Jodi Hills

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

Monthly Archives: June 2021


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Pull over

Cezanne painted the Montagne Sainte-Victoire again and again. Living near it, I understand why. Every day it looks just a little different. Clouds, sun, sky, even my mood, can change the colors, change the view. But always, it is beautiful. Cezanne was lucky though, there weren’t the obstructions of today. Electrical lines, buildings, bridges and freeways can really distort the lines of vision.


I am always looking for that pure view. When I paint it, I can take out the obstructions, but it’s very difficult to see it, in all its majesty, without something clunking up the line. We have pulled the car over many times, thinking, this might be it, this might be the view, and then I take out the camera, and there it is, in the camera lens, that wire, that pole, that rooftop.


Yesterday, we were driving to Vauvenargues to see Dominique’s mother. On the way there, I caught a small glimpse of “maybe…maybe it’s the view…” So on the way home we did the ever hopeful pull-over, walked the side of the road, jumped over a ditch, and raised the camera. A sea of lavender rolled into the mountain under a sky of blue. Wait, what? No lines? No obstructions. Just nature. Just purples and violets and greens and blues and whites and grays. It was beautiful. And we got to see it. Smell it. Feel the lavender breeze against our skin, and the strength of the mountain, holding us together. Simply amazing.

I guess it’s the same with people. There are so many distractions. So many things that block our view. It’s so easy to turn away. Just pass by. But maybe if we took the time – really took the time – to see people in their own natural light, we would see what makes them amazing. We would see the beauty of all their changing days, both sunny and dark, and we would be gathered in.


What if I did that for you, and maybe you did that for me? Simply amazing. Again and again.

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A bend in the river

I painted John Wayne because I love Joan Didion. In her piece, “John Wayne: A love song,” she described an image that jumped from my heart into my hands. And I painted, not just John Wayne, but I painted my heart, filled with the words that she, I, had longed to hear…filled with the promise of love, the promise of home.


“We went three and four afternoons a week, sat on folding chairs in the darkened hut which served as a theatre, and it was there, that summer of 1943 while the hot wind blew outside, that I first saw John Wayne. Saw the walk, heard the voice. Heard him tell the girl in a picture called War of the Wildcats that he would build her a house, ‘at the bend in the river where the cottonwoods grow’. As it happened I did not grow up to be the kind of woman who is the heroine in a Western, and although the men I have known have had many virtues and have taken me to live in many places I have come to love, they have never been John Wayne, and they have never taken me to that bend in the river where the cottonwoods grow. Deep in that part of my heart where the artificial rain forever falls, that is still the line I wait to hear.” Joan Didion.

I had just moved to France. I’m surprised at how easily I did it. I had been offered new places before, closer places, more predictable places I suppose. One would think that a Minneapolis girl could easily transition into a Chicago love, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t make the move. It wasn’t my bend in the river.When Dominique told me to stay, just stay, I could see the cottonwoods, for the first time, and I stayed.

And it isn’t about being rescued. I’m not sure I believe in that. But maybe it is about being saved. About saving each other. In tiny bits, every day, with just the smallest phrases, the smallest gestures, we can do that. We can be the heros and heroines for each other.

The painting I made of John Wayne rests in our salon. On numerous occasions, in a sea of indecipherable French words, I will hear someone yell out “John Wayne!” And I am home. Even my mother-in-law, with memory failing, names, people, places, even loved-ones sometimes forgotten, she can pull out the name John Wayne, and I smile, not just because she can still remember the name, but I think for a brief moment, she too, is taken to her own bend in the river, her true love, and she is home.


The “hot winds” blow all around us, forever. If we are lucky enough to find that cool place, that place that calls us, welcomes us, and gathers us in, then I guess, we may not always be safe, but we will be saved.

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Beside still waters

I was watching a Youtube video by Laura Kampf. She is a maker. She builds things mostly out of salvaged products. Beautiful things. She passed by a broken park bench near the water where she lived, and she thought this beautiful view couldn’t be wasted, so she brought the bench home with her, repaired it and brought it back to the same spot. It wasn’t long and some vandals broke it again. She had to search for it this time, but she found it, dragged it home (a very heavy bench), and painstakingly repaired it again — this time stronger than ever – metal, and wood, lots of time, lots of care. When she was asked, “Why would you go to all of this trouble, again?” she replied, “Imagine a world where things are repaired one more time than they are broken.”

I am far away from the city I still refer to as home – Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is struggling now. It has been wounded and broken, deeply, but I know that it will be healed, rebuilt. I know the people. Good people. It will be healed with music and art. It will be healed with builders and workers. It will be healed with the disinfecting sun that shines off the lakes that surround the city. It will be repaired one more time than it is broken, and it will once again rest beside still waters.

