—

On May 18, 1899, my great-great-grandparents, Michelina Mickelsky and Martinus Rusiecki, arrived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from Warsaw, Poland, via Antwerp, Belgium. They settled in Luzerne, Pennsylvania, to work in the coal mines. In 1911, Michelina gave birth to my great-grandmother, Frances. In 1939, she gave birth to my grandfather, John. In 1963, his wife, Judith, gave birth to my mother, Laura. We are Polish through and through– after all, my mother is only three generations off the boat.

On my mother’s side of the family, our Polish heritage is strong. It is evident in the Catholicism she practices, in the way bits of Polish slip into her speech, but most visibly, in our food.

Regardless of the time of year, a rainy day means pierogies. Kielbasa is our preference, over hot dogs. Horseradish is ever-present on our refrigerator door, despite no one actually enjoying it.  

The home-made cookbooks that my mother received from my great-grandmother fill glass cabinets above the marble countertops. Inside these aging, hand-bound books, are yellowed recipe cards. Sometimes, the words change from English to Polish mid-sentence, as if whoever wrote them couldn’t find the word outside of her mother tongue. Sometimes, the words are indiscernible altogether. On some cards, there are red-purple stains that look (and smell) suspiciously like horseradish, despite no one actually enjoying it.

I never understood how unchanged and genuinely Polish my food was, until I traveled to Poland, and experienced it for myself.

—

Just like I hadn’t been to Europe before, I have never traveled in a group. Nor have I traveled with people my age. We clash almost instantly. I’m here to find my heritage. They’re here to vacation. It’s evident in our approaches to food.

My peers look curiously at our hotel breakfast. They don’t seem to understand why, exactly, there are four different kinds of sausages on offer. I, on the other hand, pile my plate high with Kielbasa, and I exclaim in delight when the first taste of savory, spicy pork hits my tongue.

My peers are anxious to eat the pierogis at lunch, at a crowded, overfilled restaurant tucked behind a bustling, cobblestone Warsaw street. The dumplings are stuffed full and overflowing with mushrooms, onions, potatoes, and meat, and cooked to perfection, their edges just slightly browned. As I bite into them, all I taste is the familiar; a home cooked meal on a Thursday night, my mother wearing an apron that proclaims OUR LADY OF ANGELS CATHOLIC CHURCH, listening to NPR and poking impatiently at pierogies in a sizzling, spitting skillet.

My peers decide to eat American food for dinner. Instead, I am on the hunt for the Polish street food I remember from Church bazaars, the smell of grilled onions and smoked meat filling the air as I jumped on the bouncy houses with my friends from school. I find a stand that sells Kielbasa on white bread smothered in sweet, juicy onions, and slathered in brown mustard.

My peers get ice cream for dessert, but I’m on the hunt for Paçzki, massive, fruit-filled doughnuts that my mother gets for us every Fat Tuesday. The confection is covered in powdered sugar, and I have to hold it with two hands, like a real American cheeseburger.  

You’ll get sick off of that stuff, my peers say, turning up their nose as I lick sweet fruit off my sugar-covered fingers, or I stuff some escaped onions back into my makeshift sandwich, or push potato back into the pierogi, or add another sausage to my breakfast plate. The food is too heavy; it’s too rich.

I won’t get sick. Like a world-class athlete, I have been training to eat this food my entire life.

—

Just like my Polish heritage is influenced by my father’s Judaism, Polish cuisine is also heavily influenced by the centuries-old Ashkenazi Jewish population of Poland.

Before World War II, Poland had the largest population of Jews in Europe, and the second-largest population in the world, outside of New York City. I am surprised by how seamlessly the two cultures blend; from the latkes served with my pierogies, to the Matzo ball soup served as an appetizer for my kielbasa dinner. The simultaneous Ashkenazi and Polish diet of cabbage and onions and potatoes intertwine, coming together like the Ashkenazi and Polish double helix that is my genetic code.

Even the bagel, the most ubiquitously Jewish food, was invented on the streets of Krakow. On a rainy morning in the Cloth Hall of Krakow, I eat the very first bagel. It tastes like every bagel I’ve eaten before– and I’ve eaten a lot. I’m a New York Jew, after all.  

This cloth hall and this bagel have been around since the 13th century. Maybe my ancestor once pulled a wooden cart across these uneven cobblestone streets. Everything in Poland seems like a memory of a past life, of places I’ve visited but never have seen.

