Survivor's Guilt

Okay, that's a dramatic title for a post, but reading An Imaginary Life has sort of pushed me into a melancholic mood. Frankly, I've been trying to avoid thinking about death or maybe I've been thinking about death too much lately. My roommates have even informed me that I should major in dead things (how sad is that?). I suppose it is because when I think of death I immediately associate it with a neighbor's son who committed suicide when I was young. He had been a really good friend of my brothers and I and had put up with quite a bit from us. I hate thinking about it because I feel sometimes that I should have sensed that he was going to kill himself. I had actually seen him outside playing basketball in his driveway a few days before he did it, he did that alot and would often play with us, and when I was talking with him, he seemed like himself. I guess I feel like maybe I missed something, missed him being upset and angry and sad. Sometimes I ask myself if I could have said something to him then or done something that would have prevented what happened. I feel like I messed up. Now when I look back, after learning about warning signs of suicide and all that, I can see them. I have to wonder if Hecuba or Andromache felt the same way about the deaths they experienced. Did Andromache live the rest of her life wondering about ways she could have prevented her son's death? Is it something that everyone experiences? What can we, the living, do after the dead are gone?

Strung Together

I've been reading An Imaginary Life and the thing that keeps coming to my notice is how he seems to remember things. I remember Prof. Sexson saying that everyone knows everything, except that we've forgotten it. Ovid in the story is in the process of remembering all of those things that we have forgotten. Near the beginning he tells of a dream where centaurs visit him and say a word to him. When he awakes, he cries out that word: "I have tried to remember that word, but the sound has sunk back into my sleep. If I could recall that sound, and speak the word again, I think I would know what it is I have named, what it is that I have encountered" (pg. 25). Later he comes upon a scarlet poppy and remembers colors and flowers that he had forgotten from his childhood. He says, "We give the gods a name and they quicken in us, they rise in their glory and power and majesty out of minds, they move forth to act in the world beyon, changing us and it. So it is that the beings we are in process of becoming will be drawn out of us. We have only to find the name and let its illumination fill us. Beginning, as always, with what is simple" (pg. 32). To remember all there is to know about this world and ourselves, we have to start with the little things, the simple things. Ideas about marriage and love and death can open us and remind us of all that we are suppose to know. The things that we are learning about in class are the simple things. We don't think about this stuff all the time or never, in fact, because we are trained to believe that it is unimportant. We are suppose to live in the here and now. We are to enjoy life to the fullest without thinking about the past because the past is irrelevant. The sad thing is that we will never be able to live life to the fullest without taking into consideration the past because the past is where all of the answers lie. David Malouf's character has to remember his childhood for him to accept and embrace fully his life in exile. If he were to only remember his adult life in Rome, he would never be able to understand his present. We are the same as that character. We must remember the past, even going beyond our childhoods, to be able to understand our present.

Shrews

While I was reading Lysistrata, I found that Lysistrata really reminded me of one of Shakespeare's characters: Katharina in The Taming of the Shrew. This is one of my favorite plays and it's because Katharina is so fiesty and angry and always knows what to say. My high school performed the play and I also got to see a production of it by one of the colleges in my town. The college performance really brought to light all of the sexual inuendoes the play has, just like Lysistrata. The two females leads are both quick witted to both men and women and get in to arguments. I love the flyting passage in The Taming of the Shrew between Katharina and Petruchio.

Kath: Mov'd! in good time: let him that mov'd you hither remove you hence: I knew you at the first you were a movable.
Pet: Why, what's a movable?
Kath: A joint-stool.
Pet: Thou hast hit it: come sit on me.
Kath: Asses are made to bear, and so are you.
Pet: Women are made to bear, and so are you.
Kath: No such jade as bear you, if me you mean.
Pet: Alas, good Kae, I will not burden thee: For, knowing thee to be but young and light,
Kath: Too light for such a swain as you to catch; and yet as heavy as my weight should be.
Pet: Should be! should buzz.
Kath: Well ta'en, and like a buzzard.
Pet: O, slow-wing'd turtle! shall a buzzard take thee?
Kath: Ay, for a turtle,-as he takes a buzzard.
Pet:Come, come, you wasp; i'faith, you are too angry.
Kath: If I be waspish, best beware my sting.
Pet: My remedy is then, to pluck it out.
Kath: Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies.
Pet: Who knows not where a wasp doth wear his sting? In his tail.
Kath: In his tongue.
Pet: Whose tongue?
Kath: Yours, if you talk of tails; and so farewell.

