Jodi Hills

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

Monthly Archives: July 2022


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Daring greatly.

It seemed easy to make friends in school. They sat you next to about 30 options. Gave you subjects to talk about. Offered common enemies like rules and detention. Supplied the games and gyms. Put you in pools and on buses, all together.

And that was enough for most. But it seemed like there should be more. “Wasn’t there more to it? Wasn’t it all supposed to mean something?” I asked my best friend in my yellow bedroom on Van Dyke Road. Cindy thought about it. I mean, she didn’t laugh, but really thought about it, and I suppose that’s why we were friends. We understood each other. Even in our preteens, we sought more than they could possibly offer at Washington Elementary, or even Central Junior High.

We both agreed that there had to be more. But how did you get it? That was the bigger question. I searched for years. I can’t tell you the exact moment. They came in whispers. Small bits. I wrote words for my mother. And we connected deeply. A poem for my grandfather’s funeral. And I was a part of a family. I began to expose my heart. I suppose I stopped looking for what could be offered to me, and began to offer what I had. And it was bigger! Better! It meant something! It meant all and more than I had dreamed of in shades of yellow. This is how I would connect. How I still connect.

He said I could pick out anything from his wood pile. Maybe that doesn’t sound like much, but for me it was priceless. A way for us to connect. And I had a long way to travel to catch up to this life-long friend of my husband. He helped me load the back of our car.

I cut the first strips of wood to stretch the canvas. No plans yet of what to paint, that would come. It always does if I just give it a path. I gessoed the canvas. And began in blue. The sea and sky and sand opened before me. The boats and nets and the fishermen — all daring greatly.

I searched my newly attained wood pile for the longest, straightest pieces. Sanded each length. And sanded again. And again. I cut them to length. Nailed them with the rusted hammer — once belonging to my husband’s father. Squared. Stained. Sanded again. Cut the strips for the backing. Placed the painting inside. It should also be mentioned that Michel, the man who let me pick freely from his pile of wood, was, for the majority of his life, a fisherman. A fisherman, I pause and smile. The blank canvas knew, perhaps even before I did. And this is how we connect. Connect our hearts. Our stories. By doing the work.

There is more. There is always more. But it won’t be given. We will have to search and throw our nets out to sea, continuously doing the work, ever daring greatly.

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A taste of honey.

I can’t say that I ever really liked honey. Well, to be fair, I’m not certain that I had ever really tasted it. Sure, I had the occasional squeeze from a plastic bear, but I understand now that that was probably just manufactured liquid sugar. 

I liked the sound of it – Le miel de lavande, and then I had a taste of it. Lavender honey. My shoes still covered in the lavender field’s morning dew, we purchased a jar from the local vendor. At home, I put a little (let’s not kid ourselves, a lot) on my homemade toasted bread. OH, so this is honey!  Yes. Yes! I DO love honey. I guess you know when it is real. 

I guess it’s the same with everything, not the least of which — love. We’re quick to label so many emotions, connections with the word love. I know I did. Because we don’t know – certainly I didn’t. A taste of this, that, even the other… maybe this was it? Could this be it? And squeezing from the “honey bear” I tried to convince myself that it was good. But was it? Not really. Not for me. 

I suppose one could have stop searching, but my feet answered only to my heart, and it said “keep walking.” So I made my way, slowly, stumbling to the lavender fields. So this is it! This is love. Oui!

I don’t know all the answers, how the magic works, how our heart creates the most unlikely maps, but I do know this, if you can’t taste the honey, really taste it…keep walking. Love should be delicious!

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The women who saved the fish.


Jason Reynolds is an accomplished American author of novels and poetry. I listened to him speak about an old high school teacher. This teacher told the students that they were going to have a class pet. They all scoffed, especially when he told them it was going to be a fish. The eye rolls were audible. This wasn’t a science class. They all thought it was rather ridiculous. He told them that there was only one rule. They listened. They could never touch the fish. “No matter what,” he said, “you are never allowed to touch this fish or you will be suspended.” No one really reacted because, they thought, there would never be a reason to touch it. Days went by. They studied their humanities lessons. One day, at the beginning of the class, this teacher walked over to the tank and took the large fish out and threw it on the floor. The class was in shock! What was he doing? Was he insane? Mouths opened, but nobody moved. They could hear in their heads, “You must never touch this fish or you will be suspended.” The fish gasped for air. Flopping and pleading on the floor. Two of the high school girls couldn’t take it anymore and raced to the front of the room and picked up the fish, putting it back in the tank. Everyone sighed in relief. Surely this had to be a good thing. The teacher smiled at them. “Please go to the principal’s office,” he said. No no no, the class was saying. They saved the fish. “Please go now. You are both suspended.” They could hardly believe their ears. “Please go, keep walking” he said, “but hold your heads up high on the way. You did the right thing.” They left. “It’s not always easy to do the right thing,” he told the class. “But it still has to be done.” The future author said he felt nothing but shame…why had he just sat there, along with almost everyone else…”

In this experiment, it was always the women who saved the fish. Sacrificed themselves for the greater good. I have seen it throughout my life. My grandmother. My mother. Women all around me. Even during the times they were the fish themselves, they saved each other. Whatever challenges you are facing today, hold your heads up high, and keep walking.

