Bloomsday in Melbourne

It started with my friend Susan posting a comment on Facebook about where she would be on June 16 – in Melbourne at Bloomsday. I responded that I was envious (after looking up what exactly Bloomsday is) and told her that I wished I could be there.

Because at that point, I wasn’t sure if I was coming back to Australia.

But then I was.

But then, she wasn’t going to be able to make it to Melbourne for the festivities.

But then, she did. And it was perfect because Bloomsday is a celebration of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses. Her connection with Joyce is visceral, partly fueled by her heritage (her entire family is Irish, and many still live in Ireland). After finding the book when she was a young girl, she was immediately fascinated by it and vowed to one day understand the language she found beautiful but baffling. She studied Joyce at Berkeley. Wrote her thesis on it. Has been to Dublin. Retraced his characters’ steps.

On June 16, the day that Leopold Bloom set forth on his journey through Dublin, cities all over the world set about “re-Joycing,” presenting plays, readings, lectures, classes and so on.  Of course, there are those who travel to Dublin and duplicate his journey, in fact, that’s how the whole thing started in 1954. The Bloomsday in Melbourne Committee marked the day with a play adapted from the text of the final chapter in the novel, “Penelope.”  At first glance, Joyce’s stream of consciousness would appear ideal for theatrical adaptation. But Joyce’s Penelope, Molly Bloom, is static throughout the entire chapter, her thoughts shared with the reader after she’s retired to bed. As the director said in her introduction to the play, “A woman. On a bed. Forty-four pages.” But the adaptation worked. Five characters – including a man in lacy bloomers, chemise and corset – played Molly, representing each aspect of her character. A photo of the set heads this post.

My navigation of the tram system has improved since my last visit, so we made our way through the blustery (read: windy and freekin’ cold) Melbourne day to the Trades Hall.  The hall sits on the corner of Victoria and Lygon Streets, straddling the Central Business District and the gentrified suburb of Carlton with its trendy restaurants and shops.  It was built in the 1870s to be the headquarters for Melbourne’s trade unions, and still serves that purpose. We climbed the stairs to one of the hall’s ballrooms, directly across from another that had a stage full of band equipment on one end of the room, a full bar at the other.  We agreed that the setting, complete with the pong of stale beer and urine, was ideal for the staging of a Joyce event.

Susan is much more on top of this whole timely posting thing than I am and shared this on her Tumblr blog the next day. In the post she said, “if you have to ask you don’t get it.” I would amend that (because I did sort of ask) to: “If you have to ask, you don’t get it – yet. And want to.”

After the performance and before the lecture, we spoke briefly with Francisca (or Frances?), a lovely woman sporting short silver hair, a brocade jacket and a long plum velveteen skirt. She is one of the founders of the festival, and pointed out that 2012 is a big year. The novel has reached its 90^th anniversary since publication and the heir has just lost copyright. Next year, adapting pieces of the novel won’t be such a big deal.

One of the other founders, Philip Harvey in a jaunty green and white Tattersall plaid shirt, introduced Professor John Gatt-Rutter who presented his research. The professor is not an expert on Joyce, but discussed the evidence that points to Joyce using his friend Ettore Schmitz, better known by the pseudonym and nom de plume Italo Svevo, as a model for Leopold Bloom.  Schmitz was a student of Joyce’s in Trieste and was also a writer. Joyce championed his work, and Gatt-Rutter says that he is now regarded as one of the best Italian novelists of the 20^th century.

I enjoyed reading Ulysses. I “got” it. I could follow. But then I would doze off. Okay, stop laughing. What I mean is that Joyce’s characters’ stream of consciousness is hypnotic. Reading Ulysses is like driving on a long, straight highway and watching the white lines instead of the horizon. The blur is mesmerizing, and each line has its own life span as it dashes past, but looking at the lines is looking at the details instead of the greater image – a driver gets pulled in to that world of white flashes. Before you know it, you’re off the road.

Reading Ulysses is an experience in completely giving oneself to the language and inner workings of mind. (You notice that I didn’t say “the characters’ minds.”) The work is fascinating, not only for what it tells us about us, but for what it tells us about Joyce. I suppose that is true to an extent about all books, depending upon the skill with which they are constructed, but in this case, the author is ever-present.