—

In Auschwitz, I have apple cake with lunch. Apple cake, to me, is a rarity outside of Christmas dinner. The cake-pie hybrid is crisp and refreshing and tastes infinitely better than the water-without-gas I’ve been drinking. I’m dehydrated from all the tears I have cried.

As we return to our tour, we leave a barrack and enter a courtyard that was used as shooting grounds for thousands of helpless prisoners. In the middle of the gravel, bullet-riddled, brick-surrounded square, I see my mother’s second cousin, Pam.

Speechlessly, I walk over to her. We both have earphones in, listening to our separate tours. I wave. She looks shocked, before hugging me. My professor, Dr. Kennedy, looks concerned, before I say, excitedly, that this is my cousin.

I knew they were in Poland at the same time as me, but I never imagined to see them 4,945 miles from home. They live in North Carolina. I live in Georgia. We’ve only met once, when I was six, at my great-grandmother’s funeral, in Pennsylvania.

Yet here we are, in a death camp, in Poland.

—

When I return to Krakow, I meet my mother’s second cousins in the Old Square for dinner. We find a restaurant, and order soup prior to our meals. It’s like I’m at a family reunion. Pam and her husband, Robert, ask me about my trip, about college, about my plans for the future. They ask me what I thought about Auschwitz. They’re curious as to how I felt– they know my dad is Jewish. They heard my grandfather passed away last fall– how is my mom doing?

We’re served chicken noodle soup. It’s identical to my mother’s, down to the spices and long, spaghetti-like noodles.

My mother’s second cousin and I lift our spoons to our mouths and moan in delight. “Wow,” She says, smiling at me. We have the same chin, the Danielowicz chin. “This soup tastes just like my mom’s.” It doesn’t just taste like her mom’s soup, or my mom’s soup, or our Great-Grandmother’s soup. It tastes like Poland. It tastes like home.

In HIS-290, we researched public history and how it can be applied in our futures. We learned about possible careers for historians. We celebrated internships and critiqued public history projects. We learned about presentism and how to think with intent about history. While we wrote annotated bibliographies and outlines and typed metadata, there was a base layer to our work that should inform a globally-focused, engaging, and responsible historical education, one that is in line with the curriculum Agnes Scott College promises. The Agnes Scott History Department wants us to be able to write a 25-page senior seminar, but they also want to develop the future historians of the world, and that is evident in the coursework of HIS-290.

Why does the Agnes Scott History faculty want to create a different type of historian? I am positive that these classes exist at other academic institutions, but I assure you, their methodology classes are completely different. They are more like the POL-226 Methodology course: papers, intensive writing and research, and more papers. HIS-290 was not, nor is it ever intended to be, a weed-out course. It is intended to make students fall in love with history, to pursue it as a career path. Perhaps, as a small department, the History faculty doesn’t want to lose any students in an unnecessary weed-out process. But the intent behind the HIS-290 curriculum is much deeper than cultivating class size and graduating majors; the course wants to foster a lifelong love of history and develop responsible and engaging historians. The History faculty cares deeply about the futures that they nurture. Can that be said for other colleges?

Because of HIS-290, I am ready to approach my senior seminar from a new angle, one that takes into account all aspects, identities, and perspectives of the topic. I am ready to work in Historical Interpretation this summer at Old Sturbridge Village and encourage visitors to think deeply about the 1830s farm at which they are watching me churn butter. Furthermore, I am excited about how The Historical Imagination will inform my future, whether as a Historical Interpreter, a Social Media Manager, or as a Novelist, my true dream. To develop engaging and dynamic histories for the enjoyment of the public is a dream of mine, and I know that HIS-290 has prepared me well to achieve these goals.

After deciding to invite pirates and philosophers alike to my salon, I decided it was integral to the evening to discuss the topics of Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality, as well as Democracy, Human Nature, and Authority. While Kant, Locke, and Rousseau discussed their beliefs on the matter, the Pirate guests would offer their input as to best actualize the philosopher’s theories, as Pirates put ideas into action.

Finally, I was tasked with putting my salon online in digital format, so that it was easily accessible to not only those in my class, but to anyone who is interested in Enlightenment history, or Golden Age Piracy. The Agnes Scott College History Department loves digital history and this project correlates with the Summit curriculum and the development of our digital portfolios. Below is my methodology for my project, and a link to view the final website!