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Further, deeper…

Before I could ride a two-wheeler to Lake Latoka, my mother would have to drive me there. Well, she didn’t have to, but she did. And certainly it wasn’t fun for her. She didn’t like heat, nor the water… But still, I would tug on her shirt, as she bent over the laundry that couldn’t be done during the work week, the laundry that ate up her Saturday morning. “Please, just for a few minutes,” I would plead. I didn’t know then that it would mean staying up hours later, when she was already tired, or maybe I wouldn’t have asked, but I’m not sure that I carried enough empathy at this young stage of life. Already sweating in my one-piece sailor swimsuit, I’d smile into her eyes, and she put down the basket. 

She placed her folding lawn chair as near to the shade of the one tree on the beach as possible. I splashed and waved and swam, as the straps of the chair made a pattern on the back of her thighs. All the youth of the surrounding Latoka area screamed, “look at me!” as their heads and feet popped up through water! The most comforting thought perhaps that I’ve ever had, is not feeling the need to yell the same. Because each time I turned, or spun, or splashed, or did a trick, and then looked up, her eyes were directly on me. She was always watching. Always there. The life-line that allowed me to go further, deeper, because she, you see, connected me to the shore.  

People often ask me, “How did you have the courage to start your own business…to dare expose yourself through word and canvas…move to another country???” I suppose the answer to it all, I always had the comfort of shore.

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Peace leads to joy.

In the fifth grade at Washington Elementary, I was ahead in my studies, so Miss Green said I could go upstairs to assist the third grade teacher. Oh, yes. What an opportunity! I felt so old and smart. These poor, lowly third graders surely needed all the wisdom I could impart. I walked tall into their classroom. I stood next to their teacher. Certainly we were equals. They were about to start a section in science. Biology. Not my favorite, but I was still confident. I walked behind her to the giant glass box. Frogs. My heart rose a little in my chest. I didn’t like frogs. Perhaps it was the years of torment from an older brother who thought sticking one down your summer tank top was hilarious! (It wasn’t.) Still, I thought, they’re in a glass cage. How bad could this be? My question was soon answered by one of the third grade boys who opened the cover. Frogs began jumping everywhere. It was an infestation, biblical in nature. The teacher ran around, grabbing. Children screamed and threw. No, not me. I raced to the door, and took the stairs two at a time to get back to the comfort of my classroom. “They didn’t need me after all…” I said as I humbly and quietly returned to my desk. I wrote over and over in my journal – “not today.”

It had been just weeks earlier at our yearly safety assembly that our principal told us when faced with something that made us uncomfortable or nervous, not to engage, but to remove ourselves from the situation. Who knew how valuable this information could be?! Still is.

As grownups, it gets a little harder to see the chaos of certain people or relationships — it’s usually a little more subtle than flinging frogs — but just as chaotic. And sometimes we can feel compelled to argue our point, louder, faster, as they fly overhead. But I’m right!!!! I’m right!!! Only it just adds to the screaming. I know I’ll be taught this lesson again and again. I walk out into the calm of the sun, the quiet peace of the morning, smile, and tell my heart, “not today.”

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The promised land.

“Don’t touch them,” I heard him say, while I was touching them. It was my grandfather’s voice in my head. He had said it when I found a fallen bird’s nest on his farm. The little bird beaks seemed to be crying out for me, but he said no, if I touched them, the mother would never come back. But surely it couldn’t be the same for bunnies I thought. Not the same for these beautiful cuddly little bunnies that I found on this day in the field next to our house. Bunnies were meant to be touched. To be held. They were accessible. Not like birds. Why, there was the Easter Bunny, and Bugs Bunny… chocolate bunnies, stuffed bunnies… Yes, I told myself, bunnies were meant to be held. There were three of them. No mother in sight. I placed one from each hand, back with the other. They squirmed and nestled and smiled. See, I told myself, they were just fine. The mother would come back.

