there is a stillness, here

in the hills above Saint-Tropez

“Pieces of Places” by Augusta Sagnelli

1

You’re sitting atop a verdant hill, somewhere inland from the February blue waters of Saint Tropez.

A hooting owl. A whistling wind. The roar of a suped-up motorcycle breaking the silence, its engine built to shorten the distance between where we are and where we think we want to be.

The chip-chapping of the chiffchaffs—that’s what they’re called, aren’t they?—who’ve migrated here to escape the Palearctic cold. The sleep of frogs you cannot hear until the sun goes down, when the insects awake. The bats swoop down to hunt, echolocating the starry night.

A planetary parade is on the move. Venus flickers in concert with the half-moon light.

2

But what about the stillness?

What about being here now? Ram Das said it best, or at least in his own authentic way. The truncation—be here now—is what such stillness affords in this sacred space.

In the mornings, the wind pushes the mist across the valley and towards the sea. Or perhaps you’re mistaken; perhaps the low rolling clouds are floating westward towards Toulon, and then Marseille, and up into the hills above Montpelier, où tu es né. You were born at the frontier of the Parc National des Cévennes, where in 1685, after the Sun King, Louis XIV, waged a war against all Protestants, the Huegonots fled south and settled in the Cévennes to take up arms in defense of their right to exist.

In 1940, hundreds of thousands of refugees, Jews, and other exiles fled south to escape the Nazis. In your first home, where you and your twin brother first saw yourselves in a mirror, a placard out front of le Château de Malérargues—home to the international Roy Hart Theater—tells the story of a member of the resistance who was executed for protecting his peace.

Is that what this stillness affords, this view of the rolling mists heading towards Saint-Tropez? Yes, this is a stillness worth protecting.

3

The winter cold does not cater to the walking-tour season in Paris. You’ve learned to save your summer bounty like a squirrel in preparation for winter. Last year was the first time in your life you had enough summer savings to imagine taking a vacation in the depths of winter, when the calendar was empty.

If you’re back here in this sacred home in the south of France (four weeks to the day since last year’s visit), it isn’t by chance. You first entered this home last March thanks to the generosity of a fellow Substack writer, someone you’ve only ever met digitally, whom you will soon call a friend in the terrestrial plane.¹

Last year, she offered this home to you when you were in need of focus and quiet inspiration. And again, you are. You’ve always been. Last year, her offer aligned with the moment you found out you and your wife would have to move out of your apartment in Paris.

4

In all of your years living in Paris, you’ve never made enough money to even consider presenting a realtor a dossier. Eleven months ago, you came to this home to brainstorm, to conjure a solution: a landlord willing to rent a two-bedroom apartment to a working novelist and photographer.

Yes. This house conjures magic.

One afternoon, your partner asked for the improbable on a simple social media post: seeking an affordable, two-bedroom apartment in east Paris, ASAP. The next morning she received a text message from someone she hadn’t spoken to in months. “I only just re-downloaded this app last night. I saw your post. I’m sitting at a café with a friend right now who needs someone to take over her rental apartment by the end of this week. Are you interested? The landlord is a photographer. The only catch is you have to pay this month’s rent.”

“We’ll take it.”

5

Synchronicity is history.

You’ve returned to this house again for focus and quiet inspriation, to finalize your plans to turn your micro-press, Kingdom Anywhere, into the real thing. As the muses would have it—there must be something in these southern winds—just yesterday, a dear friend offered his wisdom to get the company off the ground, and you’ve now signed the bylaws to found your official anglophone publishing house in Paris, thanks to the help and generosity of those who believe in the beauty of pursuing a dream.²

Right place. Right time. You’re only ever where you’re meant to be.

You’re sitting in a house in the south of France thanks to the generosity of a person you’ve never met, writing every morning for four uninterrupted hours, five days in a row. This is a rarity and a blessing.

You’ve had a breakthrough in your novel, of which you haven’t shared a single page with anyone—not yet. Sharing unfinished work, you’ve learned, can be just as dangerous as the brushfire that scorched the olive trees atop the hill five years ago, but the earth has been rejuvenated, the mushrooms are flourishing, and the brush has been cleared.

Keeping unfinished writing to oneself is essential to respect the stillness of a growing seed beneath the ash.

In this stillness, the sun rises twenty-four minutes earlier than in Paris.

1. I’m consistently amazed and grateful to those writers and readers on Substack who believe in the spirit of synchronicity and the work being done on this space, like Barrie and Jojo of @ Feasts and Fables, who invited us to spend a glorious writing retreat in their home in 2024.

2. On March 12, Kingdom Anywhere will release its fourth book to date, A Tentative Gardener’s Guide to the Evening by the poet and PhD in contemporary literature, John Sannaee. I’ll be sharing a proper post about his work and my connection to him next week, but for the diligent amongst you—I see you, the one who actually reads footnotes—here’s a pre-order link (there are only 200 signed & numbered copies, and they will sell out!), as well as a link for the Paris release party on March 12, which we’re hosting in partnership with Le Peloton Café.

From the publisher: “A Tentative Gardener’s Guide to the Evening explores the relationship between humans, the other beings of the natural world, and one another. His poems also examine his own search for belonging and his relationship to place, as well as the aesthetics of softness and violence.”