Francesca Bossert's Blog, page 42

NIGHT MOVES

Night moves by candlelight,

Casting Chinese shadows,

Flickering

Unintentional public displays of goodness gracious me.

The Big Sur River remembers

That canvas screening,

Our everlasting blush.

 

How many stars does this tent have?

 

JASMINE!

Pootle off, pesky pollen,

Sometimes we just want to wake up and smell the jasmine.

JASMINE! Coming soon to a garden near you!

THE GHOST WHO LOVES ME

Everyday

A Spanish ghost decorates

The rim of my empty coffee cup

With heart-shaped speckles.

 

How do you say “Boo” in Spanish?

SCARY BIG MAGIC

My story is

Self-propagating.

Sprouting

Colourful offshoots

To weave into

The roses on the trellis

As these characters

Ask me to reveal more,

Astounding me with their

Luminescence.

My fingertips contain

Scary big magic.

ILLICIT CROISSANTS AT DAWN

  

If we only met now…

 

Would the thought of me

Still

Incite illicit

Croissants at dawn?

 

Would that black

Silk slither of a dress

Still

Caress me

Like your eyes

During a weekend in Paris?

 

The thought of

Illicit croissants at dawn

With you

Makes

Bright blue butterflies

Flutter in my heart-space

So I hope you would

Still

Say

Yes!

 

(gluten free/dairy free?)

 

MEETING BONNIE GARMUS

 

I was in Geneva when I saw that Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry) was going to be signing books at the San Jordi book fair in Barcelona, and I hadn’t planned on coming back to Spain so early. But I’d never been to the Barcelona book fair where, if I’ve understood correctly, the tradition is you buy your boyfriend/husband a book (we have to give those men some culture!), and he buys you a rose, and Bonnie Garmus is a rock star in my eyes, so I flew in last week.

 

I took the train to Barcelona this morning but arrived too late to make Bonnie’s first signing. The atmosphere felt quite overwhelming; HUGE crowds in a place where I don’t know my way around is pretty full on for my anxiety.  But I resisted the urge to call it too much of a commotion and bolt straight back to the countryside.

 

With an hour to spare, I went and had a quiet coffee before going back to bedlam to see if I could figure out where she might be. If I hadn’t enquired in the bookshop where I thought she was supposed to be I’d never have found her, because there were hundreds of stalls with hundreds of authors doing signings. Spanish people clearly read a lot, and it was wonderful to see such enthusiasm!

 

I spotted the stall where Bonnie was seated, bought a copy of her book in Spanish and went to say hello. Bonnie is lovely, she has beautiful cornflower blue eyes and a gorgeous, soft way about her. We had a little chat, and she signed my book. We took photos in which she looks great but I think I look a bit like a potato because I’ve been on cortisone for close to a month now because of my auto-immune disease and, well, potato (why am I so vain?), and I said goodbye and that was that!

 

Then I hesitated. Should I brave the crowds or head home? There’s a shop in Barcelona I’m dying to visit, but I’ve no idea where it is, and I figured today wasn’t the day to try and find out, nor even take a taxi because traffic was crazy too.

 

So, I got on a very smelly, very slow train back towards Girona that would make an even smellier sounding poem than the one I wrote last week about the smelly man at the airport, but this time it was just too gross to even consider writing poetry about! Trust me, armpit juice was Shalimar compared to this…

 

So, there you have it. My grand day out in Barcelona!!! But yay Bonnie Garmus!! Thank you for being so kind, Bonnie. Enjoy the rest of your INCREDIBLE book tour!

 

 

RICOCHET

(From my not yet published novel)

You ricochet through my dreams

Skimming my skin.

We are Covertaffairians

Twisting time,

Eternally delicious.

INTROVERT

The question lands.

Thoughts spin.

Words fracture, fragment,

A shameful staccato of chaos.

My pulse calls my blush.

 

Can I please borrow a pen?

 

A WALK ON THE NOT SO WILD SIDE

I’m alone in my house in Spain for a couple of weeks as my husband has business to attend to in Switzerland in early May, so he’ll join me here afterwards. As I wrote in a poem a couple of days ago, I don’t mind being on my own once in a while. I don’t do anything fancy; basically I just write, and meet with some of my girlfriends once in a while.

Today I woke up to gorgeous blue skies and bright sunshine. The coast is half an hour’s drive away. So I put a towel and a book in a bag in case I wanted to read on the beach instead of walk, and off I went.

