Bloomsday Revisited

Ulysses
by James Joyce
"O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the fig trees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rose gardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."

I have read Joyce, but not this Joyce. God knows I've tried (sort of) but it was too much for me. The reputation of Ulysses had preceded it, of course, most recently in a series of NPR interviews a year or so ago. People were asked what fluff they were reading over the summer, and at the end of the interview they were asked what serious book they would read if they had all the time in the world. More than one interviewee claimed it would be Ulysses. So when a free paperback copy presented itself to me I took up the tome and gave it a go. Either those people in the interviews were big fat liars or they didn't really know any more about the book than I did. And I thought Gertrude Stein was a challenge!

Anyway, today is Bloomsday after the hero of the book, Leopold Bloom, and it celebrates the single day in which the entire story takes place, in Dublin, in 1904. "Joyceans" all over the world are celebrating with staged readings and all manner of merry-making. I'm sorry, but I don't get it. Call me a Philistine.

But if you like Joyce, here's a poem for you.

Jimmy I Hardly Knew Ye

O and I am like a cloud kissed dew drop in Seattle all damp and smooth a stone lapped in the shallows of the lake where sun dappled bees dip their tiny feet in pools of cool liquid gold and fire upon a green and pleasant hill where I dreamed of a long ago popsicle banana or possibly grape and how the two halves broke across the middle instead of along the seam and I cried because my brother ran away with the sticks and left me only the melting top half sticky and sweet running down my fingers like watery blood as it was actually cherry not banana or grape and I said no and no again and ran after but he only laughed and I dropped the wet sticky mess on the sidewalk where it melted like like a popsicle on a hot sidewalk.

June 16, 2009

Seattle

This is my friend Greg's condo on Lake Washington, where I am temporarily parked. Not too shabby.

Everything is lush and colorful here. I can't possibly take pictures of all the beautiful flowers. I'd never have time for anything else.

Dig this purple daylily.

I believe this is St. John's Wort, the stuff I used to take in capsule form when I was going through menopause. If you're depressed and irritable you might try some. You'll need it after you read Joyce.