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[apeiore]

december 29, 2023: In defense of being dramatic

I want to be a writer, I say, and I mean it not in the sense that I am stringing words together, necklace beads and daisy chains. The language is a beautiful part of it, of course, but I think it is more so the pain, see, the daisies I pluck and weave had to spring forth from somewhere, and before the soil was gently patted down and watered someone had to ravage it, turn it inside out so the rich smell of loam rose into the air like it was beckoning the sky to cry. All creation must happen like this, because before creation there is void and a wanting, like how Adam needed a warm body next to his so God dug His fingers deep into the flesh He had just sculpted and pulled until he heard a crack— readers recognize writers, I think, like how Adam recognizes his rib. He runs his palm over Eve’s side and feels the ridge under smooth skin, and Adam thinks to himself that if God had not done it first he would have tried. Oh, he would have tried, and what I mean to say is do you ever feel that itch within yourself, the one that tells you the only way to resolve it is committing some sort of violence? The soil does not forget what it took to make the flower, and the flower can never undo the snap of its stem, and when I write my fingers stick together, grass stains and sugar sap, ichor and marrow, so that I can hardly tell where the wound ends and the garden begins. Better to cultivate than to swallow down the pain. Better to feel the warmth of fresh blood than to feel nothing within you at all.

[apeiore]

november 15, 2023: Eternal Life, Ancient Greece, and Other Mundane Things

Logically, it makes sense that some things have remained the same about human nature. There will always be smile lines and interlocked hands and scraps of poetry to digest and artfully regurgitate. But to be aware that bits of you are some eons old is the kind of quiet realization that makes you want to write on a Tuesday evening, even when the words aren’t yet ripe for the picking.

You must imagine the laughter that ensued in the Academy, my professor says, when Aristotle made this facetious argument. I imagine it: peals of joy, canons of hilarity redoubling amongst a crowd of students. The acoustics must have been different–they didn’t have our hardwood floors, after all, nor the cracked-open windows letting in the distinctly industrial sounds of construction. They surely did not have the scratch of pencil lead nor the fwips of textbook pages, but they might have had the chilled warmth of autumn dancing across the back of their necks, the lilt of familiarity at the end of their words that conveyed just the right amount of teasing for the joke to hit home. And of course they had laughter. Puffs of breath intermingling in this shared space. Soft echoes of it under their breaths when they were dismissed from class, still repeating the joke with their friends.

What I find is: it is not so hard to imagine such things if you are a deeply sentimental person. I have been told my entire life that I am too sensitive at my core, with a reprimanding tone that suggests I resemble a turtle with a particularly soft underbelly. The real world, they say, will eat you alive. It is time for you to confront the gaps in your armor.

Here is what I know about strength as the Romans saw it: Scaevolus sticking his left hand into the fire and refusing to scream while the flames licked at his bone. Lucretia sinking a blade into her stomach so the people could know what her true wounds were. Brutus executing his sons, stoic and placid as if he did not recognize them, as if they did not share the same blood, as if he could not feel the loss like his own death. So let me die, Agrippina said to the prophet, as long as my son becomes emperor. When she discovered who sent her assassins, she cried, Then stab me in the womb.

And you know, it feels like it has been two thousand years of Scaevoluses and Lucretias and Brutuses and Agrippinas and still we have not become superhuman, so perhaps it is perfectly reasonable to imagine laughter in the Academy. It, at least, keeps us buoyant enough to walk to the next class, and do our homework, and wake up the next morning in a world that has existed far longer than we have. All that exceptional pain, and yet I am still convinced that they only sought mundanity: a world where they could keep their limbs and lives and loves and laughter, always laughter, that thing that makes eons of smile lines and interlocked hands and scraps of poetry.

Of course, we have told their stories for two thousand years, but here I am, cupping the joy of the Academy in my hands like a mug of tea yet to lose its warmth. It seems it does not have to be so difficult to live forever.

[apeiore]

august 27, 2023: Celestial musing

Beneath the bridge a boat passes and trails a wake, in such a way that the water looks like crimped fabric, some larger hand lifting their skirt to descend the stairs. Perhaps I'm being silly but times like these I wonder how the world turns out this way. Cosmic resemblances and such. The galaxy like spilled milk not worth crying over. The water like silk. Myself like an extraterrestrial being of some sort. Things defined by other things and connection existing where it shouldn't. Isn't it beautiful? My head is on the window and this bus is too loud and for a moment things feel very very small.

[apeiore]

Going absolutely insane over the concept of name and identity in The Odyssey. The concept of recognition. Like, the reveal of one's identity is present in both The Iliad and The Odyssey, but specifically The Odyssey drives me into despair.

