Always June

A MONTH WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

My husband Gerry and I spent the first eleven days of this month in Australia, somewhere we had never been before. On June 1st, Gerry was driving us to the airport, while I sat quietly in the passenger's seat browsing through my latest Martha Stewart magazine. No sooner had I marked the above page with a little bookmark than my friend Katie texted me the following visual:

"Thought you'd like this quote from The Oprah Magazine.
Happy June!"

I wish it were a bit more legible, but take a closer look at the caption under the summer fruit and you'll find the exact same passage from Lucy Maud Montgomery. I loved the idea that at the exact same moment, Katie -- at her desk taking a break from her writing -- and I -- in the car on the way to Indianapolis -- were connected through our reading of these beautiful summery words from Anne of the Island, used in one case to illustrate the perfect summer bike ride, and in another to accompany an array of delicious seasonal berries and peaches.

I took a quick photo of the page in front of me and texted it back to Katie: "Funny coincidence. I brought along Martha Stewart Living to look at in the car on the way to the airport. Just got to this page then took a break to check my phone and got your message with Oprah page. Could it be that both magazines share the same literary editor?!"

Katie replied with her usual charm: "You were obviously meant to be seeing that great quote today! Happy June and happy travels!"

Red Leaf at
The Chinese Garden of Friendship
Sydney, Australia ~ June 9, 2017

I'm pretty sure that we readers from the northern hemisphere know exactly what L. M. Montgomery means when she wonders "what it would be like to live in a world where it was always June." She means, if only it could always be summertime!

Likewise James Russell Lowell when he asks: "And what is so rare as a day in June? / Then, if ever, come perfect days."

And Emily Dickinson When she exclaims that "My only sketch, profile of heaven is a large blue sky, / larger than the biggest I have seen in June -- and in it are my friends -- all of them -- every one them."

In our prose and in our poetry, June and summer are synonyms! As are October and autumn! Gillian Flynn explains it perfectly: "I had seen the photos . . . always with autumn colors in the background, as if the school were based not in a town but in a month, October." October is practically a place! It's certainly a season.

We know that George Eliot must be thinking of October -- not June -- when she declares: "Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns."

As it turns out, that's kind of what Gerry and I did. We flew around the world and found another autumn! In Sydney, June does not mean summer; it means a very mild and mellow (except for that one really stormy day) late autumn. Even more disconcerting than the 26 - hour time difference and the jet lag, was this sense of what I call season lag. Could it really be coming on to winter but not coming on to Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas?

I guess the reverse was true last December in Medellin,
wearing summer clothes, photographing the tropical plants,
and admiring the Christmas lights without a snowflake in sight.

Yet, somehow my mind could bridge the disconnect of a warm December with greater ease than a chilly June. After all, I've visited Florida in December and seen the poinsettias sitting out on the front porches -- something you could never do in the Midwest! But never before had I seen leaves falling in June! I had to pinch myself a few times as a reminder: yes it is June, yes it is autumn!

An Autumnal Perspective ~ June 9, 2017
The Anglican Cathedral of St Andrew

Sydney Town Hall ~ Constructed 1886
Surrounded by a combination of green trees and fall leaves.
P.S.
Speaking of wandering the globe, Happy Bloomsday!
~ Coming up June 16th ~

The Return of Odysseus
by Romare Bearden (1911 - 1988)

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS ON MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Wednesday, June 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Parallax

A MUSEUM & LIBRARY WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

THE ROSENBACH:
"A WONDERLAND FOR LOVERS OF BOOKS AND ANTIQUES"
Two special days this week:

Tuesday, June 14th: Flag Day, since way back in 1777 (officially established in 1916).

Thursday, June 16th: Bloomsday, ever since 1922, (officially established in 1954).

My maternal grandmother, Rovilla Heidemann Lindsey, died forty - five years ago today, on Flag Day in 1966. That year, like this year, June 14 fell on a Tuesday; and Grandma Lindsey's funeral service was held on Thursday, June 16.


Her husband, my maternal grandfather, Paul Jones Lindsey, died seventeen years later, on Saturday, June 11, almost to the day of my grandmother's death, but not quite. His funeral, however, was also held on the Thursday, June 16. For all those intervening 17 years, Grandpa kept the 1966 calendar hanging on the kitchen wall, turned to June. Every January, he would place the new one on top, but you could always see the 1966 calendar just underneath.

