My Theseus

Between trips around the world and series of TV shows, I am actually an MA student at Newcastle University. I know, I forget sometimes too.

I’m doing a taught master’s program, so the first two semesters were mostly classes. The third semester, however, involves writing a dissertation on a topic that we choose. The final product is a 15,000 word essay on an original research question.

You may have gathered that I have a deep rooted love for Greek mythology. Archaeology doesn’t really lend itself to discussions on mythology. Or so I thought. But in December I started to ask around about the possibilities of studying something to do with mythology for my dissertation. And I figured it out.

My Greek Archaeology lecturer did her PhD on portrayals of women in Greek pottery. So what I decided to do, under her supervision, was portrayals of one certain myth in Greek pottery.

The difficulty lay in choosing. At first, my supervisor suggested that I write on Heracles, since we have a Heracles pot in our collection that I could work closely with. But it didn’t really grab me. I went to the British Museum on my way home for Christmas and took a bunch of pictures of their beautiful Greek pots. They have some stunning portrayals of the Judgement of Paris, which is my favourite myth.

As the deadline for a topic drew closer, we were told we had to start thinking of a question that involved original research. And I just couldn’t come up with a question for the Judgement of Paris. I was worried.

Then we had a class on the Athenian Agora. In particular, the artwork on the Hephaisteion. You see, this temple had a lot of sculptures of Theseus on it. Theseus, an Athenian king, represented as a hero to democratic Athens. The magic word? Propaganda.

I love the use of myth as propaganda. Last year, I wrote my favourite essay on heroic bone transfer as Spartan propaganda. Have I lost you yet…? Heroic bone transfer is a usually seen as part of a Greek hero cult. It involves finding the “bones” of a mythological hero (in the case of Sparta, most famously Orestes) and repatriating them to your city state in order to lay a claim on the power of that hero. In the case of the Spartans, it was their way to claim a connection to the heroes of the Trojan War, since the Spartans themselves weren’t autochthonous to the Peloponnese.

Right. So Theseus is used as democratic propaganda, even though he was a king. That’s too great to pass up.

In the end, this was my proposal:

Title: How does the change and increase in Theseus as the subject of paintings on Athenian pottery after the late 6th century BCE relate to the development of Athenian democracy?

Abstract: In the late 6th century there is a change in the portrayal of the Theseus myth on Athenian pottery. Most Theseus paintings prior to this period had focused on his slaying of the Minotaur. By the end of the 5th century, not only have representations of Theseus expanded to include a series of other events from his life, but he has also been firmly established as the national hero of Athens in a way that demonstrates close ties with democracy.

Even though in England they call this a dissertation, in North America is would be called a thesis. And so, I have started calling it my Theseus. Yes, I’m that cheesy.

If you need me…

…I’ll be here:

In this:

Instead of this:

As long as this:

Or, more likely, this:

…doesn’t get in the way. I’ve wanted to visit Greece since I was like 6 years old. Please convince Zeus to let us in?!

Easy

As I sit here, once again writing a blog post instead of an essay, I wonder why it is we fall into the same patterns. New country, new school, new degree - same old Heather, not quite willing to commit to anything. Not quite willing to try harder.

I also wonder why it’s so easy to forget the things you love in the world. How do we get those blinders on that don’t let you see anything but what you hate? How do I forget to sing? How do I forget to tell the people I love how I really feel? How do I forget to explore, and sit instead in my bedroom with the same old fears and inadequacies?

It’s easy to stay stuck, no matter where you are in the world or who you’re with. It’s harder to remember where hope is.

When I grow up

A little blonde haired girl sits on a grey rug, surrounded by scattered crayons and one subject notebooks, the kind with the map of Canada on the front. Clutching a pencil, she’s drawing ugly unicorns and naming them after the words on her favourite crayons, the sparkly ones. She gives them a history, knows which ones like each other, which ones are good and which are bad. She sits like this for hours, imagining.

When she learns to read music, from a Pocahontas themed recorder book, she pretends that D is the bad guy, that G is protecting A and C from D, and B is unpredictable. In math, odd and even numbers have different characters. On long car rides, she writes songs about rose gardens in her head (and sometimes outloud). She plays elaborate make believe games with her friends, spends Saturdays racing through the park as Sailor Moon or some character of her own creation.

I meet a lot of people in archaeology who talk about spending their childhoods digging in sandboxes and watching Indiana Jones. They always knew that they wanted to be an archaeologist, this is their dream come true. And it makes me stop and think. I wasn’t dreaming of arrowheads and potsherds, digging up my parents backyard.

I was writing and telling stories. Always. For as long as I can remember, writing has been an enormous part of my life. From the role playing games and fanfiction that introduced me to my best friend to the years of emo poems (not all bad) that I wrote in high school. In school, I was always pretty sure I would get a good grade if it involved writing. Because I’ve been doing it since I learned how. I have so much practice of fitting words together, of expressing my ideas. And I love it. Even now, as my fingers glide over the keyboard and try desperately to keep up with my train of thought, the thrill of being able to say what I want fills me with a sense of completion.

Writing, for me, is like breathing. Absolutely necessary. I wake up in the middle of the night to write down sentences and words that are spinning through my head. I can’t sleep for the story I’m creating as I lie awake.

But I tend to forget that. I always say that my dream is to someday write books. But I never let myself fully pursue that dream. I always say that I’ll do it in my spare time, as I’m doing another, preferably well paying, job.

When I went into journalism, I thought I had found the best of both worlds. I would get to write, but I would also satisfy my need for stability, for a “career path” or a Plan. But journalism, while arguably it is writing and telling stories, simply sucked the fun out of writing for me. It’s more of a formula than an art. When I decided to do a Master’s, I went towards my other love, history, and chose archaeology. A more pratical approach that would hopefully lead me to a career in museums.

None of these paths I have chosen have been perfect for me. All because I don’t have the courage to pursue my true passion - to actually become a writer. To live as a writer. To open myself up to the possibility that I may fail and that I may have to live a less predictable life. I don’t know if I have it in me to be that person.

But as I start to discover more and more about who I truly am, about what I want in my life, it’s becoming obvious that I should have taken the path I chose from the very start. That what I really want to do is write.

I don’t know what I’m going to do with this new found revelation quite yet. I still have an MA to finish and debts to pay off. But I’m starting to think about my future and ways of keeping writing in my life, of someday being able to call myself a writer by profession. Right now I’m thinking that after this MA, I will work for a few years and then possible do an MFA in Creative Writing. I think it would be amazing. To finally be in an environment where I am constantly thinking about my writing, about being inspired.

And until then, I’ll continue writing on my own, because that’s what I’ve always done and always will do.

The sound of settling

The house was cold and quiet. It was that first morning that marks the end of summer. It smelt like the first day of school. The previous day’s hot weather had left windows open and fans on at night, but by morning my toes were sticking out of the blankets and the cold woke me up. The tiles in the bathroom were icy and the crisp, cool air drifted through the house, bringing with it the smell of burnt toast and coffee from downstairs.

It was a Tuesday, which has been garbage day here for as long as I can remember. I could hear the stop and start of the trucks loading the bins at each house on our street. The first day of school was always a Tuesday. When I got out of bed I had to stop and think for a minute, it felt like it could have been five years ago, the end of summer vacation and the first day of another year of high school. Too early after months of sleeping in. Too cold against my summer skin.

That’s how I knew that summer was over, because Tuesday smelt like the first day of school. Like fall.

Today it’s barely warm enough to be called summer and I wore a sweater all day. Today my flip flop-clad feet had goosebumps. Our all-too-short summer is over, after only three months of rain and three blistering weeks in August.