Happpy Bloomsday

When I think about Bloomsday I'm reminded of my mom.

 I should explain that yes?

Well years ago the Joyce scholar Edmund Epstein  (CUNY Queens per the internet)  lived in Port Washington and would during the summer have a private class in his home and read Ulysses aloud  pointing out themes what Joyce was doing at that moment et al – it was actually more like a book group with a professor in it – different folks brought food each week (during  the rest of the year they would read Tolstoy or the Magic Mountain. Anyway Mom was a regular in the group and that summer (I forget just when) she asked if I would like to try It seeing as he was just starring Ulysses up again – (he would keep reading it until he finished and then start again sort of a slow motion Bloomsday) .

So if I remember there were about 15 people and Edmund was just starting the book and pointing out that this was the worst day of Stephen’s young life.  He had not prayed at his mother’s deathbed and now months later he is sick and miserable and feeling guilty as hell. ‘He feels so bad ‘Edmund said ‘that he won’t even let himself feel bad’

This statement brought an interesting reaction from the group – many were utterly baffled by the idea but Mom and I (who I think were the only folks of Irish background in the group) understood perfectly what he mean – hell we had both been there in our lives.  The sense that you are so awful that you don’t even deserve the release of feeling bad.

I’ve come to call that Irish guilt or existential shame perhaps – anyway the sense that it’s not that you have done something wrong and feel bad about it (which is just guilt) but that you are inherently flawed and should be feeling guilty about that.

And that’s why Bloomsday reminds me of my Mom.