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smoke at dawn by susie mawhinney a hill and i a hill and i subscribe sign in briefly watching the horizon a shooting star a rain dance which hasn t worked susie mawhinney jul 14 2026 71 83 9 share hello beautiful people if you re new here you are so welcome if you re just popping in out of curiosity you too are welcome i hope you enjoy the chaos to each of you who return every time i post i am honoured to know you are here again thank you i don t take any one of you for granted i would send every one of you a hug but its likely to be rather unpleasant have i mentioned how murderously hot it is seven long languorous weeks of summer holidays lay ahead of me again and for always gratitude that my work allows this is of incalculable size nevertheless something intangible feels different this year some witchery carried in the hot air or the dust from tinder dry earth but i suspect more likely it is news in a new contract i will not return in september to my beloved village school the one i have worked at almost every one of the twenty one years since living in france decisions have been made by those that do such things without any notion of the reality and i must leave for a college in a neighbouring town no reason given no signature required just a notification received and expected to be adhered to i have wept and raged on repeat an appeal has been requested i wait what else can i do the waiting that feels wrong the stepping away from the known into the unknown that also feels wrong and this eternal heat which hurries me from sleep to throw open the shutters on all sides of my home in the hope of seeing a clear horizon no fire no smoke that feels wrong too please please no smoke in the stark light of high noon when everything sensible is resting light has no fear light picks out light it dances even now when every bone of me begs to be still when the heat makes breathing an exercise of such monumentally concentrated effort i wonder quite how i will take the next breath light that trickster of both time and reality intervenes by which i mean the shadow of a line of trees across the fields the twisted woolly glow of my sheep in the evening as they bend their heads to feed the light both on and beneath the surface of running water the reflection of moonlight on the barn roof the inky light of the horizon in the morning and when i remember each of those moments is already eight minutes old that the next will be the same again and again for all time i cannot be still it is a beguilement or madness i cannot contain i have been told throughout these mounting years that to be still is to venture into the infinitesimal beauteousness of everything those otherwise unseen details so often missed in the hubbub of a world hell bent on speed and who am i to disagree yet i find too often i do my life carries an ambiguity between stillness and motion try as i might to clarify the murk entre les deux it remains a paradox if i say it is motion with tiny albeit frequent pockets of stillness i am approaching the truth but even so i cannot quite bring myself to believe in stillness entirely far more is left undiscovered by remaining seated tell me how to be still when the light shimmering over a field of barley on an unimaginably hot evening in july lasts but a few minutes is already eight minutes old will never be repeated in the exact same way ever again when that light catching in those particular trillions of barley beards is like phosphorescence or the milky way or thousands of damselfly wings i m listening i sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world walt whitman i n july i want to speak for hours about storms how i hope with every cell still capable of accepting cerebral signals probably very few on two nights just passed that clouds filling up a molten white hot sky electricity lighting up their edges as they ring thunderously gloriously loud all around the hill that soft earth friendly rain will follow i want to talk for hours about rain i want to make it rain the same storm carries music up the valley live notes dance onto the slopes of the hill in through my open window a rock beat on the wind ripples muslin curtains the wild in me wants to dance a rain dance perhaps ten drops fall i dance more wildly my chickens are panting my sheep are panting they hide in the bamboo stationary all bar the twitch of an ear like four woolly stones rosie arrives in a flurry of hot hugs and heatwaves for two days we are invited to an evening of star gazing taking place at the back of the hill we watch venus rise while the sun slips into daybreak in the hemisphere below us learn that it does this at 274º west we wait for true night to fall a hare watches us stilled by the cooked earth and curiosity perhaps because the presence of a dozen humans at the top of this hill on a swelteringly hot night in july is a rare and puzzling spectacle he senses we are not the average hunter types that roam through dusky light he senses we are no danger though he watches us closely alert just in case he is oblivious to our misfortune on this night he understands nothing of broken telescope mounts after all neither the lively bickering of our hosts and their futile battle to repair it he knows only that we arrive and leave again only mildly disappointed smiling our goodbyes to both hare and stars and hosts we return home on that same evening hot shoulder to hot shoulder rosie and i gaze at the trailing glitter that is the