Jodi Hills

So this is who I am – a writer that paints, a painter that writes…


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Not even my best Cindy.

This was not my grandfather’s field. Hugo didn’t wear the assurance of overalls. We weren’t supposed to cut across his field to get to our house, even though it would save a good five to ten minutes. And coming from the fairgrounds, it was a straight shot. Still dizzy from the last spin on the tilt-a-whirl, and a little bit of sick on my t-shirt, I hadn’t the strength nor the will to go around. I stepped into the stalks. With tassels reaching over my pony tail, I relied on my feet and not my eyes. Less sure and more hot with each step, I began to slow down and question each decision made that day. Experience had taught me not to go on the rides, but with only a series of “c’mon”s I boarded. As I stomped through the dirt, it was this that bothered me the most. Even more than throwing up in public, I hadn’t the strength to say no. Which led me here, in the middle of a field that I promised the last time not to cut through, and yet, when my heart asked my feet to go the long way, they refused. And now here we were again. Sick.

I don’t know how long I stood. It was most confusing, I suppose, because there seemed to only be one answer. Not the normal conflict of good and evil argued between shoulders. No. Not good and evil. Only two farmers speaking in my ears. Hugo and my grandfather. Both telling me to go back. Go around. Oh, my feet had a few things to say, but still I turned. When I got to the road near the cemetery in front of the fairgrounds, I saw her. Cindy. Not my best Cindy, but the third one I knew from our school. Had she been one of the c’mons? I wasn’t sure. She waved and ran towards me. Reached out her hand. “You dropped this,” she said. The plastic wagon wheel key chain that I had won at the ring toss, just before I tossed my belly on the tilt-a-whirl. It was worth maybe pennies. But the fact that she walked in the heated summer sun to find me, being not even my best Cindy, this was priceless. She asked if I was ok, never mentioning my shirt. We hugged like the schoolgirls we were. I joyfully walked around. 

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Shelved.

I didn’t paint them at the same time. Nor did I even think they belonged together, that is, until I randomly placed her portrait next to the bird already on the shelf. Now I can’t imagine them apart. She, in need of being lifted, and the bird, so ready to take flight. I don’t know anymore if everything is random, or nothing is random, (or if there is even a difference), but for some reason, I’ve always believed that we are given the tools needed. 

My first book of real significance was The Little China Pig. My mother gave it to me when I was six years old in the hospital. They wouldn’t let her stay overnight with me. This seemed impossible to survive. I couldn’t be that little china pig, alone on the shelf. Waiting. But we read it again, and again. All afternoon. Heart pounding, every time we reached that last page, the little china pig was found by the boy and taken home. Safe. Loved. You will never be left alone on that shelf, she assured me. She would be back in the morning. There when I opened my eyes. I had everything I needed.

Research on living arrangements (such as dorms or housing blocks) and group pairings (like NASA astronaut assignments) shows that people frequently become friends simply because they are placed near one another. My mother and I were friends. We were astronauts (fashion astronauts). Even in different countries, we were shelved, together. Still.

Sometimes it takes just a simple placing to remind me. Even through the seemingly impossible, I open my eyes, and I have everything I need. 

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Underpainting.

Being young, blonde and brand new, I navigated my girlhood through the summers and winters of Minnesota, veering between the colors of January’s lavender to July’s rose red. Now the colors varied, depending on the intensity of the season, but there was a real certainty to my pink underpainting. 

I never saw it as a weakness. Nor a less than. This, no doubt, thanks to the strong women around me. Grandma Elsie was round and soft. Cheeks ever pink over a pot. Sticky hands pulled on her apron strings and clung to sensibly shoed ankles. And I was certain that nothing could tip her over, and nothing ever did. My mother, in her opposite of long and lean, even on her hardest days, got herself to work, with courage plumped from the Clinique counter. She offered the same message — I will be pushed, prodded, but never tipped over. 

I see friends here, too many, bravely ribboned in the color. Fighting breast cancer. I offer up this painting in the recognition of their strength. Though we are not defined by our underpainting, we choose daily how we wear it. I see these women and I see beauty. The beautiful gift and strength of being, of living. 