There was a bit of a breeze on the coast, so I opted for the walk and not the read. I know this walk well, it’s flat and easy, which is good because I have hip problems. If the terrain is too rough, or uneven, or rocky, or there are too many steps, or it’s too steep, or too far, it gets complicated. I’m a bit like Golidlocks when it comes to walking!

But even if I’ve done this walk loads of times, I never get bored because the scenery is stunning. I always take far too many photos, but who cares! It’s soooo pretty!

Today I veered off the coastal path and up some steep steps (my hips started moaning but I told them to shush) and strolled along one of the narrow roads of the gated residential area on the headland, which is lined with old elegant Spanish villas overlooking the sea. The gardens are all fabulously established, some are quite delightfully higgledy piggledy, with palm trees, and jasmine and bougainvillea and agapanthus, and plumbago, and well, all those lovely Mediterranean plants. And the views!!!!!  

Many of the houses have little towers, and huge terraces and balconies with wrought iron railings, and those lovely Mediterranean tiled roofs in shades of terracotta. They’re just so charming. They’re also closed up. Clearly, they’re only occupied in the summer months, and maybe for a week or two at Christmas or Easter. They probably cost a fortune to heat, and would also be very high maintenance because of their location.

But they truly are dreamy, and probably owned by glamorous ladies who sip Cava, and nibble perfect tapas and canapés, and wear Capri pants and American sleeved crisp white shirts, with ballerinas. I imagine their husbands would be really tanned, with slicked back hair, and wear navy blue and white, although in reality they’re probably bald and paunchy, and wear, well, navy blue and white. But they’re never there so I’ll never know, which is probably for the best.

Anyway, as dreamy as they are, I don’t think I’d like to own one, because as it is I’ve turned into quite the recluse because I can’t ride anymore. So now I sit in my office and write all the time.

Our house in Spain is on a golf resort (my husband plays; I can’t because I had a neck injury) so there are always people here. As much as those coastal houses appeal, I’d probably go completely potty if my office was in one of those towers with sweeping views of the sea. Yes, there’s bougainvillea there, and I’m completely obsessed with bougainvillea, which sadly doesn’t grow 30 minutes inland where we are, which could be an argument to move closer to the coast. But as my husband rightly said when I once had the bright idea of moving from Geneva to the Italian part of Switzerland because bougainvillea grows there, “you can’t talk to bougainvillea”. And seeing as I talk to myself in all sorts of different voices all day long and make funny faces at my screen (I caught myself doing it just now), I’d probably end up locked up in my tower.

 Maybe you can talk to bougainvillea? After a while, I’d probably talk to this one…

 PS: There’s a nightingale singing outside tonight. And the Hoopoe birds are having their usual boring night long conversation! I love them!

SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT

I read Robinne Lee’s book, The Idea Of You, when it came out a couple of years ago. I must admit feeling a tiny tingle of vexation when I initially picked it up, as though Robinne had somehow channeled the overall theme of my book, namely, a woman nearing 40 and a pop star considerably younger meet and fall in love. 

But when I read Robinne’s book, which I really enjoyed, I soon realized that mine is very different in flavour. Also, I’ve been very open about having written Just Like A Movie (initially called Mucho Caliente) a long time ago as pure escapism during a dark period of my life. I think I managed this pretty well, as when you read it you’d never think you were reading words written by someone with a bad case of the blues: the jokes and play on words simply salsa from one sentence to the next! This giddy joy is something that really struck me when I went back to it in the early months of last year to do some tidying up before republishing. It made me proud! It’s just a very funny, very entertaining book, that will whisk you away from real life and deposit you on the soft, gentle side of Ibiza, not the loud, clubby, obnoxious, alcohol-fuelled side!

Also, it’s a romantic comedy, so it has a happy ending that will leave you feeling all warm and fuzzy.

Of course, I’m really looking forward to seeing The Idea Of You on screen (and I can’t even imagine how excited Robinne Lee must be feeling!! I mean Anne Hathaway??!!!), while waiting for the screenplay of Just Like A Movie to be finished. It’s currently being developed by a screenwriter in Hollywood, and the little I have read of it is super fun! Can’t wait!

So if you have read The Idea of You and fancy something with a similar theme, maybe you’ll enjoy Just Like A Movie. I hope so! Let me know!!

xx Cesca