Rhys on writing as therapy

RHYS BOWEN: Like many of you I'm finding it hard to concentrate at this time. There always seems to be that element of worry lurking at the back of my mind. I know I shouldn't check recent covid spikes etc but I do. Then I worry more. And I have to turn on the news, just for a few minutes, and there are protest marches and white nationalists and then I'm even more anxious.

And, like you, I'm stuck at home. Nowhere to go except a daring dash to the grocery store at seven in the morning. No, I'm not risking restaurants yet, or anything else except for our daily walks out into the marshes or around the lagoon. Every other year I'm in Europe at this time, sitting in a piazza in Italy enjoying a plate of bruschetta and an Aperol spritz, or in France, having my morning coffee and a pain au chocolat. Or in England with a full English breakfast in front of me. And this year--nowhere.

So writing for me has been a great escape. I have just finished my book set in Venice, that now has a title: THE VENICE SKETCHBOOK.  I'm really sorry I'm done with it because being able to escape to Venice every day has been therapeutic for me. Every time i pour over the map or my photos I'm back there, having my breath taken away by the beauty every single time.  So I thought I'd take you there too, for a few minutes of escape:  Here is some of the opening sequence:  We are in Venice, 1928

We are here. We came out of the Santa Lucia train station and stood at the top of a flight of steps.

“Ecco Il Canale Grande!” Aunt Hortensia said in dramatic fashion, spreading out her arms as if she was on stage and had created the scene for my benefit. My Italian was limited to please, thank you and good day but I understood that this was the Grand Canal. Only it didn’t look very grand. It was wide, to be sure, but the buildings on the other side were rather ordinary. And it looked dirty too. The smell that greeted my nostrils was not particularly appetizing. It was a watery sort of smell with a hint of fish and decay.  I didn’t have much chance to study my surroundings, however, as we were immediately besieged by porters. It was a little alarming to have men fighting over us in a strange language, snatching our bags and bundling us into a gondola, whether we wanted one or not. But as Aunt Hortensia confessed, we had no alternative. We could not have managed all that luggage on one of their water buses they call vaporetti.  Of course I was thrilled to be in a gondola, even though the gondolier was not a handsome young Italian who sang love songs, but rather a grim faced man with a paunch.

As we came around a bend the Grand Canal became incredibly grand. On either side of us were amazing palaces, marble coated, or in shades of rich pink with arched Moorish windows. They appeared to float on the water in a way that was quite surreal—I wanted to get out my sketch book right away. It was lucky that I didn’t as the amount of traffic on the canal made the boat rock alarmingly.  The gondolier muttered what must have been Venetian swear words.

We were moving along quite nicely for a boat rowed with one oar but the canal seemed awfully long.

“Ecco Il Ponte Rialto,” Aunt Hortensia exclaimed, pointing at a bridge that crossed the canal ahead of us, rising up in a great arch, as if suspended by magic. It appeared to have some sort of building on it because a row of windows winked in the afternoon sunshine as we approached.  I wondered if Aunt H. intended to speak in only that language from now on. If so conversation was liable to be rather one sided.

However this fear was dispelled as she now produced her Baedecker and began to inform me about each building that we passed: “On your left the Palazzo Barzizza. Note the thirteenth century facades, and that large building is the Palazzo Mocenigo where Lord Byron once stayed.…..  This continued until an overcrowded vaporetto pulled out from its jetty, our boat rocked again and she almost lost the book into the murky depths.

At the moment I began feeling a bit queasy, another bridge came into sight, this one a more flimsy wooden footbridge,  spanning the canal at a greater height. I expected Aunt H. to say “Ecco Ponte something or other,” but instead she said, “Ah, the Academia Bridge. Now we are almost at our destination. That’s good. I was beginning to feel rather sea-sick.”

“You mean canal sick, don’t you?” I asked and she actually smiled.

And one more picture, because we all need cheering up at the moment, don't we? 

Stay safe! Chins up! This too shall pass. xxxxx Rhys