There are times, like Bloomsday, where I feel woefully inadequate as a writer. That concern comes not only from reading the work of a master, but also from the gaps in other literary reading. I was not an English lit major, but a theater major. I did not read Joyce – I read O’Neill. And O’Casey.  And Beckett (which I guess is sort of like reading Joyce…). I read theatrical literature: plays. So thankfully, I know the story of Ulysses as told over and over by so many writers.  Best-selling novel The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Nefenegger also told the story from Penelope’s point of view, but certainly not Joyce’s Penelope, Molly Bloom. Molly is a wonder unto herself.

Since this site is dedicated to the concept of home, it’s worth mentioning that Joyce left Dublin in his early twenties and never returned, choosing instead to live in Trieste, Paris and Zurich. In fact, his remains do not reside in Ireland – his grave is in Switzerland. Ironically, the Irish government refused Nora Joyce’s request to have his body transferred back to Dublin shortly after his death. Although Joyce rejected Dublin, all of his fiction is set there.  He said that he always wrote about Dublin because he felt if he could get to the heart of that city, he could understand anything: “In the particular is contained the universal.” If it is true (as Napoleon reportedly said) that geography is destiny, then Joyce helped prove that maxim.

Coburg

   It is Sunday morning (Saturday around 6 p.m. for my Pacific Standard Time friends) and I have just returned from my marketing in Coburg. I am currently housesitting (and cat sitting) for a lovely couple – the daughter of a couple I stayed with in Bendigo last December.   Many of you know my hesitation in coming back to Australia this year. The email from J’s daughter tipped the scales and here I am, happily ensconced in a nearly new three bedroom with my very own room and bath, full kitchen with lots of pots and pans to use (some of which I don’t quite know what to do with) and a couple who has urged me to help myself to the perishables in the refrigerator and the pantry. Say no more.

  The house where I’m staying is just a few blocks from the train station and shops. Shops with names like Ottoman Kabobs and Pizza, Pantheon Cakes, Parthenon Shoes, Continental Groceries, Dong Natural Therapies, etc. line the Coburg section of Sydney Road, a main north-south artery.  There is also a plethora of Asian-owned variety stores where a person can find everything from salad spinners to ladies’ girdles. My stops this morning included the fruit and veg stand (a kilo of mandarin oranges for $1.99; a kilo of gigantic navel oranges for $0.99), Crystal Bakery (a terrific apricot Danish), Coles supermarket (various and sundry items) and finally to Al Alamy,(which in Arabic translates to “world of foods”) a grocery and café that has the very best flat white in the area. Joey and George, the baristas there, have memorized my order. So far I’ve received two free coffees. Not sure what that’s about, but I’m grateful for the treat.

   Melbourne reminds me of the American Midwest – specifically, Kansas City, where I lived for 16 years. Much of the architecture is of the same mid-19th Century vintage. And the other day I smelled something that was vaguely familiar, something that evoked a feeling of nostalgia … fallen leaves. Maple leaves, actually.  I’ve lived in the southern California desert so long that I have almost forgotten that there are places where trees lose their leaves.

   I do have responsibilities while I’m here, though. Actually a responsibility named Willow, who is an adorable (if a little needy) kitty-cat. I arrived to an empty house, but knew that there was a cat in residence. After a couple hours moving a suitcase, using the bathroom, getting comfortable, no feline showed up to investigate, so I deduced that the cat was outside or in hiding under a bed. Turns out that she was where she usually is – hidden under blankets on the couch. And I do mean under.  I had to pull back her covers to get the photograph. When she’s out from under, she’s talking to me about being hungry, or needing to go out or wanting attention. She’s quite content sitting on my lap while I work. Makes it harder to reach the keyboard, but it is cozy.

   I arrived Melbourne and was greeted by the worst weather they’d seen so far this Fall – 9 degrees C (about 48 F) and raining cats, dogs and ponies. For all that, I was still grateful to be out the Sonoran Desert, where the temperature was 104 the day I left. And even though I’ve been cold a great deal of the time since I’ve been here, Mom had a point when she said that you can always put on enough clothing to get warm, but you can never take off enough to get cool. True. The photo to the right is a view down O'Hea Street looking toward Sydney Road.

   In the past weeks, I’ve spent a good deal of time working on queries and scouting out how to make my blog better. In fact, there just happened to be a writers’ conference in progress when I arrived and I participated in a class concerning that specific topic.  Don’t worry – you won’t really notice anything besides a new look. My readers should also find it much easier to get email updates and so on. There might be a RunNorthGoWest Facebook page in the works, too, so all of you will have to Like RNGW on Facebook.