I told my brother that afternoon what I had found. How I had picked them up. “Now you have to kill them,” he said.

“What?????? Noooooo! I would never!”

“Well, they are going to die anyway. Starve to death. Because the mother doesn’t like your smell.” And he walked away.

I stood motionless. How could he deliver this news and just leave me standing there. I was a murderer, and apparantly, I smelled.

I thought about getting my bow and arrow. The plastic one my aunt had purchased for me at Target. I could “do the right thing” (according to my brother) and kill them. I went into the garage to find my bow and arrow. I touched the string. Slid my finger along the faux feathers of the arrow. There was no way I could kill them. No way. I sat in the gravel at the end of the driveway, now not even certain that my own mother would return to me from work. Why would she? I was a smelly murderer.

When she finally pulled in, she didn’t even put the car in the garage. She stopped beside me. Opened the car door. I told her everything. She assured me that I was nothing of the sort, that mothers do come back. And as I sat on her lap next to the steering wheel, I could only believe her. She was proof.

The next day I searched for the bunnies. Praying for their mother’s return, as the weeds scratched my legs. I searched for hours, or maybe ten minutes, but there was no sign of any of them. No babies. No mother. My own mother went straight to the happily ever after…. “See, she said, “the mother came back and brought them to a new house and they are all just fine.” I believed her.

Years later, the first grown-up book we were assigned in middle school was “Of mice and men.” Lennie, the rabbits. It was all so sad. I wept for the story. For them. And I wept because I felt it all slipping away. I knew now. How could I go forward with this knowledge of unhappy endings? How did they carry it? I wept for my brother. My grandfather. How long had they carried this knowledge? I wept for my mother, who had to have known, but still lived on as proof — still passed on the possibility of happy endings. They all carried it, as best they could.

John Steinbeck says, “In every bit of honest writing in the world, there is a base theme. Try to understand men (humans), if you understand each other you will be kind to each other.” I would have to choose my own path. Walk in my own truth. I suppose we all have to do that. And with each word that I write, maybe I understand them, and myself, just a little bit more. See the beauty of it all, just a little bit more. This I can carry. I smile, and walk on.

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Nothing.

I woke up alone each day in my summer bed. My mother at work. I brushed my teeth. Sometimes my hair. Put on shorts and a t-shirt. Made a piece of toast with Smucker’s grape jelly and Jif creamy smooth peanut butter. Walked through the unlocked door. And continued walking. No map. No plan. I filled my pockets. A smooth rock. An abandoned neighbor’s toy. Kicked the gravel beneath my feet. Dust circled my ankles. I kicked faster. Began running. Found my bicycle in the ditch where I had left it – distracted by yesterday’s game of kickball in the open field. Rode slowly at first. Up the hill. Turned around. Fast down the hill. Again up. Again down. Faster each time. Down again. At Dynda’s. Arms extended, I ran through the cool, wet white sheets hanging on the line. Waved to Grandma Dynda, who wasn’t related to me. Ran back through the grass. Through the open door, letting it slam behind me. Gathered all the dolls and stuffed animals that would fit into my homemade orange corduroy book bag and ran back to my bicycle. Filled the basket on the handlebars and told them not to be afraid. I would take care of them. And raced on the gravel road. Raced them to where the tar began, to where I could really pick up speed. I made the sound of “weeeeeeeee,” that I imagined each one to scream. I showed them the geese near the lake. Not too close. I protected them. Took them back home for lunch. On a blanket table in the grass, we ate Campbell’s chicken noodle soup from the can. The grass tickled our backs through the blanket as a circus of clouds entertained us. I carried them back into the house in the blanket. Placed them on the bed. They didn’t argue about taking a nap. I forehead kissed each one of them. Raced through the door. Raced back in. Grabbed fifty cents, an actual 50 cent piece that I got from my grandma for my birthday. Got back on my bike that waited patiently in the driveway on its side. Rode past the gravel. On to the speed of the tar. Over the railroad tracks. Past the viking statue. Onto broadway. Stopped at Rexall Drug. Left my unlocked bike on the sidewalk. Emptied my pockets on the counter. Sifted through to find the 50 cent piece. Handed it to the smocked lady. Took a frozen Milky Way candy bar out of the freezer. Ate it in the sun. Got on my bike. Chocolate fingers stained the handlebars. Tar. Railroad tracks. Gravel. Home. Hose. Washed hands. Washed bike. Ran through open door. Grabbed the Laura Ingalls Wilder book from the bedroom side table. Forehead kissed each doll and animal again. Book in basket, I rode to Norton’s. “The girls aren’t home,” Mrs. Norton said. “That’s ok,” I said. And sat on their front steps to read. Finished two chapters. Forgot my bike. Walked home. Heard my mother’s car wheels on the gravel road and smiled. Raced to her car door. She gave me a kiss on the forehead. “What did you do today?” she asked. “Nothing,” I smiled.