Introduction

As a Digital and Visual Literacy tutor, I knew that I had not only the training but the resources to create an engaging and dynamic digital salon. That, coupled with my love of Enlightenment history and my interest in piracy, I threw myself into my research and creation of, what I believe, is my most comprehensive and well-designed website to date.

The Frontispiece (Home Page)

I spent a lot of time working on the frontispiece, or home page, of my digital salon. As the landing page of my subdomain, I wanted to make sure it was eye-catching, informative, and provided suitable navigation for the rest of my website. I wanted to include the quote that formed my thesis, the Yoke of Nonage quote from Immanuel Kant. That, contrasted with the image of Blackbeard directing two men underneath a yoke, provide a direct correlation between the Enlightenment and Piracy that I continue throughout my website.
I first selected my template because it allowed for video as a header. The first piece of media created for my digital salon was the header video, which shows images of the Golden Age of Piracy with an overlay of a waving black sail. All photos, including the pictures in the video, were either from Wikimedia Commons or sources otherwise.

As the reader scrolls through the Frontispiece, the reader comes to a series of text boxes that link to three critical areas of research, the thesis, evidence, and analysis that make up the backbone of the website. The images included in the text boxes are ornamentations from Captain Charles Johnson’s A General History of the Pyrates. As this text formulated much of my research, I wanted to include the beautiful ornamentation that I had come to know and love in my readings.

The reader then comes to a miniature “about” section, preceding the more in-depth separate page with navigational links. These sections allow the reader to quickly learn about the class, as well as the creator of the site. If the reader clicks on the links, they go to my digital portfolio or the Agnes Scott History Department website. These links allow the website to function not only as a research project but as an advertisement for Agnes Scott and myself as a content creator. Throughout the Frontispiece, as the website logo and icon, I have an image of the Jolly Roger, Calico Jack Rackham’s flag and the most enduring symbol of the Golden Age of Piracy.

About the Project (About Page and Scope)

I chose to include a page introducing the history of the salon, as well as the purpose of the digital salon. The project is not typical, and therefore, the average reader might not understand the reasoning behind the project. I further chose to include the methodology essay, albeit differently formatted, on the about page, so it is readily available to my classmates and the reader.

The page that introduces the scope of my project is when the research behind The Enlightened Pirate is introduced. I begin the page with a quote from noted pirate historian, Phillip Gosse. It was impossible to research the entirety of the Enlightenment, the Golden Age of Piracy, or the connections between them. As I explain on the page, I chose to narrow the research scope for the project based on coursework, primary source documents, secondary source research, as well as geographic range. I also included an image of an engraving from the 1772 edition of Encyclopedie, again, via Wikimedia Commons. After defining the scope of research, I was able to write my thesis and begin researching The Enlightened Pirate.

Research (Thesis, Analysis, and Evidence)

My thesis, as presented on the thesis page, went through several revisions. I wanted to create a thesis that adequately stated what I was attempting to argue but also provided sufficient information for someone casually reading the project. I chose to accentuate the thesis page with a quote found in a valuable secondary source, Bandits at Sea: a Pirates Reader, that informed my research but did not directly make it into any analysis. I also chose to include one of the more complete images we have from A General History of the Pyrates, an engraving by Benjamin Cole that depicts Bartholomew Roberts, and his flag.

Next, I have a category of posts that summarize my research, or, what would be my essay, if this was a traditional research essay. I wrote six posts, three about piracy and the enlightenment, and three about enlightenment philosophers, to best examine the evidence and argue my thesis. I chose to outline the philosophy of the Enlightenment philosophes attending my salon, that is, John Locke and the Right of Rebellion, Immanuel Kant and the Yoke of Nonage, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau and The Social Contract. I then chose to synthesize my argument in three short essays; Enlightened Pirate Democracies; Piracy, Human Nature, and Autonomy; and Freedom, Liberty, Equality, and Pirates. Each post contains links to direct evidence, as located further on the website, as well as footnotes.

I also chose to create images for each post, by combining an image of Enlightenment art, or a portrait of an Enlightenment philosopher, with an overlay of a pirate flag, in the same motif and design style of the video header.