More soon – about Blooms Day.

And Back Again

   ‘Round about April 1, I started getting really antsy, the sort of restlessness that some have called wanderlust, but in my case, I’m not so sure. That will be a discussion for another time.

   As my friends have told me, I’m a doer, and I felt that I wasn’t doing much of anything. I was staying with my brother and sister-in-law in Phoenix. I had prepared a good proposal and sent it to several agents in hopes of having someone invest in my book project so that I could return to Australia with more money in my pocket. I had also sent off many applications for work, and even tested with a temporary agency that was quite optimistic about placing me. Nothing. In all of this, I was plagued with doubt about what I should be doing. Sometimes on a morning walk I would pass an apartment complex, the sort that is a series of boxes dressed up to look like something classier. People walked their dogs, moved in, moved out, nearly fell down the stairs carrying too many boxes, struggled to fit the box spring around the corner. I watched these people living their lives, becoming  inordinately depressed, because I imagined myself getting a job, moving into one of those boxes, trying to get my piano up the stairs.

   My sister-in-law and I became good friends during this time, and I would share some of my frustrations – and fears – with her. I know that there were times that she noticed my swollen eyes after a particularly anxiety-filled day. I was working my plan, being responsible, mapping things out, determined to do this the right way. I talked to my oldest sister, who has always been supportive of my dreams. I talked to my other sister, who is analytical by nature, but told me, hey, if this is your dream, you better do it. And my brother, no stranger to risk, who farmed for years and runs his own business, said pretty much the same thing. My sister-in-law, when I confessed so much doubt, said “stay the course.” And finally, my brother, who is an engineer and whose life has been lived in concrete and sequential terms said, “I think you should go for it.”  I also spoke with the dogs about these issues, but found that they were more interested in what they thought was going on outside.

    My friends asked when I was going back. I told them , it depends on this. And that. And this and that. One day I confessed to one that I had plenty in the bank to buy a ticket, and maybe I should just do that.

   And still, I didn’t do it.

   Finally, during a visit to Rancho Mirage I spoke with my spiritual advisor. We sat down together and I started explaining what was going on, how there wasn’t a job and there wasn’t an agent, but there was a great proposal, and that everything was in place except the balance of the savings account.  She listened. Asked a few questions. As I answered them I understood that (once again) the only one getting in the way was me.  I started laughing (a little hysterically) and surrendered.

   Shortly after that, an Internet search revealed a pretty good one-way fare to Melbourne. My travel agent found one that was $200 more good. I bought it. After which my dear friend M. pointed out, “Hey – it’s the leap of faith, not the fall of faith.”  I’m counting on that.

   Part of that leap was letting my car go. Little Ms. Putt now has the honor of being a young girl’s first car. Her Mom has a Beemer, so does her grandmother and her aunt, and her cousin … they know what she’s getting into. Her dad has a detailing business, so Ms. P. will always look good.  It is the last remnant from my old life.

   A couple weeks before I left, my sisters and I had a weekend together, just the three of us. We goofed off, ate too much. I bought a pair of earrings that I didn’t need but were too nice to leave for a stranger; K. found a really cool vintage dress and K. found a plate to add to her ceramic collection. We visited and went ice skating and got awesome foot rubs and visited museums. I cried when I got on the plane to leave. As much as I wanted to return to Australia, I wanted to cling to something that I no longer have here, and maybe never had, if I even know what it is. One thing I know for sure: leaving feels different this time.

   Since June 2011, I have lived in 21 different places, some only for a couple nights, others for a few months. In just a couple weeks, it will be a year since all of my possessions have been in storage and I have not had a lease. To those of you who have supported my goals and dreams by sharing your homes and lives with me, thank you.

   And to those of you who will be allowing me to stay with you in the next year, I can’t wait to meet you.

   It starts in Melbourne.

Living' in the U.S.A.

(Note:  Most of you know that I have already returned to Australia, but I feel as though I’m leaving some blanks here, and wanted to fill them in. So here’s a bit of info about my return to the States and my stay with KAT in Phoenix. Don’t worry, we’ll get back to the Australia stuff in a few days.)

   I couldn’t help but think of the Chuck Berry song as I landed at LAX, even though I hadn't been longing for Los Angeles. Berry actually wrote the tune on a return flight from Australia in the late '50s after seeing the living conditions of the Aboriginies.  Despite that bleak motivation, it’s a catchy tune, and, after all, I was glad to be done with a 13-hour flight.