The Phaeacians don't recognize Odysseus. His family doesn't recognize Odysseus (except his dog!! all praise Argos). Odysseus doesn't recognize Ithaca. There's barely any recognition without revealing, and Odysseus takes a while to reveal himself. Chronologically speaking, his first disguise in The Odyssey is Nobody. And when he does reveal his true identity, it causes him and his crew pain and suffering. Maybe that instilled a fear of revealing his true identity. His name invoked the death of his men. And all his other identities (too tired to remember/look for all the names he's gone under), while realistic and authentic sounding, are non-existent. All those people he claimed he was are not real. They are nobody. If he is not Odysseus, he is nobody, and if he is not nobody, he is Odysseus. But Odysseus, his fucking name drives me insane. His name means to hate. Since his childhood that hatred was imprinted on him. Do you think it left an lasting impact?? Some sort of "expectation" that he had to meet?? A curse, a constant shadow following him everywhere he goes?? Something he inherited, that is tied to him even if it's not his?? Hate was tied to him directly through his name that his grandfather gave him. In The Iliad, everyone refers to him as "Son of Laertes (which is obviously the way they identified as back then)", "sacker of cities", "long-enduring" etc etc. But Odysseus refers to himself as "Father of Telemachus". Also this:

He swears by his son's name, by the name of someone, something that is his. Something that is not inherited, that isn't placed upon him. Something that he earned himself. Something that he loves, the opposite of the hate that is his name. It's a part of him, part of his identity. And if he is not the son of Telemachus, then he isn't Odysseus. He is nobody.

But in The Odyssey, he refers to himself as the sacker of cities. When he introduces himself to the Phaeacians, he says that he is the sacker of cities. His invention of the Trojan horse was the bane of Troy. And that trick is a part of him, his cunning and trickery. He destroyed the home of hundreds, thousands of people. And do you think, that after every hardship he faced on his journey back home, he lost his sense of self?? In the war, he had the hope of going back home. He had the hope that he would see his wife and son again. As long as the other kings and soldiers are there, also longing to go back home, then his hope is real. He is real. But after all of his men died, he was alone. No one to share his longing, to share his hope. No one is there to remind him that he is real. So he only has his newer memories, new things that are tied to him. Sacker of cities. Long enduring. Doesn't sound all that happy. It almost sounds like hate. Without the hope of seeing everything that is his because he earned/worked for it himself, he goes back to his name. It might be the only thing grounding him, reminding him that he is real. And when he hears the bard sing of the fall of Troy, the man absolutely weeps. Because he sings about him. He sings about the fall of Troy, and it fell because of him. It fell because he is the sacker of cities. He is the sacker of cities because he is Odysseus. Because he doesn't know who he is. And even Penelope when she listens to the bard wants him to sing about something else. Someone else. Because that is not her Odysseus, her husband, her son's father. It hurts her to think that even though he might be alive, her Odysseus is gone. He is dead either way. And even his son when he sees him first thinks he is a god. That he is not human, that he is not a man. Because gods are immortal, ever lasting. And mortals have only a lifetime to make it worth it, to attach something to themselves and their names. And Telemachus thinks that his father is a god, that his father has no name and no identity of his own.

And when his loved ones recognize him, it's by the things he attached himself to during the war. The things that are a part of his real identity, of his identity. Odysseus tells his son that he is his father. Argos recognizes him as his master. Eurycleia recognizes his scar that he earned when he went hunting. He tells his father about the trees in the orchard. And Penelope finally believes it's him because of the olive tree bed story. The bed that he built himself. That he built his home around. And Penelope doesn't believe it's truly Odysseus, because he is not the man that left Ithaca twenty years ago. But when Odysseus is able to tell her about the bed, she can believe it's Odysseus. Or atleast a part of him is there. It's Odysseus Odysseus, the name and identity that he built. And not Odysseus, the name that simply means hate.

[apeiore]

mm i just started rereading the odyssey off the heels of the iliad and can confirm. of course the iliad is chock-full of these gory battle scenes but almost every single one of them has a moment of tenderness, brotherhood, mourning, or internal conflict (do i flee like i so dearly wish to or do i take my last stand with honor? do i lose my life or my reputation?). and i would argue that the funeral scenes are so heartrending because there's so much violence. war is loss. everyone is a son, husband, father.

what shocked me was that at some point, achilles calls hector a hero. i don't know if he meant it with the positive connotation we give it today, but it stays with me as a sign of the blurred lines in the iliad. you never know which side, person, or god to root for because everyone has some moment that makes them an empathetic character. (patroclus is exempt because we always root for patroclus.)

