on a hill which might be heaven...
—don't smile, it hurts!
Hello beautiful people, where ever you are, what ever your time is, I hope you have reason to be smiling.
There are many days of the year when I feel like the luckiest person on earth and, only a handful when I don’t; last Wednesday—that’s the Wednesday before last now—was one of them.
‘It’s just routine’ my dentist said.
I thought, after ten years of being a loyal client to both him and his wife, even though the rest of the town are still suspicious preferring to travel to neighbouring towns because neither hale from the Aveyron, that we were buddies, we laugh and chat—or at least he does, the sounds I make I generally incoherent but he seems to understand. I thought we had built trust into those years.
What a fool… what an old fool!
Ok, so murder is a little strong, I didn’t die, not even close but… as the anaesthetic worked its numbing magic and his hand holding a screwdriver—yes, you read that correctly, it was a flathead, not a Phillips—began brutally levering out a tooth I truly didn’t want to lose, which in my very unprofessional, very personal opinion really only needed to be filled, I thought he just might be attempting something along those lines.
I still have a swollen face as proof—and no wrinkles on one side, Wow! There’s an upside to the agony, who needs Botox?
Just routine? Lordy… I hope I never have to experience something that isn’t!
Anyway, I have a trillion reasons to smile but I am trying not to because it still hurts.
I will tell you though, there were many illuminated minutes when a smile couldn’t be held inside, what a week to be so sore…
TRY NOT TO SMILE WHEN…
you have a hungry owlet warm in your lap, when she has the wisest eyes looking up at you in deepest silence while still managing to click her beak with the utter indignity of having to be fed by human hands. And yet, when still she will eat with humble relish she makes you feel both glad and sad in one tiny atom of time.
that atom of time is endless when a sunbeam slants through one of the many holes in the roof of the barn and dust motes are suspended like a galaxy of stars across all the paraphernalia you usually find ugly and worrying.
you can see from the window, so close, so close you can almost feel her warm breath, a young Roe Deer gorging on fresh spring shoots, how she hasn’t noticed you watching and how it feels like spying on a very private moment but you can’t stop.
while watching the deer you are reprimanded by squawks from a still hungry baby owl for more chicken—at just-slaughtered-mouse temperature.
the handful of air and feathers in your lap when you place her back in her dusty bed closes her eyes because, with a look that can only be translated as replete contentment on her adorable face, you know only this; she is happy and you have been instrument in that.
she leaves her dark corner finally and forever that very same evening—without turning her head in farewell, neither abandoning not even a single feather as a memory—as you watch the moon rise in the east over the Lindon tree you know will never be more divine than the shooting star that passes so low in the sky it is impossible for it not to be her gift of grateful thanks and your heart escapes the place it is kept safe, just for those few seconds of pure, delirious magic before settling back quietly, contentedly replete.
BRIEFER SMILES… are still worth the pain when;
honeysuckle pierces dappled morning light, its heaven-sent scent draped and perfumed across boughs of ancient oak, beech, wild cherry is like a kiss to wake your still sleepy senses.
scorched earth beaten into pathway running through woodland where overdoses of chlorophyl are not a question but an exclamation mark telling you ‘you’re high!’
giant leafed burdock hold tiny elderflowers blown to rest.
and clouds of crane flies whose legs catch wayward final sunbeams dance their last hovering fandango because they know they are not gifted long life and will not see another rising at dawn.
the hare you see every evening in the same patch of drying grasses and rusty bracken—because the weather has confused late July with May—and you know not many metres from her is a form, warm and safe, cradling her leverets.
summer sun in May1
while searching for the plumpest, darkest, juiciest mulberry’s on one of two trees you find silkworms which you have never seen before and never expected to.
you find not just one but a handful of deliciously sweet mulberry’s which you share with your son.
the hummingbird moth you save from certain death from the water barrel where she has landed on floating flowers believing them to still hold nectar.
a hidden field of barley blown by a capricious spring breeze that can decide neither on the direction it is coming from or that by which it will leave.
out there in the vast indigo space of the universe float hundreds, probably thousands of other worlds and each may have living beings, possibly and probably just like us who live and die and smile even when it hurts to smile.
“One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands out and throws one’s head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvellous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one’s heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun…” Frances Hodgson-Burnett
with forever smiles and love always
Posted this day last year;
A few small things...
Hello lovely readers and writers, creatives and dreamers, thank you for being here. Knowing your time is precious makes me grateful beyond words for your presence.
I realise this is not altogether something to smile about but day after day of unseasonal heat is a balm to a girl who lives for being outside.
Thank you for this, Susie.
Your posts are always reason to smile.
Dentists. Sometimes the cost hurts more than the dental work. But a screwdriver?!
I understand (or think I do) what you mean when you say, ‘the atom of time is endless ……… dust motes are suspended like a galaxy of stars across all the paraphernalia you usually find ugly and worrying.’
Sometimes, unexpectedly, I have felt as though I have momentarily been granted access to a different and greater realm of knowledge where I see things differently, where I realise that things I had thought mattered, really don’t.
It’s a feeling that we here are only a very small part of something larger and way more important.
How lovely to hear that your owlet survived and thrived. Of course, she and her family will be coming back to your barn and, of course, that shooting star passing so low in the sky was her au revoir - not adieu.
And when our hearts briefly escape the places they are kept safe - as long as the reasons for that are good - that feels so lovely too. Pure, delirious magic, as you say.
How beautifully you write, Susie!
Thank you for your gifts of these reasons to smile - your owlet flying free, your smiling deer, your crane flies dancing fandango, the nature on your hill in its beauty.
It seems to me that you are absolutely in perfect synchronicity with nature!
And that’s the answer isn’t it ……… to smile even when it hurts to smile.
Thank you for including this Frances Hodgson-Burnett poem. I love this.
I do believe that there is a part of us that goes on living forever and ever and ever.
Dearest Susie... when your new post arrives in my inbox, I wait.. until I can be completely present. Until I have time to read slowly and savour your words and imagery. I don't think there is any other place on the internet this exquisite. It is a physical experience, reading your words. It is lush and calming and so beautifully sensory. When I start reading, I enter a quiet place, and I am enveloped in it.. and when I reach the close, I come out with a feeling as though I have been in meditation.
I don't know anyone who can write these things while simultaneously suffering the effects of a traumatic dental procedure.. you poor thing!! May each day bring you less pain and more beauty.
And may that little owl find its way in the world, having been so carefully nurtured by you. What a beautiful little creature. Thank you for sharing such an uplifting update.
Sending you love, beautiful you. Thank you for adding riches to my day. xo