Francesca

Francesca

It’s clear to me now that I have been moving toward you and you toward me for a long time. - Robert James Waller, The Bridges of Madison County

Two months had passed since their last kiss. It was becoming clearer and clearer with each passing day that they were likely not even near the halfway mark of their separation. They had sworn they would never travel between their two continents separately again, but they had made that promise to each other before the Pandemic. Before the world they had known had changed into something unrecognizable. Before their near perfect life had been disrupted beyond their imagination.

Diane’s heart was heavy.  She had decided many years ago that she was not gong to be a Francesca. In the 1992 book, The Bridges of Madison County, the main character, Francesca Johnson, an Italian born war bride of an Iowa farmer makes a decision to remain in her dull marriage rather than leave him to be with the great love of her life, a photographer named Robert Kincaid. The bittersweet romantic novel was equally adored and scorned by the critics. Diane happened to adore it. It ticked all the boxes for her with its passionate love story combined with tender poetic writing.

Making a decision to move to Australia to be with Mick had some similarities in that it meant leaving behind everything and everyone she knew to take a leap into the unknown. At that time she had laboured long and hard over the pros and cons and the many possible outcomes. A quote from that book became a secret mantra whenever doubt prevailed. Kincaid says to Francesca after asking her to come away with him,

“In a universe of ambiguity, this kind of certainty comes only once, and never again, no matter how many lifetimes you live.”

It was how Diane felt about her love for Mick - an instinctive urging from her gut that he was the one.

Her intuition nagged at her constantly. “Do this Diane, just go. Go to Australia” Her heart was telling her one thing and her head was telling her another. The battle went on for months. Mick had taken a year off work to come to Canada to be with her. After her separation from Graham, they had waited a full year before he came. It was Mick’s idea. He wanted her to be sure her marriage was truly over before starting a new relationship with him.

Their first few months together in Canada were like a honeymoon. Intense and passionate togetherness combined with the happy planning of taking a trip to Spain to revisit the town of Sitges where they had first met in 1977. All of 2013 became a wild adventure. After Spain, they decided to leave Toronto and drive across the country to the West Coast to see where life might take them. It was another bold and daring leap for Diane and once again, she sold her newly accumulated possessions, quit her job, loaded up her SUV and headed off to figure life out as it came. They had a vague idea about settling in British Columbia, but nothing was set in stone.

As they drove westward, they took a detour though the USA. Diane had always been curious to see Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota, so they mapped out a route that would allow them to make a stop at the famous National Memorial. As Mick drove and Diane navigated, they were making their way through Iowa when Diane noticed a directional sign for the town of Winterset.

“Did you see that sign Mick?”
“What sign?”
“The sign we just passed. I’m sure it said Winterset.”
“And I should recognize that because…..?”
“Isn’t that the town from the movie?”
“What movie?”
“THE movie…The Bridges of Madison County. It must be a real place!”
“Ya think?”
“Look there! Did you see that sign? It said Welcome to Madison County!”
“Do you want to turn back?”
“Hold on, let me see how far it takes us out of our way.” she said as she surveyed their roadmap.
“It’s not too far off the main road…let’s go! Are ya with me?”
She didn’t have to ask twice. Mick pulled over onto the shoulder of the road and did a U-Turn.

A country road led them a few miles off their route into Winterset and they were not disappointed. The film had been made in the town and it was instantly recognizable. Diane could not believe this was happening. With no idea or plan in place they had stumbled across this place she thought had only existed in the imagination of the author of the story. It had never occurred to her to research the location details of the film that had been made from the book and yet here they were. Mick was able to sit on the exact diner stool at the Northside Cafe where Clint Eastwood, in the role of Robert Kincaid had sat during the filming of a scene. A small gift shop sold keepsakes and copies of the book and Diane bought a photo of the Roseman Bridge, one of the 6 remaining covered bridges that had been the subject of Kincaid’s photos. She framed it when they moved into their beloved Kyeema North and it sits on the windowsill next to their bed, a constant reminder of her choice.

From Winterset, they drove to visit the bridges and they appeared just as they were in the film. Mick and Diane had each bridge to themselves which surprised them considering they were somewhat of a tourist destination for anyone who might be interested in movie locations. They were still in use and part of the Madison County backroads, not props as Diane had once mistakenly assumed. She imagined Meryl Streep leaning against the corner post of the Roseman Bridge and could recall her self-deprecating and shy wave toward Clint Eastwood, embarrassed that he was taking a photo of her and she herself posed in the same spot while Mick took her photo. She watched lovingly as Mick scrambled down the embankment of the creek next to the covered bridge to pick her a posy of wildflowers just as Eastwood had done in the film.
A sucker for such romantic gestures, her eyes welled up as he handed her the sad little handful of limp-stemmed daisies. When it came to knowing what made her happy, he never held back and she never grew tired of his efforts to win her heart.

