the people surrounding us and the waiter was very, very concerned as to what we were doing.
He approached us, asking why we were using quotations in the middle of the restaurant, and waited "patiently" for an answer.
Griffin replied perfectly, "We're using "air quotations" to say things without the full impact and to change the meaning to be in the ears of the listener."
The waited, looking befuddled and getting impatient, asked us why we would do that.
I replied, "Someone once told me that using air quotations would distort the meaning, and the results could be quite funny"
The waiter, unpleased, finally asked, "Well, what is the meaning?!"
And Griffin, right on cue, said "What do you mean, "meaning"? "
He left us with our sushi, we laughed for a while, and when the bill came, our total was around $38 and Griffin wanted to leave one last remark on the bill to really bring the point full circle.
He left a tip of $7, except it looked like this:

Sub-Total: $38
Tip: "$7.00"
Total: "$45"

Displaced Myth

Three years ago:

A headline hit newsstands across the nation.

"Illinois: Family of three, brutally murdered, trace of murderer nowhere to be found."

A couple weeks later, the people got their first, and last, glimpse of closure.

The murderer had been found, a young woman named Linda. Young, beautiful, and intelligent, Linda was the poster child for success, yet she had committed such an unnatural crime that even her family knew she was going to be convicted. However, she was acquitted. After months and months of trials, evidence compilation, witnesses and a seemingly strong prosecution, the jury decided her to be "not guilty". Linda walked free.

Now:

Graduation has just passed for University of Chicago's Law School. 2 lawyers, Aaron and Eliza, new residents in the Chicago Bar Association, are looking for cases to study and analyze while preparing for their first case. Tracing cases and leads back through the years, Eliza stumbles on the case of Linda from 2010. Eliza and Aaron went over the case for days and days, taking it apart piece by piece, reexamining every single piece of evidence used, watching all of the court recordings, reading the transcript from all of the trials. Just as it seemed everyone should have been three years ago, Eliza and Aaron were overwhelmed with evidence pointing to guilt beyond a reasonable doubt for Linda. Nervous but determined, Eliza and Aaron approached the judge of the case, asking for more information. The judge told them very seriously and very adamantly that they needed to shut down their research and stay away from the case. The judge was impressed with their determination to find justice and expressed that their traits of determination would prove to be admirable as lawyers, but this was a case that needed to be put to rest.

The 2 lawyers tried to put the case to rest and move on with their lives, but it seemed as if Linda was haunting them. Within weeks of the initial meeting with the judge, Linda started reappearing on TV and in the media, as if taunting them to give the case another look. So, in secret, Eliza picked back up on the trial. Soon enough, she found the information that backed her acquittal- Linda was the judge's illegitimate daughter. An affair years and years ago led the judge to have Linda, but Linda had been a secret to the public since her birth. Eliza, taken aback by this information and the corruptness of what had happened in Linda's trial, went straight to Aaron. Aaron resisted at first, saying that the judge had warned them to stay away from this case and that he didn't want to lose his license to practice law, but after days of nagging and watching how panicked Eliza was, Aaron decided to look at the case again. He realized the same thing Eliza did, and they decided to approach the judge.

The judge, realizing what these new lawyers had done, was outraged. "I gave you everything you could've wanted as a new lawyer- access to the most publicized cases of the 20th century and even the most high-profile cases of today, and all I asked was for you to stay away from one single case, and you couldn't do that", the judge declared. Though Eliza and Aaron pleaded with the judge to understand, and told the judge that they knew the truth about Linda, the judge was infuriated and showed no budging. The case stayed closed and no one ever found out about Linda's lineage, however Aaron and Eliza permanently lost their licenses to practice law.