Many creation myths (including in the Bible) portray a struggle between chaos and order. In Union Square those two forces are personified in sisters Jenny and Lucy.

We first meet Lucy who is a whirlwind of activity and emotion. She has come to Manhattan to connect with the married man she has been having an affair with (or perhaps only fantasizes that she has been). He is not at all cooperative about getting together with her. In her meltdown from rejection, she goes to her sister Jenny's apartment. Jenny is not happy to see her. Jenny has cut herself off from the family for the last few years. She is as ordered and disciplined as Lucy is free-wheeling. Once Lucy gets into the apartment, she decides she'll stay a few days (uninvited) and even begins inviting others to visit. Add to this Jenny's fiancè and the stage is set for the battle to play out yet again.

Naturally our first impressions may not last. We think we understand why Jenny has left her past behind. Lucy is so disruptive, that there is no pleasure in this reunion. But as the story develops, we begin to see Jenny as cold and distant. It is not just that she hasn't had contact with her family, she has been lying about them to her fiancè—telling him that they live in Maine and never come down to New York. (Actually, they are in the Bronx and just forty minutes away on the train.)

The two sisters each need a bit of what the other has. Lucy's life is very out of control. She needs a calming influence, but Jenny doesn't seem interesting in helping. Jenny has so distanced herself from nearly everyone that she spends most of her time in her apartment selling products online. She has not only walled off her family, but the rest of the world as well.

For most of us, that struggle between order and chaos is an internal battle. We want to be free like Lucy, but we also want to have the control of our lives like Jenny. Many people choose one of these epic forces as their model, others may alternate between them or even try to blend them. The ways we find to have those forces in our lives are really how that mythic struggle that so many cultures see in their primal stories is lived out. The stories of creation are not always about long ago. They can be the stories of our lives.