River: Remembering the FlowerCat: 49
If things had gone differently in July of 2021, Colleen and I would be celebrating our 49th anniversary today, and embarking on our 50th year of marriage. Things didn't, and we're not.
I never know just how it's going to hit me. This year -- yesterday -- I hit an emotional landmine on the last page of Cordwainer Smith's story "The Game of Rat and Dragon.
... as he buried his face in the pillow, he caught an image of the Lady May.
“She is a cat,” he thought. “That’s all she is—a cat!”
But that was not how his mind saw her—quick beyond all dreams of speed, sharp, clever, unbelievably graceful, beautiful, [...]
Where would he ever find a woman who could compare with her?
Colleen was always some kind of cat to me. Objectively, she didn't share all that many attributes with the Lady May, but there it was, and objectivity has nothing to do with it. I buried my face in my hands and sobbed silently for a few minutes.
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Agreed -- The Dead Lady of Clown Town (Where D'Joan comes from) is another of my all-time favorites. He wrote so many memorable characters...
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One of the things I liked best about "Clown Town" was the framing narrative, looking back on events in the distance past and mentioning the later artistic interpretations.
(Edited to change the icon to the lightsails on the cover of Space Lords, from "The Lady Who Sailed the Soul". Which is another story with a good framing device.)
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