Lake Calhoun, Lake Harriet and Lake of the Isles. I have painted you. Believed in you. Loved you. And I, we, will do you proudly once again. Still.

“How do you know that? Where’s the proof?” they ask me. “Well, there’s my heart,” I say, “It’s, joyfully, in repair.”

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Empathy (just a little more)

I painted Judy Garland about nine years ago for a show in Chicago. She’s started at 8 feet, and through mounting and unmounting, she’s maybe closer to seven now. Chicago was only the first part of her journey. Since then, she made the voyage to France. She has suffered through each leg, not unlike real life, I suppose. She is cracked and chipped, some may say even damaged, but I think that makes her beautiful. I think that makes her real.

I don’t know how she lived her life. I wasn’t there. But I do now how she sang a song. Almost as if her heart were breaking with each note. This is something to me. This is how I see her on the canvas. Without judgement. Because, no one escapes, do we. We all have to survive our wounds, those thrust upon us, those self inflicted. This is how I want to see people. Looking beyond the damage and the dust, to the pure music of their lives. Because it’s there. Let go of the judgement – it’s so noisy! Listen to the music. It’s beautiful.

Judy is recorded as saying,
“…wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could all be a little more gentle with each other, a little more loving, and have a little more empathy, and maybe, next year at this time we’d like each other a little more.”

Good morning, World! Today I like you – even more!

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Nothing here I can’t rise above.

Yesterday I felt a little off. The whole day. I just couldn’t find my footing. My place. I don’t really know why it happens, but every once in a while it does. And why wouldn’t it? I guess it would be more strange if it never did. There is probably a way to live this life without feeling anything. Protect yourself from the lows by never experiencing the highs. Guard yourself from any sort of pain by refusing to love. But I don’t want to live like that. I want to feel it, really feel it. I want this life to shake me up with joy, dampen me with tears of tenderness, and rattle me to the core with love. Because that is something. That is a life lived! But with all that shaking and rattling, I know I’m going to get knocked off my feet once in a while. But, OH!, do I know how to rise!


I think it’s easier to trust people with a little dirt on their knees. I brush mine off and tell you that you can trust me. I brush mine off and tell the mirror that I can trust myself. The sun has risen, and so have I! It’s going to be a great day!

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Softly

“She learned to look at things more softly. And even when the gift wasn’t returned, she had received her own.”

It’s a funny thing – forgiveness. Maybe one of the hardest lessons to learn. And it’s not like a recipe from which you can get the same results every time. That would be too easy. No, forgiveness wants, needs, to be learned and relearned, over and over.


I used to think it was like a debt, you were letting someone else off the hook. And that felt so wrong. Like to forgive was to say it didn’t matter. But that’s not really it — partially though, the letting off the hook part is right — but it’s not the other person, it’s you. It’s releasing yourself. Giving yourself freedom from the hurt, the anger, the torture of reliving the situation.


But even in knowing this, it’s still hard though. Sometimes I find myself replaying a conversation in my head, oh, I should have said this! How could they have done that??? And everything tenses up – I can feel it. I can actually feel my face get harder. That can’t be pretty. And it takes a few beats before I think, what am I doing? What a waste of time. And I learn the lesson again.

Someone told me once, if you’re nervous, like going to the doctor for example, to wiggle your toes. I tried it during an exam, and it worked. For some reason, it’s hard to tense up when wiggling your toes. I could feel my cheeks get softer, and in the softness, I began to smile.


I didn’t have a story in mind when I started painting her portrait. But the softness in her face gave me the story, gave me the gift. The ease of her coming smile. That’s the grace I wanted, still want, every day. That was the gift. I pass by her face each day. I give thanks. (Maybe even wiggle.) And I let go. Softly.

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I’m not too busy

I picked some peaches off the tree this morning. The temperature was perfect. The kind of temperature that you don’t have to brace yourself for when you open the door (if you’re from Minnesota, you know what I mean). This kind of morning you can wander outside, it feels the same temperature as inside, like the whole world is your domain. In this world I plucked the ripe peaches off the tree and put them in a bowl. Peaches, I thought…and in french – peches… is it les peches? des peches? Follow my brain here… De peche mode – the band, oh yes, 90’s music… oooh, the 90’s, wait, that’s 30 years ago, wow, time…time is really something. Do I have the time to make peach jam? Do I have any time? No. No one “has” time, I guess. Because I don’t think you can really possess time at all. Time is there, like a gift. We can enjoy it, or not… but we can’t own it. Can’t manipulate it, create it, change it, borrow it. I guess it’s like love. It’s a gift. To be enjoyed. Picked. Treasured. Like the peaches on this tree. In my time, I’m going to make the jam, share it with those around me, and hope they can feel the love in that. Because it’s there. Given. OH, my bowl is full. What a lovely day!