   And things were different here. Or things seemed different. The most apparent different thing was the attitude of the Customs agents, especially the woman who hustled those of us who were sitting back in steerage out of the bathroom, all the while grinning at us like she knew we couldn’t be rude back to her. And guns. Lots of guns.  And strutting. Plenty of strutting going on down there as well.

   It’s not that I didn’t run across rude or stupid people in Australia or New Zealand. And yes, Australian police carry side arms. I understand that the New Zealand cops do not, but I never saw a single officer when I was over there, even though my hostel in Rotorua was a mere three blocks from the station.

   And rudeness. A boat-load of rudeness, too, with the exception of the final guy who stamped my passport and let me back into the U.S. after saying that he’d look for my book. Cool. Thanks, dude. (I didn’t tell him that I, too, am looking for my book.)

   Along the way, I couldn’t help but make a mental list of the things I did not miss: Rude rental car agents; L.A. traffic; the Inland Empire (an odd name for such a bleak place); landscape the color of putty; snowbird driving habits. However, I did miss my friends and my BMW, and happily, a friend was waiting with my car when I returned the under-powered 4-cylinder Cube I had rented to the Palm Springs airport Hertz.

   Describing the feeling of being back is difficult, especially since I spent most of the flight knowing that I wanted to stay. In fact, I had discussed returning to Melbourne in February and staying an additional month. I didn’t, and now I’m glad I didn’t. Money was scarce for the past few months, I didn’t find employment like I thought I would, and faced little besides frustration in the U.S. I can’t imagine the nightmare of facing all of that in a foreign country.

  As it was, I spent a couple weeks in Rancho Mirage with a very gracious friend, who really has gone above and beyond in terms of allowing me to stay in her home for weeks (months) at a time. The weeks allowed me to visit my things in storage, say hello, pet them a little bit, assure them that I hadn’t forgotten about them.  The best part: getting different clothing. How many of you have worn the same few pieces of clothing for 107 days? Two pairs of jeans, two tank tops, two skirts, two t-shirts, two cardigans, a zip-up hoodie. A pair of boots, a pair of running shoes, a pair of flip-flops. That’s it. That’s all. I left a stack of clothing in the hotel room in Auckland with a note on top, “Free to a good home.” I couldn’t bear to see that white hoodie and that print cardigan ever again. Ever.

   In two weeks, I had switched out my wardrobe (high heels again – hallelujah!) and arranged to spend a couple months at my brother and sister-in-law’s place in Phoenix. My mission was to find work, save a bunch of money, query agents and editors and maybe get interest in a book, then return to Melbourne in late May/early June. It was a good plan.

Glow Worms and Back to Auckland

    I really wanted to stay another day in Rotorua, especially since I had spent so much time goofing around with the gondola and luge thing and didn’t get to see all that the museum had on offer. The exhibits at the museum were terrific, and I had only one hour to try to take in the Brian Brake photography as well as the building itself, as well as the Maori exhibit, which is one of the best I’ve seen since I’ve been here, co-created by Te Papa museum in Wellington. But the coach pulled up and Brian the driver was full of information. In fact, all the way up to the Waitomo caves to see the glow worms, there was a running commentary on just about everything from kiwi fruit to what the three fisherman on the bridge caught today, and after a while I wanted him to just be quiet. When he wasn’t talking, he played informational DVDs, much like History Channel specials, all about the Maori people and their resistance to the British invasion. (And I don’t mean the four Brits with funny haircuts.) But. I might have enjoyed my visit to New Zealand a little bit more had I ridden along with Brian earlier in my stay.

    As Brian turned the coach toward the highway, he informed us all that we had slept last night in the bottom of a volcano. Of course, I knew that but didn’t think of it in those terms. I suppose it’s a bit like living in California and knowing that the San Andres fault (among others) is right out your back door, but not deliberating the fact too closely.  After all, the Central Volcanic Plateau is still active, but active in geological terms. So we climbed 1100 feet out of the volcano over mountains that form the dividing line between the Bay of Plenty and Waikoto regions of New Zealand.