Yesterday I drew on a piece of paper. I painted in my sketchbook. No one will buy it. What was it for? Sometimes I wonder… is it nothing? And then I remember. I race through the door of my open heart. Yes, I smile, nothing.

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The B side.

We had only a couple of 45s. If you don’t know what a 45 is, it was a small record album that played two songs, the hit on the A side and the less popular (or completely unknown) song on the B side. Both were by Frank Sinatra. We played them on a giant piece of furniture with a turntable. I suppose it was funny to have two small records and this giant stereo console, but that’s what we had. We bought the 45s at Carlson’s music center for 99 cents each, and my mother got the stereo console in the divorce in exchange for the waffle iron. 

On dark Sunday afternoons, we laid on the floor, 4 feet apart, each with a head by a speaker. We played them over and over. I didn’t want to play the B sides. It seemed like that’s what we were living. “One day,” she said as we waited out the Sunday, “days will be full, and faster than we can imagine. And life will be great!” Now, as I try to capture the blur that passed, the blur of laughter and tears, the music of life, I know she was so right. 

Today, in France, a small number of the old men still wear hats. How elegant, I think. How very Frank. They hold a bit of time, and carry it, slowly, softly. And I breathe in the songs of Sunday, giving thanks for every B side, every mother’s promise, every hope carried in and out of tune, 45 rotations per minute.

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Carried within.

For a short time, when I was but a short child, I lived in a green house. It was under a blue sky, lit with the brightest yellow sun. It was a time when blue and yellow did, in fact, make green. And everything made sense. Then we moved to a brown house. On the same road. We broke apart, each of us. Nothing made sense. And I spent years searching for my palette.

I asked the same sky, under the same sun, every day, “Please, can you show me the way?” The sun continued to smile, as if it were already telling me. “What?” I asked the yellow. “Where?” I asked the blue. One day I looked down at my shoes, my travel weary shoes, stained with green. A smiling sigh. The blue got bluer. The sun beamed. I looked back at my shoes. How long had they been carrying the answer? Carrying my palette. My home.

They come out so easily now, the colors of my heart, as I live and paint each canvas. Because I know where they are, these comforting colors of my palette, my love, my home — they are, as they always have been, carried within.

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Heart giggles.

“Sit up straight. And settle down.” These were very confusing directions for us, the six year olds of Mrs. Bergstrom’s first grade class. We breathed in. Slouched over. Looked around. Up. Down. Got the giggles. Giggles so loud that she repeated it again – “Sit up straight and settle down!” Snorts and hoots shot from our hand covered mouths. Giggles should never be contained.

Oh, but they tried. Tried to contain us. Keep your desk orderly. Sharpen your pencils. Eyes to the front. It was like this in every class. Even in gym class there were rules to be followed. But once a week, in the lower level of Washington Elementary, we were marched in, single file, and then set free! It was Mr. Opsahl’s art room. It was filled with color. Paper. Glue. Paint. Sticky things. Beautiful things. Possibilities. Here our imaginations were not only welcomed, but encouraged. Imagination – or mind giggles – burst into full color, like the NBC peacock!

It was a garden view classroom, meaning our heads were at street level. We could see the cars, sometimes the pedestrians. In all the other classrooms, I, we, looked out the window, in hopes of joining this outside world. But not in the art room. Here, I hoped people could see in, see into our magical world. See us making hand puppets, face masks, flower pots. I guess I knew, even then, how beautiful this world was. And I wanted everyone to feel it.

Some might say, well, it’s because you were (are) an artist…but it was more than that, more than art. It was freedom. It was joy. And what a glorious way to learn. One day, Mrs. Bergstrom took a break from the rules, and said we could experience our English lesson by using the hand puppets we made in art class. The hand puppets that were created from empty toilet paper rolls and papier-mâché. Fingers full of promise, behind a sheet of plywood with a stage cut window, we put on magical, nonsensical, plays and songs that contained the day’s vocabulary list. I fell a little more in love with art that day. A little more in love with words. And a little more in love with Mrs. Bergstrom. We expected this from Mr. Opsahl, this loosening of the reins, but with Mrs. Bergstrom, donned in her pencil skirt, and neatly bunned hair, this was something! Truly something!

If you can, do that for someone today. Loosen the reins, give the unexpected compliment, the unsolicited kindness. Be the giggle in someone else’s heart.

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