milky way in a silken black sky unimaginably vast unimaginably distant out over roof tops and tree tops and hill tops we watch an unknown shooting star speeding right through the belly of the great bear then disappear into unknown silent inky space no telescope necessary as we make our silent wish i wonder if the hare may have seen such a beauty also my handsome red nailed mechanic who scored 19 20 in his maths baccalaureate i have a nearly heart attack moment when i discover my car needs a new head gasket you can imagine or maybe you can t it s complicated very expensive complicated but enter seth my brilliant beautiful boy within hours necessary parts are ordered special tools to dismantle the alarming number of pieces i have no idea of the name of an engine contains because cars are made that way these days the barn floor becomes a deconstructed mechanical mosaic of oil and pipes and metal within days they are all returned from whence they came i thank him as only a mother can when her son has just saved her more than two thousand euro saying how do i love thee let me count the ways he gives me an oily faced grimace eyes heavenward but i cannot contain my overwhelming pride top the salt stones by helen whybrow is a passionately and profoundly beautifully written seasonal account of a shepherds life in vermont i didn t want it to end middle souvenir magazine is an exciting new literary magazine published three times a year in paris founded by kyle berlin and augusta sagnelli including essays and stories from samuél lopez barrantes and eleanor anstruther my holiday read for all those too hot moments when only something utterly absorbing will take my mind from the heat bottom the kitchen book by ella risbridger is stuffed with hilarity and simply prepared scrumptious recipes my new go to cookbook for all those nights when i am utterly sick of trying to think of something new which is most nights i receive unexpected gifts beautiful books and a real magazine in the post which by some serendipitous magic of telepathic friendship all arrive on separate days when i most need them to the beautiful extraordinarily kind people who sent them i cannot thank you from here in any way sufficiently oh but i would were you living close by you know who you are know you are all loved and hugged massively huge heart thanks mille fois et encore a family of coal tits are squeaking under my window again i see them so briefly even leaning precariously dangerously from the window i guess only through spying each evening tiny feathered clues on close branches that they are a family of coal tits after all those tiny black and white badger faces can belong to no other passerine bird can they i see fire at 5h50 on thursday morning i push back the shutters a plume of smoke which looks like a cloud is moving across far hills i realise two things at that moment it is too distant to cause me any real fear and it is not a forest fire later i read that three hundred goats never having seen the outside of the barn they were kept in are burnt alive within i cannot decide which would have been worse three hundred goats or three hundred trees while wishing for the impossible miracle of an ocean close by i remember three days with rosie in july last year spent in porto one unforgettable evening by the atlantic ocean and the two especially beautiful people we spent it with veronika bond and dear joshua bond we were honoured we will be always obscura being elsewhere susie mawhinney august 3 2025 this time last year i left this hill that i love to visit porto read full story with forever love and eight minute old light ps i am sure my skin is melting maybe even my bones share 71 83 9 share previous next discussion about this post comments restacks veronika bond jul 14 liked by susie mawhinney dear susie first many congratulations to seth s baccalaureate passed with flying colours taken in the stride of youth along with so many other gifts the new contract of being sent to a new school sounds almost cruel in portugal teachers receive a new contract every year sometimes two teachers in one family husband and wife are sent off to different far away locations i don t know how anyone still accepts such a demanding job under such impossible conditions that relentless heat i ll join your prayers for rain ️ and that evening in porto i m so glad we did it you just never know how precious certain moments turn out to be reply share 4 replies by susie mawhinney and others sabrina sehbai jul 14 liked by susie mawhinney susie i could feel the ache running through you in this piece and i ached through it with you the longing the yearning the pain in your heart but also the ache towards the beautiful and tender and fleeting and returning i m so sorry about the work struggle you re going through at the moment i can only imagine how agonizing the push and pull must be along with the desire for stillness change is hard enough when we choose it when it s imposed it s a different kind of sweltering pressure i am not so far from you in a village by zürich and would love to give you an uncomfortable hug in the sweltering heat or a letter or book in the mail to give a different kind of warmth to your heart for now i send you all the love i had for the 8 minutes i spent reading your words and feeling your light reply share 5 replies by susie mawhinney and others 81 more comments top latest discussions no posts ready for more subscribe 2026 susie mawhinney 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