...and then, on the metro going home...

[ellenkushner]

 a busker with annoying patter started singing Bob Marley's No Woman No Cry. And I got all choked up, thinking of Bordertown.  I mean:

I remember when we used to sit
In the government yard in Trenchtown...
Good friends we have had, oh good friends we've lost along the way
In this bright future you can't forget your past
So dry your tears I say...

Said, said, said I remember when we used to sit
In the government yard in Trenchtown
And then Georgie would make the fire light....
Then we would cook corn meal porridge
Of which I'll share with you
My feet is my only carriage
So I've got to push on through...


How can I not?  But then, nearly everything makes me think of Bordertown these days. 

I'm overdue on several written interview questions (have I mentioned how very much I hate written interviews?) from lovely journalists/bloggers about what it feels like to be returning to Bordertown with the new anthology.  Maybe I could just send them the song?

Comments

[elswhere1.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of it--Bordertown, and how you feel about it I think, and how I do, anyway-- is about youth, and that knocking-around-town-with-one's-friends feeling, and nostalgia for that. A month or two ago I reread a story I'd written like 20 years ago, not fantasy at all, just a little slice-of-life story about being in my 20's and running into people in my neighborhood who knew other people who knew other people who I knew, and I had that same "Oh! It's Bordertown!" reaction. Bordertown takes that feeling, and the real-life magic of youth and friendship and community and having the whole world open in front of you, and infuses it with metaphorical magic as well.

Probably I should be sending this as an email, but oh well--

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Love you, babe. Well said. You're a writer, so write! If you'd sent this as a private email, I would probably just have asked if I could post it, anyway.

[fairjennet.livejournal.com]

Hale. Ash. Linny.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

(grinning from ear to ear)