Never underestimate the power of pink. 

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The grand scheme. 

It was such a contrast. My grandma’s kitchen table had legs that stuck out beyond the range of feet passing. Having only one other kitchen table so far in my short life, it’s funny how quickly I adapted to the thought that all would be the same — an easy pass. Clinging to the assumption, I repeatedly tripped on her table. 

It didn’t seem to bother her, nor my grandpa. I had yet to learn of “the grand scheme” of things, as they often said, explaining away how simple table legs didn’t really matter. At first I scowled. Then I marveled. And I wanted to do the same. I wanted to get past the table legs to the joys of the kitchen. To the Kellogg’s cereal variety packs. To the Lazy Susan filled with Sugar Babies, Daddies and Black Cows. Did I still trip? Sometimes. Sometimes not. I suppose I began to let it go. And as I let it go, I imagined the struggle releasing as puffs of cartoon smoke, floating above my head, and finally disappearing into what I could only explain as the grand scheme.

To display one of my newer paintings, I had to put up an old easel. Not my favorite. Its spindly legs need to extend out quite far in order to balance. (Some days I resemble that more than others.) Tripping on it, as I often do, I simply adjust the painting that has been slightly rattled, smile, and release my “cartoon puff” and go back to painting. 

The grand scheme lives on. 

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Shared mountains. 

We really had no idea the mountains that lay ahead. From the flat playground at Washington Elementary, we were given the gift of believing most things were within reach. 

It doesn’t seem that long ago that we were unfolding the dreaded afternoon napping mat. Reluctantly, lying, waiting… toes curled under to ensure a fast get up and get on with it. Knowing well, that all would be revealed — friendship, love, courage, hope — simply with the release of our hearts into the wild. 

When they came to visit me in France, it was the first thing I wanted to show them — my playground. We climbed up the Montaiguet to get the best view of the Sainte Victoire mountain. Once again, the explanations weren’t necessary — all intimacies underfoot were not detailed, but certainly known. And shared. Look how far we had come! 

It couldn’t be denied — the view from gratitude is pretty spectacular.

Toes curled, I ready myself into the all of it, the hope, the courage and love of the day. I open the door, and get on with it. 

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In on it.

I said, “I know.” But I didn’t know. I wonder why I thought that knowing would dull the information given. As if this claiming to almost be in on it, would make it hurt less. 

“The house sold,” my mom said. Not “we sold the house,” like we were a part of the decision making. Like we wanted to leave the comfort of Van Dyke Road and move to a small apartment in town. “I know,” I said, after nearly falling from my bike when I saw the real estate sign in the yard. That cold metal sign with the big “sold” sticker placed across, almost like a smile, like it was laughing at us…so I said I know, not because I did, but simply not to give that smiling vacate notice any more power than it already had. 

With the last boxes packed, she said, “It’s going to be ok…good…you can decorate your room.” “I know,” I said. (Neither of us did.)

But the defense of this “I know” gradually turned into reality. A certainty of trusting in each other’s heart. It was no longer for the metal sign, but for us. And with each other, there were so many things that we did know, mostly love, some tears shared, but soon laughter, and the joy of really being anywhere together. 

I walk by her picture now. Photographs. Paintings. I can hear her say, “I’m still here.” I smile and whisper, “I know.” (And I do.)

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The forgiveness of oils.


Maybe it was on the playground. On the small metal chairs of Sunday School.  A television Disney movie. I can’t be sure, but I had the misdirected impression that forgiveness was a wrongdoing taken off the hook of accountability. It never sat well, and rightly so, I suppose. For me, it’s a lesson I keep learning. And it changes in each situation. The common thread is always the same — what am I going to do?

Recently visiting a smaller village, I was excited and surprised to see the L’Occitane store. I needed to reload on my favorite hand lotion. I picked it off the shelf and handed it to the clerk to ensure my decision. Yet, when I opened the bag in the car, the car that took forever to find, in the 100 degree heat, it had been replaced with a different scent. There were several audible sighs and “c’mons”… The oh, how she had wronged me, was larger than necessary. I squeezed a bit on my hands. Of course it’s a great brand. Of course it smelled very nice, just not what I had requested. I don’t know if it was five minutes. I know the air conditioning was calming. I said out loud, “I’ve decided this is my favorite.” 