Like the categorical organization of my analysis, I chose to organize primary source evidence in one category, with each piece of evidence having its own post. This system allowed for an efficient tagging and categorizing and allowed me to link back to direct evidence with ease. While I did not upload every piece of evidence utilized, I thought that uploading the primary sources that I found showcased my research abilities.

The Salon

While the Salon page precedes my scope and research on the toolbar, as it was the most in-depth page, I decided to leave it to last in my methodological essay. On this page, I showcase the guests of the salon; with the guests being three Enlightenment philosophers and six pirates. For each guest, I show a portrait, and give a brief biography, alongside essential arguments or accomplishments. For the Philosophers, I link to the posts that further outline their arguments.

I chose Kant, Rousseau, and Locke as guests for my salon because of the similarities in their arguments about autonomy, the human condition, and social contract theory. While each offers a different argument, and in Locke’s case, one that precedes the other two by a century, all of the philosophers chosen created a cohesive base argument for my research.

In regards to pirate guests, I chose the most famous, most successful, and most notorious. This was difficult, and I had to leave out many notable pirates (Edward England, Emmanuel Wynn, Henry Every, Mary Read) to create a concise guest list. I also chose pirates based on the availability of primary and secondary sources on their lives. For instance, while Mary Read may have been more ruthless than Anne Bonny, I chose to showcase Anne Bonny because there were more resources about her life and her actions.

Beneath the guests of the salon, I included one of the most famous images of the salon era, Madame Geoffrin’s Salon, painted by Anicet Charles Gabriel Lemonnier in 1812, again with the imagery of the pirate flag. The text is what would have been my conclusion if this were a traditional research essay. It summarizes the topics discussed at the salon and leaves the reader thought-provoked and interested in learning more.

Biography and Links

The bibliography is separated into primary and secondary sources, just as they would be in a research essay. To keep the dynamics of the rest of the website, I decided to consolidate the bibliography into a file-like widget, which allows the reader to view the full citation of a work, only if they wish. I think this allows the page to be less cluttered, and it also is pretty impressive, if I do say so myself.

Finally, I included a link to my digital portfolio and the Agnes Scott College website, to continue to promote my work and the college.

I really enjoyed creating my digital salon, and I am incredibly proud of my work. I hope you enjoy looking at it and learning more about the Enlightened Pirate!

View The Enlightened Pirate here!

G-d was found in the desert
We wander
Our souls weary and broken
Salt flats cutting into our soles

G-d was found in the desert
Our tongues dry
Our lips cracked, our stomachs empty
Aching, crying

G-d was found in the desert
Of a different kind
The cold winds of a Polish winter
Snow stretching for miles

G-d was found in the desert
In so many deserts
For so many people
For so many years

G-d was found in the desert
Maybe Moses walked here
Where I lay on the pale dirt
A rock pressing into my back

G-d was found in the desert
The night is freezing
I gaze into the stars
A million more than I’ve ever seen before

G-d was found in the desert
Religions are found in the desert
Heritage is found in the desert
And maybe I find myself

G-d was found in the desert, they say, and here, in the desert, I know.

I always hesitated to call myself a writer before this year, which is odd, because all I do is write. All I have ever done is write. From a very young age, I wrote story after story, created whole worlds in my head, wrote fanfiction, and wrote three 50,000-word novels. I wrote a play. I knew, logically, that I was good at writing.

But I would never dare to call myself a writer.

My late grandfather once said, venomously, that all artists were poor. My Nana, his ex-wife, is an artist; she makes beautiful mosaics and paintings. But he is correct: she is poor.

Writing is art. The two have always been equivalents in my head. So it was never a question that I could write professionally, lest I be poor. And I like shopping and take-out too much to be poor.

Then two things happened at once: my play became a finalist out of 18 submissions in a highly competitive writers’ festival, and I took Christine Cozzens’ Creative Nonfiction class.

In a red journal, I take to prompts like a bird to flight. My fingers cramp as I try to scribble every last word my mind springs forth, like an unending well of creativity. I have so many stories to be told, and the rapidly-filling pages of my journal are evidence. I’m a history major, after all. I love evidence.

This is not to say there is no difficulty in Creative Nonfiction. I quite dislike the craft. I’d much rather create characters and draw from my experiences for a dynamic, self-invented plot, rather than dig through my feelings and draw them out on paper. My memory is weak, and in what memories I do have, everything seems exaggerated. I’m a storyteller, a liar, an actress, an inventor: everything I have ever retold is inflated in some shape or form. That leads to a very inaccurate memory.

