Vienna

The last time I was in Vienna, the Danube was frozen. This time there are record high temperatures.

When I think of Vienna I think of Mozart, the Danube, horse drawn carriages, coffee houses, beautiful churches and John Irving, who made Vienna part of many of his novels.

However, I also think of Vienna where my writing mate lives in a beautiful house. When we were both learning our craft and worked in buildings across from each other in Geneva, we would exchange almost every thing we wrote. The critiques sped up our identifying our weak spots.

There were humorous times, like when I needed to kill off a character and I had a copy of the Anarchist Cookbook. We were sitting in the cafeteria where many of our international colleagues chose to eat. We discussed the best way to kill off the poor man. We aren't sure, but from then on, many of those same colleagues who passed us that day gave us strange looks. I do wish she would forget that I put a book she loaned me through the washing machine. Or maybe not. It is memories like that which build friendship if not repeated too often. 

And there was the time we went for champagne. We'd both received rejections, not an uncommon occurrence, but the editor had been so complimentary that it gave us hope to continue to try and market the writings.

Rick had wanted to see Vienna. Earlier plans had fallen through due to health and scheduling issues. This time everything fell in place.

In a short visit it is impossible to see everything in a great city. What we did see gave him a feel for Vienna and confirmed to me there was more that I would like to see. Since I have slowed or stopped writing Murder in (fill in the city), third culture kid mysteries, my heroine Annie probably won't be doing any sleuthing in this beautiful place. It doesn't mean I might not use it as a backdrop for other  writing.

Beyond being a tourist, is the richness of talking with my writing mate, sitting in her garden as we eat dinner and the day cools to comfortable and just sharing time. No longer can we run across the street to check out a writing problem, but we know the other is just on the other end of the computer if needed. We don't "need" each other like we once did and that was because we were there when we were "needed."  Still a note with a "Do you want to look at this for me, mate?" appearing in our email will always be treated with an appreciation of the honesty we have always shared.

Having experienced Vienna in the heat and cold, maybe we should try for normal temperatures. But the weather doesn't matter with an old friendship. It is just a detail.