This is not admirable. I was simply saving myself the heartache. Is that forgiveness? This letting go?

I want to be like the oils in my painting. There is a satisfying speed to acrylics — a quick dry — an ending, a solution of sorts. Oils will not do that, but what they do offer is a melding. A change of mind. Of heart. They will work with you through every decision. They allow you to return to the canvas and say, “maybe it should be like this…” 

I know the furious speed we are all living in, trying to get to all the answers, trying to right every wrong (of others). But maybe it’s all about the working through, the working with, the changing, the deciding, the letting go — maybe that’s when the beauty comes. My malleable heart awakens and says, “Today could be my favorite.” 

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To reach the lions.

What will they write about if it’s only Google? If there are no stairs to climb to get to the public library? Stairs that are just a little too big for five year knees to bend. Stairs that must be climbed with a mother’s hand not simply held, but used as a pulley. Stairs, that if said mother spent too much time checking her lipstick in the rear view mirror and locking the car door, could be traversed on all fours, like one of the lions cemented and perched next to the entry door. 

And if they only use AI, how will they know the smell of the card catalog? Stumble through the Dewey Decimal system? Feel the victory of when your thumb lands on the searched-for book on the shelf? For there was nothing “artificial” about claiming the knowledge, owning the responsibility. Name proudly written on the check out card. Book clutched to heart before putting in homemade book bag.

How do we keep it all tangible? These actions of brain and heart and study? What will be the stairs to climb? 

I begin a new small canvas. Not for sale or recognition, but simply to learn. Improve my craft. Pass along as a hand reaching down. A pulley to reach the lions. 

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With a whisper.

My mother and grandmother knew the difference. What most considered as shy they understood as being quiet. When the teachers would report, “She’s very shy, my mother would say, “She’s just not loud.” 

Maybe it was because there were so many of us at my grandma’s house. It didn’t seem possible to get on top of the noise, so I went under. With a whisper. And my grandmother responded, not with a voice, but a gentle thumb that slid across my rouge cheeks, and I was saved.

It was the same in my mother’s apartment. Worry was not met with a bang. A poem rang volumes over the din of trouble. And quietly we moved, tip-toed gently, into heart’s joyful noise. 

In our current world, where we exchange volume for truth, can we still hear the difference between right and wrong? Between hurt and kindness? I wonder what would happen if we just took the time to listen…

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Mid-air.

Sometimes my life seems so familiar, I could tell you the next word, sentence. And while that is comfortable, I remind myself, that is never my favorite book. But to train my real life heart and brain to have the same reaction — an exuberant “I never saw that coming” — this is the real trick, I suppose. I’m trying to get better. To see the hiccups and waywardness as, “Oh, this is a book I would read!”

I remember the first time I had a crush on the carry-out boy at Olson’s Super Market. His moves so certain and careful as he bagged our embarrassing groceries in the paper sacks. Him holding my boxed breakfast cereal, I felt exposed and vulnerable and wonderful all at once. Being brand new, as they say, I had no explanation as to what was happening.

It was only two days before that I was on the playground at Central Park. Too old for the spinning ducks, still young enough to succumb to the trepidation of the teeter totter. My friend, with later explanation of a bee hovering, jumped off their side when I was in mid air. Funny how everything slows at that point. Reaching to grab on to a cloud, my stomach rose into my throat, which was almost enjoyable for that millisecond, and then I crashed into the dirt.

Standing in the checkout line at Olson’s, my stomach began to rise.

At school the following day, there he was, racing up beside me on the stairs. He turned to smile at me — a glorious millisecond. And then grabbed the new girl’s hand. A puff of dirt smoked around my fall.

And would I have changed things if I knew? Probably not. Is it worth it? I would say yes. YES! Excuse me, a cloud is just within reach.

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