Bloomsday

The primary significance for me of June 16th it that is my nephew, Jacob Weed's, birthday. He's nine years old and when I spoke to him earlier this morning, he was excavating tyrannosaur bones from a brick of plaster. My sister, Heather, said his birthday celebration already began on Saturday with a party: since Catherine believes that birthdays are supposed to last a whole week (if not the entire month), then he still has at least four more days to enjoy.

Today is also, of course, the day in which all of the events in James Joyce's novel, Ulysses, take place. I have begun reading the novel three times over the years: each time I try, I get a little further along but still have yet to slog through more than a hundred pages or so before I put it down again. Here in NYC, there are readings from the novel at Symphony Space by famous actors; Catherine and I tell ourselves every year that next year we're going... but somehow we never manage to get it together (to be fair, this year we've been given tickets to see A Midsummer Night's Dream at the New York City Ballet because our friends, Eric and Anne, were appalled that neither of us has ever seen any classical ballet performed live).

While I won't be able to hear them spoken (and I would love to hear Barbara Feldon's take—in addition to having had a big ol' crush on Agent 99 in my youth, I think she's still got one of the sexiest voices in the business), I would like to share the last few lines of Molly Bloom's famous soliloquy that ends the novel. The entire text of the speech can be found here and the online version of the novel is here.

O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and the pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens 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.

Melvin G. Rowell, Jr.

My cousin, Mel, died today from cancer. My dad said that when the nurse came in to insert a catheter just a day ago, even heavily drugged for his pain, Mel was still cracking jokes for her. And that was pure Mel: a generous soul who always saw the humor in life. It's surprising in some ways because he was someone who was plagued with health problems for as long as I can remember. Some people allow their obstacles to turn them bitter and angry; others refuse to give into that (understandable) impulse and instead focus on the needs of others. In Mel's case, he became a pastor at a small, rural church outside Dallas—so small that he had to work as an electrician in order to pay his bills. But I don't imagine he minded it all that much: he was someone of great faith and I have no doubt that he felt this was where he was needed most.

When we were kids, my sisters and I enjoyed the times when we went down to Houston to see my dad's brother and his family or when they came to visit us in Fort Worth. Some of that was our ages: Mel and his sister, Naomi, were almost exactly the same age as me and Kelly; I think Melody may be right between Heather and Ellen, my two youngest sisters. We also got to see each other more often than my mother and her siblings (they all lived further away, in Missouri and California). I don't remember any awkwardness whenever we were all reunited: it seems as though we all jumped out of the car and started playing, picking up again where we'd left off in our last visit. Even as teenagers with fewer common interests, I still looked forward to seeing Mel and catching up on where his life was taking him.

Since we've become adults, however, we've had few opportunities to be together: my uncle Gene got a promotion that took the family to Florida while I was in college and although Mel eventually moved back to Texas, that was around the time I came to New York. Mel was at Catherine's and my wedding in 1993 and I have a silly photo of him posing "drunk on champagne" (he wasn't, of course). The last time I saw Mel and his wife, Pam, was in 1995, all too briefly, at our grandmother's funeral.

And still, I'll miss him more than I can say.

Hannah Grace Weed

Heather tells the story of their big day in China on her blog.