Still, I am writing, and writing well, and I could not be happier. For once, I felt my confidence in my work was not unearned or exaggerated. Just because I am not a creative writing major, doesn’t mean I can’t call a spade a spade: I am a writer.

I wear the badge proudly, however many sideways glances of annoyance I receive from my peers. I hesitate to take writing classes on campus; students don’t like me, or my ego. They think I’m brash and obnoxious. I can take criticism– when I know, it’s coming from neutrality and not dislike. I feel like an imposter around them. To me, the writers at Agnes Scott College have always seemed egotistical and clique-ish. They have wanted to be writers since the day they stepped foot on this campus. It appeared that, unless I were a major or a Center for Writing and Speaking tutor, I couldn’t dare call myself a writer. I now realize how foolish those thoughts seem.

Now I want to take as many writing classes as I can before I graduate. Before I become an author or a playwright or a dramaturg or whatever I may become, I am first, and foremost, a writer.

My eyes scan the paper once, then once again.

Four sopranos, four tenors, four basses, four altos. A perfectly balanced chamber choir. The same chamber choir I was proud to be a member of since freshman year of high school.

Four sopranos, four tenors, four basses… and three altos.

Tears begin to run down my face. My hands begin to shake. My eyes scan the paper again and again as if the innocent, white printer paper is playing a trick on me.

Surely, there was a reason why my name was missing as the fourth alto in my high school’s elite audition-only choir. After three years in this elite, audition-only choir, after five years of singing with the same director, surely there was a reason why my name, Zoe Katz, was left of the sheet of paper that listed the names of the sixteen– fifteen– members of this elite, audition-only choir.

Zoe Katz, a senior, the senior, the student president of the North Oconee High School Choir Program, a devoted singer who spent thousands of hours rehearsing with the same students, the same director, over and over again. Who spent ten years of her life working towards college auditions to become an opera singer, who spent the summer in a choral intensive in Pennsylvania, was left out of the group that would surely book her ticket into the best conservatories in the country.

My choir director rounds the corner, stacks of paper in her hands. I look at her, openly weeping, hot and angry, my face red and swollen. She sighs. She seems apologetic. “Come in my office,” She says. “Let’s talk.”   

—

I sit in the same grey chair in which I have always sat. I have chosen sheet music for concerts here. I have practiced for All-State and Honor Choir auditions here. I have napped here. I’ve even babysat my director’s children here.

I’m still crying. Renee Costigan, my choir director since seventh grade, looks at me. She still seems apologetic.

“You had a bad audition, Zoe.” She says. Her voice is atonal and pitchy, like a missed note on black keys. She has wild, black, tangled hair and a lazy eye that seems to follow you when you mess up a measure of sight reading. When she talks, spittle forms on her lips, and when her back is turned, focused on the piano or sheet music, teenagers mock her relentlessly about these attributes. I used to defend her or tell them to knock it off. Now, I want to stand alongside my peers and make fun of a grown woman who seemingly doesn’t brush her hair.

I tell her I don’t understand. She knows I have audition anxiety; she’s heard me sing for five years, it’s my senior year, come on, Mrs. Costigan, please, you know me.

She remains resolute. I gave a bad audition.

I tell her it makes no sense. Why have an unbalanced group? Why four sopranos, four tenors, four basses, and three altos? The same sixteen people sang together last year. We received awards and praise. Why the change now? Why fifteen?

“You can still remain involved in choir. You can still be president.” She says as if this consolation prize is not using my time and talents to take advantage.

I look at her. The same face I have looked at for five years, the same face that has smiled at me as I win a solo or receive an award or nail an audition. She had held my hand when I dumped my first boyfriend. She has promised to write me letters of recommendation. Those letters are the key to college applications. The key to my college auditions. The key to my future.

Wetness has dampened the collar of my shirt. I can barely see her face– the face I trusted– because of my vision clouding with tears. It’s my senior year.

Later, I will regret the next few minutes. Later, I will feel pride when I think back to what I am about to do. Later, I will find new passions, evolve and grow not only as a student and as a human, but as an artist. Later, I will feel grateful that I spent my senior year discovering playwriting and directing and European History, rather than agonizing over the approval of a woman who would never matter, in the long run. Later, later, later.