By the time 1983 rolled around, I had read James Joyce's Ulysses several times, studied it thoroughly, and worked as an intern on the James Joyce Quarterly. I was well aware of Bloomsday that summer and the literary significance of my grandparents' two funerals being held not only on the same day of the week and month as each other's, but also on the anniversary of Leopold Bloom's legendary day in Dublin ~ Thursday, June 16, 1904 ~ when he too attended a funeral ceremony. The uncanny coincidence was not lost on me.

I sent a letter to my undergraduate Joyce professor, Jim Barnes, telling him of my grandfather's Bloomsday funeral service and sharing with him the remarkable symmetry of my grandmother's funeral taking place seventeen years earlier, also on Thursday, June 16, way before I knew anything about Bloomsday. I was honored when he wrote back to let me know that he read my note aloud to his Joyce students that summer, as an example of how life can echo art. [My previous posts on Professor & Poet Jim Barnes include: Missouri Poets, Quinton Duval, Tomatoes & Gravy]


I guess that's why I can never let Bloomsday slip by unnoticed, especially when it falls, as it does this year, on a Thursday, something which happens at repeating intervals of every 6 - 11 - 6 - 5 / 6 -11 - 6 - 5 years. If you get a kick (as I do!) out of the Perpetual Calendar, you can easily figure out that the next time June 16 will fall on a Thursday is 2016 (then add 6, 11, 6, 5, and so forth, in order to identify the years to come).

Googling "Bloomsday" has led me to another Quotidian blogger (no! I didn't steal my name from him). Interestingly, he maintains that June 16 can really only be considered Bloomsday when it falls on a Thursday, i.e., every 6, 11, 6, 5 years or so! Calendrically, this idea appeals to me, though it seems a shame to pass up a yearly opportunity to visit the nearest Irish pub -- or perhaps the Rosenbach Museum & Library, if you happen to be in Philadelphia -- in celebration of the life and times and peregrinations of Leopold Bloom.

Bloomsday at the Rosenbach,
#2008 & #2010 Delancey Street, Philadelphia
**************************************

Some Quotations for Bloomsday, by Joyce and others,
in honor of wandering the streets of Dublin, or wherever:
It is the epic of two races (Israel-Ireland) and at the same time the cycle of the human body as well as a little story of a day (life)... It is also a kind of encyclopaedia. My intention is not only to render the myth sub specie temporis nostri but also to allow each adventure (that is, every hour, every organ, every art being interconnected and interrelated in the somatic scheme of the whole) to condition and even to create its own technique.
James Joyce (Irish novelist, 1882-1941)
Letters, 21st September 1920

"Think you're escaping and run into yourself.
Longest way round is the shortest way home."
James Joyce, from Ulysses, Chapter 13

"Who is it that can tell me who I am?"
William Shakespeare, from King Lear

"And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive
where we started and know the place for the first time."
T. S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"

"Happy Bloomsday, citizens, phenomenologists, throwaways, foreigners, gentlemen of the press, evermoving wanderers, weavers and unweavers, pedestrians in brown macintoshes, Wandering Soap, sailors crutching around corners, no-one, everyone! Hoping you're well and not in hell!"
Kathleen O'Gorman, my friend and fellow Modernist

P.S. Is reading Ulysses still on your "to do" list?
Well, for a few milliseconds of entertainment, you can
enjoy this minimalist version: it will quickly bring you
up to speed, or serve as a quick review if it's been awhile:
Ulysses for Dummies
Haha!

P.P.S. End of June 2012: my mother has written to let me know that her first cousin Mildred (my grandmother's niece) died earlier this month, on June 14th & the funeral was held on June 16th.

P.P.P.S. Bloomsday 2015: thanks to Michael Lipsey for this amazing photograph: "Happy Bloomsday! The inside cover of my dad’s copy of Ulysses, which he read and reread for over 70 years. The last two were from tapes, as his eyesight was failing. Between the third and fourth he notes that I read Ulysses in 1967 — quite a bit of it on a long camping trip in the Smokey Mountains."

see also his notes below in "Comments":

And in Joyce's own hand

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com