meanwhile, the odyssey has such clearly defined archetypes that there is little room for empathy. the suitors are Bad People, odysseus is the Good Guy. even the gods have more defined loyalties (or grudges) for their "chosen humans" (ahem ahem athena), whereas they mostly tried to settle the scales in the iliad. so odyssey 22 is a satisfying (almost) ending, to be sure, but not a particularly human one. of course the suitors deserved their deaths--they were awful... but no one really deserves war.

for this course I’m teaching I selected both Iliad 24 and Odyssey 22 and it wasn’t planned but there’s something about the contrast that is really striking - I think the Odyssey is often seen as a softer and more accessible epic than the Iliad, but on this reread I’m struck by how Iliad 24 is Homeric epic at its most empathetic, and Odyssey 22 is Homeric epic at its most coldly, jarringly brutal. and there’s something to be said the way that the poem about rage ends with an act of profound and complicated humanity, while the poem about a complicated man (nearly) ends with an act of profound rage

[apeiore]

my thoughts on the big three characters from the iliad, as someone who has never read the song of achilles but has too many feels anyway

achilles's first appearance in the book hurt me so bad--hector taunting him, saying the only thing that made him special was his fighting prowess gifted by the gods. a man born to be a killer with the hands of a lyre player. destined from birth to live a short yet painful life, filled with nothing but war. it's all he knows. he was so hurt when agamemnon took briseis because it reminded him that he was and would always be a soldier, forever sacrificing his mind and body for the kings of the world, always having the things he loves being used to keep him in line. i imagine achilles wished just once to be appreciated not for what he could do but for who he was. i imagine he wanted a moment to rest.

and you know what hurts the most? the fact that as patroclus lay dying, hector mocked achilles for sending patroclus to break down the trojan walls--but achilles had actually told patroclus to draw back from the trojan lines, fearing for his safety. achilles would have accepted an even earlier end to his short, short life if it meant patroclus's survival. after his death, achilles had no thought for food or drink. if he wasted away his endless fighting ability on this one act of vengeance, it would have been worth it.

and i find it adorable, to be honest, that patroclus was so loved by everyone. they called him the best of the myrmidons, even the best of the greeks--surpassing achilles, agamemnon, menelaus, diomedes, odysseus, ajax, anyone else. those six men were the main characters of every chapter but even still, they defer to patroclus, arguably the heart of the greek army. they fought off a wave of trojans to bear his body back, even with the armor stolen. whatever you do, don't imagine thetis keeping watch over patroclus's corpse while achilles fights, keeping away the carrion-hungry flies, preserving the rose of his complexion as if he were still alive.

(and don't even get me started on how patroclus was more comfortable as a healer but felt moved to war by the suffering of his fellow soldiers. he couldn't bear to watch them come streaming back to the tents, hurting with wounds he hadn't been able to prevent. and when he was lying on his back, run through by several spears, knowing that no healer could help him now, his last thought was of the only warrior who could do his death justice.)

of course, i need to give a little time to hector, who i see as the aaron burr of this story (i'm a hamilton fan on tumblr--a fork in a kitchen). specifically, i am so glad homer chose to write about the moment hector shared with his wife and infant son before he went off to war. he and his wife laughed because their son was crying at the sight of him in his armor--but how could he be scary? nothing but a father and a husband underneath all of that bronze. and then hector promised to come home but when he left, his wife started up a funeral dirge anyway. she knew what the gods had in store.

after all, he had so much more to lose than achilles. he was the bastion of the trojans, bearing the weight of a city and a family on his shoulders, yet even zeus's support couldn't tip the scales completely in his favor. when hector cameos as a ghost in the aeneid to warn aeneas of troy's impending doom, he appears the way he did at the time of his death: bathed in dust, badly wounded, haggard and harrowed. having done the best he could but it was never enough for the gods--troy was never destined to last.

i have far too many thoughts about these characters. what can i say, i'm a sucker for the moments of character study homer allows between the battle scenes.

stay tuned for more tomfoolery around these joints, brought to you by a classics nerd who psychoanalyzes fictional characters for breakfast.

[apeiore]

august 14, 2023: ouroboros

i am as it is. right now i am experiencing a moment of staying within my own skin, not seeking to shed like a snake molting. is it ever worth not killing myself over the thought of being better? to be honest with you all. i have grown tired

of digging the blade into my back. it scares me, this never-ending cycle of staring into my own betrayed eyes, pupils dilated like a prey's. what race do i lose when i find peace, huh? what kind of cough medicine will that be, sliding down my throat? am i brave enough to

swallow? all the would-bes and optatives and future-imperfects chasing each other down the gullet and coiling into the knot in my stomach--do i digest or move on. do i live or let live or both. the sun makes another cycle through the sky and i sit, tail in mouth, waiting for the signal to bite down.