TINY REMOVER, BIGGER FEELINGS

TINY REMOVER: a haiku

This smooth slipperer,

Expert in relocations,

Refuses rain checks.

We drove down to Spain on Wednesday, where we are incredibly lucky to also have a house. As you might have gathered if you’ve read some of my recent posts, Spain is my happy place. Even if it’s pouring with rain, as it is today – hence the poem about a snail.

I’m thrilled to be back here, especially as the night before we left I had a panic attack because I’d been sick all day, and was beginning to think I’d be stuck in Switzerland for months, slowly becoming more and more of a recluse, because when I’m there I hardly ever see anyone. And then I spiralled off into the land of anxious nincompoops, worrying about having to share the driving with my husband when I felt so exhausted if we actually did go, which was silly because he’s often driven down alone when I’ve flown over to Spain early. But my mind gets stuck in doom-and-gloom overdrive when I’m feeling particularly tired and vulnerable.

Anyway, I woke up Wednesday thinking “yes I can”, and so off we went, and it was fine (I took extra meds!!) and he drove the entire way, and now here we are and I’m feeling far more chirpy.

It strikes me once again how much a place can affect us. So far, I have never been inspired to set a story in Geneva, despite having grown up there. Setting in story is something I’ve always struggled with, because the place I know best is obviously Switzerland, but it seems so…uninspiring! I know Ibiza, the Balearic Island, very well, because we used to spend our summers there years ago, when our children were small. Ibiza is an island that has always felt special to me, even before I ever went there, because someone I knew growing up had a friend whose parents had a house there (and this someone sounded so deliciously naughty, and I longed to be naughtier!). I set my romantic comedy, Just Like a Movie, in Ibiza, because living there was my dream. In fact, in the story, Gemma, the main character, leaves Geneva to begin a new life in Ibiza. Also, she meets a famous popstar on her way there, which enabled me to enjoy a little fantasy about a famous popstar I’ve always had a crush on!

But setting a story in Switzerland? Pfff!

Believe me, I’ve tried, because I know how attractive Switzerland appears to tourists. And yes, it’s beautiful, with mountains and cows, and villages and geraniums, and lakes and cheese and chocolate. But so far, no fun Swiss storyline has ever popped up in my brain, which is kind of frustrating, really.

After my Ibiza romcom, I wrote a book set in Ithaca, the Ionian Greek Island, because we once went on a sailing trip there, and visited an abandoned hotel where Winston Churchill had stayed with his wife, Clementine, during the war. That place literally jumped out at me, along with a fully formed story just begging to be written.  But I put so much pressure on myself at the time that I never managed to get that story right, and the whole palaver turned into such a fiasco that I went to pieces and didn’t write for twenty years, until I got my rights back for Just Like a Movie, republished it, and then fell head over heels for poetry.

I have the skeleton of a story set between the south of France and the Costa Brava, which is where our Spanish house is located, but so far, I haven’t dived in and run with it. Whenever I ask myself why, the answer I received is that I’ve concentrated on poetry and publishing my poetry book, and that there are only so many hours in a day. But I tend to believe there’s also smidgeon of fear involved, because the story I have in my head is so big, timeline-wise, that I’m worried I’m not skilled enough to control and execute it the way it deserves. Which is one of the problems I ran into when I wrote my Greek story, Turn Left at the Ocean.

Maybe I just put too much pressure on myself. Maybe I’m paranoid! I don’t know.

Also, I’m loving writing poetry, and there really aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything. Because I’d like to finish crocheting my bedspread, which has been a work in progress for four years now (it’s huge, and I’m currently working the border, which is also huge, because it needs to be doubled to give it weight!) as well as the beautiful sweater I started last September. And do some painting, and exercise more, and read the mountain (range!) of books I keep adding to, and get back to sewing too, because you should see the ridiculous stash of fabric I have in a cupboard in Switzerland. I went through an intensive sewing phase a few years ago, making all sorts of funky bags which I sold for pretty good money. A catastrophic neck injury during a yoga class put an end to my sewing spree! Yep, yoga can be dangerous, especially if you’re hypermobile.

The thing is, I often wonder whether if I’d been raised in England (or America, or any anglophone country) I’d be churning out story after story without ever running into this “setting” issue. Because if I had been fundamentally English, I would have had a proper feel for English ways of life. As it is, my background is international (I went to the International School of Geneva), meaning I’ve never really felt I have real roots. I’ve often visited England and Italy (my mother is English, my father Italian), but I’ve always been a tourist there.

I’m Swiss by marriage, and I like Switzerland, but unlike my husband, I’m not profoundly attached to it. I don’t miss Switzerland when I’m away. I might miss my house, my family, and a few of my friends. But I lost many of my friends in Switzerland when I became ill. You fall off the grid because you’re housebound, and people move on with their lives. In Spain, even in times when I’m housebound, I still see people, because our house is on a golf resort, and we’ve made a lot of friends here over the years.

Funny how a Spanish snail outside the window can lead to a haiku, which can lead to pondering my issues with setting in fiction, before lightly touching on the feeling of belonging!

How about you? How do you choose where you set your stories? Am I weird not wanting to set my stories in Switzerland?!

My poetry book, ILLICIT CROISSANTS AT DAWN, is available on Amazon