Now, I look at Renee Costigan. With my voice thick, stuck in the back of my throat from mucus and anger, I call her a fucking bitch and leave.

A fucking bitch.

There go those letters of recommendation.

In their usual restaurant, with their usual menus and their usual table, their usual waiter, in her black apron and loose tie, asked for their drink orders, Alan ordered waters, instead of their usual beers.

Laura was pregnant, which was not usual, and as they sat in that restaurant, waiting for their spaghetti with clam sauce, they discussed the name for their baby, soon to arrive, a little boy or girl who would change their lives forever.

This baby kicked incessantly and never seemed to stop moving. This baby who, even before seeing the light of day, was already a handful. This baby was a miracle, as, perhaps, all babies are, and his or her name was a point of contention between Alan and Laura. As, perhaps, all baby names are.

Alan wanted a boy named Harry. It made sense– his grandfather was a Harry, her grandfather was a Harry– they could kill two birds with one stone, and honor both of them with one kid. Laura hated the name Harry. Their son would be Harry Katz, and that was a kid waiting to be teased. Still, she relented.

Laura wanted a girl named Zoë. She loved the name ever since she was a teenager. Alan was against it– how could a computer ever type the two dots above the E? It wasn’t practical.

They were interrupted by a woman one table over. She turned in her chair, a smile on her face.

“I hate to interrupt,” She said, “but my daughter is named Zoe. And she is one of the most beautiful, vibrant, joyous girls to live. Zoe is a beautiful name– did you know it means life in Greek?”

So it was settled. They would name the baby Zoe– if they dropped the diacritic. And a few months later, Harrison John Katz was born.

Three years later, my parents finally got to use the name Zoe. To me, the name Zoe has always been so fitting, so beautiful, that I could never imagine anything else. But I nearly wasn’t Zoe– my parents had an entire other name picked out, for a boy who was never born. They had picked out such a meaningful name for my brother, that surely they would choose one equally as beautiful for their second son.

They chose Greg.

Greg.

Why the hell would they choose Greg? I didn’t know a single Greg. I had no uncles, nor grandfathers named Greg. I didn’t even know any strangers named Greg. To me, the name seemed so pedestrian, so dissimilar to the whimsy of Zoe, that it was almost offensive.

My brother had Zoe (Zoe!) as a backup. And I had Greg?

Even my sister, who was born six years after me, had two beautiful, meaningful given names. If she were a girl, she would be Frances, honoring my great-grandmother who passed away a few months before she was born. If she were a boy, she would be Noah, the leader of the ark, the forefather of Judaism, the man who entered into the first covenant with G-d.

But I had Greg.

Gregs do not change the world. Gregs do not make art, nor write symphonies, nor become president. There are no king Gregs. There are no statues to Gregs. Sure, there is plenty of beauty and honor in the name Gregory, but I wouldn’t be called Gregory. I would be called Greg.

Who would Greg Katz be? Would he be as comedic as I? As attention-seeking? A middle child, waiting for the spotlight, with a flair for the dramatic and an astounding ability to mismanage money? Would he be a good son? A good student? A good person? Or would he be as ordinary as his name?

Would the world be the same, if there was never a Zoe Katz in it?

Thankfully, I am not Greg Katz. Just as my sister is not Noah, nor is my brother Zoe. Just as you are not Will, or Anne, or Sonya, or James.

I am Zoe, the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew Eve, born of the Hellenization of the wandering Jews. A name, like Eve, is G-d-given, birthed from the ashes, fertilized in the soil of the garden of Eden. I am Zoe, and all the vibrancy and hope that name carries. I have grown into this immense, expressive name, the name of queens, of stars, of the mother of life itself. I am the humidity of the August day I was born. I am the laughter I cause, and the tears that I cry. I am the infinite sadness and optimism and multitudes that exist within me.

But somewhere, I am Greg. A name I once thought of as pedestrian. As boring. As unimportant. I am Greg, who, I learned, was my father’s best friend from college. Greg, who was just as full of life and laughter as I am today. A man that passed away, lymph-nodes cancerous and swollen, too young, taken before his time.

I am Zoe. But more importantly, I was almost Greg.

This essay was written for ENG-208, Intro to Non-Fiction Writing and was selected as an example of the best work in the class. The prompt was to write an essay about your name to introduce yourself to the class.