Old Men and Old Women

I loved the Chorus in Lysistrata. I thought the old men and women were a hoot. The way that they bantered back and forth and then made peace between each other by being nice was so funny and sort of sweet. They embody the way that old men and women seem to act in life, I think. I work at JoAnn's in the Mall and I see lots of old couples come in to the store everyday, so I like to think that I get to see what the culmination of a relationship is. When I was working a few days ago, I heard this conversation between a husband and wife who were fairly old. They were talking about making a quilt.

Wife: So, are you signing yourself up here?
Husband: Hmmm, huh?
Wife: Are you going to help me with this?
Husband: What? Oh, I guess.
Wife: You guess? Right, sure, uhhuh.

The husband was barely paying attention to what his wife was saying to him and the wife obviously did not truly expect him to be helping with the project. They were simply bantering back and forth, like the men chorus and the women chorus just not as vulgar, as the probably do everyday. I thought what was especially telling about their relationship was the fact that neither of them looked at the other during the entire converstaion. The wife was going through her purse and the husband was staring in to the distance, surely thinking deep thoughts. Now, isn't this the way every relationship between a man and woman goes at some point?

Marriage

My brother just got engaged and it brought to mind all the things that we discussed over the Hymn to Demeter. I have especially been pondering the idea that marriage and death are linked very closely. Getting married would be kind of dying in a sense because you are leaving a way of life behind. You are no longer single, the life that you knew will no longer be the same. Even if you divorce or your spouse dies, your life will have forever been changed by being married. The way that you think, the things that you believe, and the innocence and cluelessness that you had about people and life have been influenced or taken away. I have a friend at work and she's been divorced and the way that she looks at marriage and love are nothing like what they were before she was married. That may be a negative way to look at marriage, I mean, getting married is supposed to be a happy event that signifies the love between two people. Just because marriage is the death of one way of life does not mean that the life you will lead as a married person will be horrible and dark and all those things that we associate with death. Who is to say that Persephone is not entirely happy with her married life? I perfer to think that she and Hades eventually came to love each other and are living happily right now. Although, I suppose with Spring on its way, Hades it starting to feel a little depressed and angry. Maybe that's what accounts for the snow that we've been getting. March coming in as a lion is simply Hades expressing himself. The funny thing is that now, whenever I think of marriage, I'm going to think of death. My future is already being possessed by the past. I don't think I'll share this with my brother on his wedding day, though.

Intoxication, hmmm . . .

Today, we are finally going to get to discuss Alcibiades' speech in The Symposium. This guy is so drunk that he is falling all over the place, yelling, and having to be supported by a poor flute-girl. Sexson gave us the assignment of going out and getting intoxicated because it is only then that we can understand what Alcibiades is saying. Most of us thought he talking about getting drunk with alcohol, but he also said that there are many ways to get intoxicated. I've been thinking about this for several days now and I think he's right. Being intoxicated generally means having a happy feeling, feeling like you are invincible, plus just feeling really, really good in general, but we have those types of feelings while doing other things as well. I remembered a suggestion sheet that I was given during junior high school, you remember those lectures and assemblies about don't drink, don't do drugs? Well, these are ideas of alternative ways to get high or intoxicated. They are called natural highs and I dare you to try one of them and not feel the slightest bit intoxicated.

• Falling in love
• Laughing so hard your face hurts
• A hot shower
• no lines at the Super Wal-Mart
• A special glance
• Getting mail
• Taking a drive on a pretty road
• Hearing your favorite song on the radio
• Lying in bed listening to the rain
• Hot Towels out of the dryer
• Walking out of your last final
• Finding the sweater you want is on sale for half price
• Chocolate milkshake
• A long distance phone call
• Getting invited to a dance
• A bubble bath
• Giggling
• A good conversation
• A care package
• The beach
• Finding a $20 bill in your coat from last winter
• Laughing at yourself
• Midnight phone calls that last for hours
• Running through sprinklers
• Laughing for absolutely no reason at all
• Having someone tell you that you're beautiful