In the prototypical romance novels the plucky couple defy the odds of life's stormy seas and end up jumping in the sack as the music swells and .... FIN. There are the inevitable difficulties that the lovers face but, aside from a lot of heaving bosoms atop the castle walls, their distress is ended by the aforementioned into-sack-jumping.
I admit that I sometimes feel that I am living in a modern romance novel. Even with that occasional delusion, the reality of moving halfway around the world for Love is not a fairy tale. Our story is not about mooning around the castle walls waiting for ones schnookums to come riding out of the mists. I find it very vexing that there is not some deity-like Author who is in charge of this and I just a piece of flotsam on the tide of the story. It would just be so much easier.
Without trying to sound too bitchy, here is the somewhat less glowing reality of what has to happen to get our two lovers Rolling in Each Others Arms. First, our characters live 5,365 miles apart. Oops. Despite the initial fun of watching folks moon over "how romantic" it all is, if you are the one actually doing the commuting, it starts to suck after awhile. So, someone has to move. I guess this seems simple enough. Get rid of your house or apartment, get rid of all that bulky furniture, sell the stuff you can sell, happily walk away from your jobby-job (okay, that was easy!!). Ready to go, right? No, in real life, our happy couple can't just flee to Guilder or Flanders and be safe there forever. Nowadays we have international boarders which are controlled by Gubmints. The Gubmint Men, they want to know who is a'comin and a'goin in and out of their country, particularly if someone wants to stay longer than a tourist.
Enter the Visa Monster. When you pass from tourist visa into long-term visa, things get trickier. No visa, no way to stay in-country. In the Schengen Agreement countries of Europe, a tourist traveler can be in-country 90 days in any six-month period. This is a simple matter of having a valid passport and not being on anyone's list. So far so good. Want to stay longer than 90 days? Now you need a "D" Visa for Austria. Not the hardest thing in the world, but it does require a trip to the consulate in Los Angeles to give up the Biometric Data. You give them your passport, $109 US for consulate fees, a stack of documents showing you are a good person and no financial risk, and hopefully you get your visa.
The reality of dropping the lid on the box of my Seattle Life is a series of checklists and very, very unromantic work. The work has to happen so I can fully embrace My Heart and my Wien Life. Besides the visa requirements, there is the renting of the house (done, thank Dog!), packing, selling, giving away, etc, etc. All of the aspects of this process reinforce the release of a life, the stepping off the edge without a safety line, the illusion that there ever was a safety line.
So I make lists, I do tasks, I book flights for LA, for Vienna. I take wild leaps of faith. I trust that if there is some creative author behind this whole tale, they have a sense of humour. And I trust in My One calling me home, calling me back across the ocean. Okay, that part is pretty romantic.
The mundane duty of these tasks has taken a bite out of my writing time. I apologize for the dearth of Blog Posts over the last few days. I promised that there would be an important announcement and I did not intend for that to seem like such a pot-boiler ending. Nonetheless, all in good time My Pretties, all in good time. So here is the announcement.
My career in the Salt Mines is over and my career as a freelance writer is beginning. It follows that as a writer, I should be writing things. To celebrate this new chapter in my life (Oh!! Down bad pun, down I say!) I have begun work on a serial, a work of fiction written in installments. I will create a separate blog that will consist of serial chapters posted weekly. The serial will be free, of course, although I will put a copyright on it. I like the idea of working without a net. The readers, if there are any, will be able to watch (or suffer) as the story evolves. Readers will also be able to post comments on the story in progress. "You bastard!! You killed Agnes!! She was my favorite character!!" Look for the first chapter to appear in about a weeks time. I hope to write something that will be entertaining, nothing more. And I hope it will be worthy of a read by one or two folks. Stay tuned and thank you.
I admit that I sometimes feel that I am living in a modern romance novel. Even with that occasional delusion, the reality of moving halfway around the world for Love is not a fairy tale. Our story is not about mooning around the castle walls waiting for ones schnookums to come riding out of the mists. I find it very vexing that there is not some deity-like Author who is in charge of this and I just a piece of flotsam on the tide of the story. It would just be so much easier.
Without trying to sound too bitchy, here is the somewhat less glowing reality of what has to happen to get our two lovers Rolling in Each Others Arms. First, our characters live 5,365 miles apart. Oops. Despite the initial fun of watching folks moon over "how romantic" it all is, if you are the one actually doing the commuting, it starts to suck after awhile. So, someone has to move. I guess this seems simple enough. Get rid of your house or apartment, get rid of all that bulky furniture, sell the stuff you can sell, happily walk away from your jobby-job (okay, that was easy!!). Ready to go, right? No, in real life, our happy couple can't just flee to Guilder or Flanders and be safe there forever. Nowadays we have international boarders which are controlled by Gubmints. The Gubmint Men, they want to know who is a'comin and a'goin in and out of their country, particularly if someone wants to stay longer than a tourist.
Enter the Visa Monster. When you pass from tourist visa into long-term visa, things get trickier. No visa, no way to stay in-country. In the Schengen Agreement countries of Europe, a tourist traveler can be in-country 90 days in any six-month period. This is a simple matter of having a valid passport and not being on anyone's list. So far so good. Want to stay longer than 90 days? Now you need a "D" Visa for Austria. Not the hardest thing in the world, but it does require a trip to the consulate in Los Angeles to give up the Biometric Data. You give them your passport, $109 US for consulate fees, a stack of documents showing you are a good person and no financial risk, and hopefully you get your visa.
The reality of dropping the lid on the box of my Seattle Life is a series of checklists and very, very unromantic work. The work has to happen so I can fully embrace My Heart and my Wien Life. Besides the visa requirements, there is the renting of the house (done, thank Dog!), packing, selling, giving away, etc, etc. All of the aspects of this process reinforce the release of a life, the stepping off the edge without a safety line, the illusion that there ever was a safety line.
So I make lists, I do tasks, I book flights for LA, for Vienna. I take wild leaps of faith. I trust that if there is some creative author behind this whole tale, they have a sense of humour. And I trust in My One calling me home, calling me back across the ocean. Okay, that part is pretty romantic.
The mundane duty of these tasks has taken a bite out of my writing time. I apologize for the dearth of Blog Posts over the last few days. I promised that there would be an important announcement and I did not intend for that to seem like such a pot-boiler ending. Nonetheless, all in good time My Pretties, all in good time. So here is the announcement.
My career in the Salt Mines is over and my career as a freelance writer is beginning. It follows that as a writer, I should be writing things. To celebrate this new chapter in my life (Oh!! Down bad pun, down I say!) I have begun work on a serial, a work of fiction written in installments. I will create a separate blog that will consist of serial chapters posted weekly. The serial will be free, of course, although I will put a copyright on it. I like the idea of working without a net. The readers, if there are any, will be able to watch (or suffer) as the story evolves. Readers will also be able to post comments on the story in progress. "You bastard!! You killed Agnes!! She was my favorite character!!" Look for the first chapter to appear in about a weeks time. I hope to write something that will be entertaining, nothing more. And I hope it will be worthy of a read by one or two folks. Stay tuned and thank you.
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