She couldn’t help but think it had been some sort of message. It felt fated and when they got to the Hogback Bridge, Mick noticed someone had written his name and the year 2009 on one of the wooden posts supporting the bridge.

“I came here a few years ago,” he joked. “I set this whole thing up. Pretty good, heh?”

It was the exact sort of thing Mick would do thought Diane, so the idea that he actually may have wasn’t a stretch.

The magic of that day was not lost on either of them. Visiting the site of one of the most bittersweet romance stories they had both read and watched together (she had sent him a copy of the book a year earlier with a note telling him she did not want to end up like Francesca), was both surreal and confirming.

He was her Denys Finch Hatten and Robert Kincaid all wrapped up in one big beautiful, chivalrous, romantic soul and their journey was only just beginning.

Excerpt from My Novel

Apart


Perhaps he knew, as I did not, that the Earth was made round so that we would not see too far down the road. - Isak Dinesen


While most of the people Diane knew were eager for life to return to normal during the Pandemic of 2020, she wasn’t so sure. The solitary life was suiting her and she finally had no excuses not to write. Wasn’t this the ideal writer’s retreat? She had her desk in front of a window with a waterfront view. She could drift and dream at her leisure, eat when she was hungry, sleep when she was tired, get dressed if and when she felt like it without a schedule or interruptions. A writer or poet’s dream if ever there was one.

But it came at a price. She hadn’t seen her family in several months, since she had been in Australia for five months prior to the virus outbreak. If social distancing restrictions didn’t start opening up soon, a year might pass before they could connect in person. Her parents were not computer literate, nor did they use a cell phone, so the old fashioned land line phone was their only form of communication. Her only child was in a city too far away and had roommates who worked in essential service jobs, putting Diane at risk should they meet in person. And then there was Mick on the other side of the world in Australia. When would borders reopen? When would planes start flying? When would his head be lying on the pillow next to hers again? The cost of her isolation was loneliness.

After all they had been through to finally create a life together, they hadn’t ever imagined being torn apart by something like this. Diane likened it to what one must feel when spouses go off to war never knowing when or if they will see them again. Perhaps that example is a bit extreme, but instead of an adversary with a gun, the enemy they both would need to avoid was Covid-19. The idea that their farewell kiss at the Brisbane airport could potentially be their last was a thought she needed to put out of her mind whenever it came.

At the last minute when she was packing to leave for Canada, she remembered to take the antique compass he had given her the first year they were together. It held so much meaning. It was almost an exact replica of the compass that was passed from character to character in the epic romance movie Out of Africa. It was a recurring symbol of finding one’s way home throughout the film.

Denys George Finch Hatten (Robert Redford) gives it to Baroness Karen von Blixen (Meryl Streep) to help guide her home across the endless dusty plains to her farm in Kenya several days away. At the end of the movie, after the great love of her life is tragically killed in a plane crash and her farm has gone bankrupt, she has to leave her beloved Africa and return to Denmark. In the final scene of the movie, she hands the compass to her faithful Somali man-servant Farah and says…

“This is very dear to me. It helped me to find my way home.”

When Diane told Mick that Out of Africa was her favourite movie, they had watched it together and he understood the bittersweet romance she found so powerful. A hopeless romantic, Diane cannot watch the movie without crying. For their first Christmas since reuniting after more than 30 years apart, Mick spent months scouring antique shops in both Canada and Australia for a gift with some meaning. They were still living on separate continents. Christmas came and went and Diane had not received anything from him. She was disappointed and a little hurt that he had not managed to get anything to her but he told her a gift was coming and he was sorry it would be late. He said it was something very particular and he was having trouble finding one. She had no idea what it might be.

When a package finally arrived two months after Christmas, Diane was beyond curious to know what this special parcel would contain. She opened the small box wrapped in plain brown kraft paper and inside was what appeared to be the exact compass from the movie and with it, a note that said,

“So you can always find your way back to me.”

She had to sit as it had taken her breath away. No gift had ever touched her more. He was her very own Denys George Finch-Hatten.

She had never felt so known, or so loved.




(Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals) 

 

Time for a Pause

This is a special announcement for those of you who have been regular readers of my first 24 Chapters.

I am about to take a bit of a diversion and it will require some rewrites, some format changes and some adjustments to my writing schedule.

Before this story goes any further, I have had some thoughts on how to edit and present the chapters differently which means going back to make changes. Once I have done that, I will resume writing the chapters in the new format.

I am so grateful to all of you who have been following Diane's adventures up until now and my wish is that when the book is finished you will pick up where you left off and continue reading. With any luck, it will be an actual hard copy of the book. 

I will leave the last 3 chapters up on my blog for those of you who have fallen behind, but will be removing them in a weeks time as well. 

I don't have writer's block, if that's what you may be thinking. On the contrary, it is my desire to dive deeper and longer into my writing without the self-imposed deadline of producing and presenting a chapter each day for the sake of longer chapters and smoother segues.

Be well everyone. I will miss our daily interactions. At least those pertaining to the stories.

xo