    The region from the Bay of Plenty to the Waikoto River is called King Country and boasts the largest man-made fort in the southern hemisphere, made when the Maori resisted the British in the 1860s. The story starts long before then, however, in 1814 when the Maori and Brits signed the Treaty of Waitangi. The essentials of the document dictate that the Maori grant sovereignty to Queen Victoria, that the Maori in return would be protected by the British military against all other hostile invaders and finally, that they would retain possession of lands they already held. The last item was what caused the problems.

    In 1858, in an effort to consolidate and organize power, Maori tribes united to choose their first King. Most British officers saw this as an effort to resist Crown sovereignty. It was – but it was also an effort to keep other tribal leaders from selling land to the British. A rumor started that the Maori in King Country had already built a road to Auckland and were going to attack. In reality, it was Governor George Grey who had built a road from Auckland out to King Country, and was planning an attack. As much as Grey wanted peace (he had presided over territory wars in the 1840s) he did not want to share power with the Maori.  He had already sent an SOS to England, who sent 13,000 troops who were joined by an additional 2,000 Europeans and another 2,000 Australians. This force was sent out against 5,000 Maori men. The total Maori population in the 1860s was around 50,000 men, women and children. In modern terms, that’s like a force of 1 million invading New Zealand.

    The end result was that the British seized many more acres of land that were supposed to be in Maori hands, and had been at the time of the Treaty of Waitangi. Maori petitioned for the land to be returned. The British refused, and kept refusing. In the late ‘60s, Maori marched from the tip of the North Island and from the bottom of the South Island, converging on the capital, Wellington, where they demonstrated. In the early 1970s, they mounted a legal case. It took until the 1990s for the suit to go all the way to London to the High Court (which is the highest level of appeal in New Zealand). They won. A tribunal was assembled to investigate land claims, and still functions, unraveling claims from up to 200 years ago. Many Maori have had lands restored to them and are active in agriculture, fisheries, tourism, etc.

    All of this information was offered by Brian in as we drove through lush pastoral land, finally arriving at the Waitomo Caves, home of glow worms. The entire way, I had been humming the old Mills Brothers song that I remember my mother singing. And I have to say that the caves were … a disappointment. Yes, there were stalactites and stalagmites and lovely formations of limestone, a grand cathedral type room. Perhaps it was our tour guides’ monotonecontinuouscommentarythatwasruntogetherasallonewordexceptwhenhepausedtotakeaquick breath… andstartagain. Plus, we weren't allowed to take photos. The picture at the top is the exit of the cave...that's the only thing we could photograph other than the visitor center. Which was nice, but I refuse to include it here. Just a matter of principle.

    The experience just didn’t live up to the hype. The caves are owned by the family of one of the original discoverers, and they haven’t missed any opportunity to make a profit. Admission is not cheap, a gift shop offers loads of expensive New Zealand merchandise and their restaurant does a brisk business what with all the tour buses coming and going. A brief boat ride at the end of the tour offered a completely dark and silent opportunity to see the glow worms doing their thing – glowing – at the top of the cave. I tried to get excited about it, but just couldn’t. The most entertaining part of the tour was the young Indian man who was right beside me every time I turned around, sat behind me on the boat, and then tried to convince me that his coach was the right one – after all, it was going to Auckland. I had to explain that it wasn’t the same driver, and that my coach was across the street.

    Back in Auckland, I found the Air Bus shuttle out to the airport, where I then got another shuttle to my hotel, retrieved my bag from storage and repacked for the trip home. A six o’clock morning flight meant I had to be on the four o’clock a.m. shuttle to the international terminal. First leg of the trip was to Sydney, where I sat from 7:30 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. because the 12:15 p.m. flight had been changed months ago, but I guess passengers are the last to know, and what the hell, I was there anyway.  I finally boarded the flight to Los Angeles and frantically typed notes on everything I could remember so that I wouldn’t put off doing my blog entries. I worked until my computer battery was gone, and then tried to sleep a little while.

Another song that I dimly remember my mother singing ... couldn't find a recording, but here are the words. If anyone knows where to find the music, or who actually wrote the song, I'd love to attribute it to someone!

The earth was wet with the dew of the dawn
As the warm scented air swept over the lawn
A big ol' worm came out of the ground
To see the world and to look around

And as he gazed at the azure sky
Another little worm came up nearby
Said he, with a wiggle, “You’re a cute little worm,
Let’s you and I go out for a squirm
I could easily fall in love with you
If you’ll condescend to a rendezvous.”

But the cute little worm just shook its head
And to the big ol' worm it said,
“No rendezvous between us two
Because I’m the other end of you.”