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In the garden

I used to say that I never needed anything but cement beneath my feet. I said it with certainty. I would only live in the city. Sidewalks and pavement. That’s all I needed. But comfort has a way of packing its bags, never leaving a forwarding address, and one day you find yourself in a different country, mowing the lawn.


We have a very large yard. The french word for yard is jardin, or garden. I like this better. We have a big garden. Yard sounds more like a prison, but in a garden, you can roam and discover. And so I do. It took a minute for me to take in all of the beauty. The birds singing, the flowers blooming, the trees bearing fruit. Butterflies. All that “certainty” I carried for years flew off into the bluest of skies and I discovered a new way to live. Maybe with no certainty at all, but pleasure in this moment. And maybe that’s all we get. Maybe that’s all we need. Not certainty, but truth. A truth as pure and hopeful as children’s summer laughter.


I hear that laughter coming across the trees. I hear it in my heart. Even when I’m on my last leg of pushing that mower across a sea of green that I had once promised never to inhabit. Life changes. Daily. We can either shake our fists in the air, or fold them in thanks. Today, I choose thanks. Thanks for all the uncertainty, the newness, the unstable adventure of just living! Oh, look! The day’s beginning. Let’s enjoy the ride.

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Transition

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I woke up wondering how I would make the transition from yesterday’s post into today’s. Not like Casey Kasem (the famous radio host) ranting about making the transition from an uptempo song to a somber dedication – I wasn’t that concerned, but it was on my mind. But that’s life, isn’t it, making the transitions? It’s easy, or perhaps more understandable, to be in the middle of something. For example, it’s easy to be in love, and it’s easy to be single, but to make the transition from one to the other… well, I think we’ve all been there. Life gives us constant change, and we have to make the transitions.

Each morning, when I’m doing my French lessons, I know that right after I will be writing the daily blog. Some days I have an idea, and other days I don’t. I just begin to write. Beginning is always the most difficult. Once I start. The words flow. And I let them. I don’t edit. I hope that’s not too obvious… or maybe I do… I hope you can tell that each post is coming straight from my heart.

We’re all asked to go through things, impossible things. Here, in these transitions, is where we need the most grace, from ourselves and from each other. In the transition is where each new day begins. Each opportunity. Each glorious awakening. Believe in the unbelievable. Find the joy. Good morning!

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Speak the words

I was twelve, maybe thirteen when I first read the poem, An elegy for Jane, by Theodore Roethke. I was in Mr. Rolfsrud’s classroom, top floor of Central Junior High. It was a warm day, nearing the end of the school year, so the classroom was closed in with stale air, and we were restless. But not Mr. Rolfsrud. He still donned a suit and bowtie, and never seemed to sweat. He loved poetry, and so did I. I loved to listen to him read aloud. Each word had importance, and he showed this by the way he spoke, and the way he dressed. When he got to the end of the poem, we knew the girl had died, and that the person writing the poem was not related to the girl, nor romantically involved with the girl, but he loved her all the same.

“Over this damp grave I speak the words of my love:
I, with no rights in this matter,
Neither father nor lover.”

Some of the boys snickered. Girls coughed. We had no idea of love, not yet. How could we? Yet we were left to consider the impact of one human life on another outside the context of romantic or familial love. I’m not sure I understood then, but the words were crisp and strong and true, so I put them in my heart’s memory to unpack when needed.

And thankfully, and I do mean with thanks, I have unpacked them through the years. It may seem strange to say thankfully here because we know that someone would have had to die for these words to make sense. But what a privilege to love someone. To love someone enough to feel the pain of the loss.

Yesterday, when I saw that he had passed, the tears flowed. I certainly had “no rights in this matter,” but I knew my mother had loved him – she having “no rights in this matter” either. But he was her friend, her brother. I wish there was a different word to use here. Because it feels like more than that. He showed my mother respect and support in a time of her life when she needed it the most. All done with strength, human compassion, and a sense of humor. And in seeing this, still a teenager, I learned the value of respect. The value of human connection. He was a man who loved his wife, and his children, and still could offer love, not romantic, not familial, but love all the same, to the others around him. What an honor to see this, to know this man.

We are given examples of greatness throughout our lives, from poets to teachers, to generals. Often the world gets too closed in with stale air, and we become restless, distracted, but I pray I always find the time, in honor of people like Mr. Rolfsrud and Dr. Hovda, to “speak the words of love.”

(My deepest sympathies to Judy Hovda, David Hovda, and Kari Hovda Schlachter)

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