Who chose this face for me?

It is a simple line of Steven Dedalus, in the first chapter of Ulysses. As I sit here, closing my Bloomsday, as I listen to a wonderful audio version of it, that line strikes me: Who chose this face for me?

I listen to Ulysses as one listens to a piece of music, I dip into and out of it, treating as an infinitely interesting excercise in eavesdropping. As if I were driving past Monet's Water Lillies, if that painting was 80 feet tall. The blasphemies I found so delightful at 16 still amuse me. The nasty undercutting conversations, the poison of  class and politics still crawl under my skin.

It is still damn good, now that I am beyond being impressed, I can appriciate how good of a read it is. Perhaps because it is the work of someone loosing their sight. His brush work is drawn in broad lines, avoiding fine lines. As if drawn in chalk on the pavement.

That's what happens when you start to go blind. Vision becomes a smear of joy before your eyes. Things begin to look like emotions. A world appears summerged, but not in water, but in light and color.
 It is this vision you call for, and hold on to it, for as long as it lasts. Until darkness comes.