Jodi Hills

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

Monthly Archives: January 2024


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Three Snow Whites and a Viking.

Three Snow Whites stepped out of the Starbucks in Bay City,Texas. It’s just a tiny town. It would have been surprising enough that they even had a Starbucks. And it sounds like the beginning of a joke, but they weren’t laughing. Their shiny black hair blew in the southern breeze, along with their silky yellow and blue dresses. Just shy of bluebirds on their shoulders, they looked perfectly Disney. They sipped on their coffees. Reached for their keys, and went to their cars, as if this happened every Saturday. And maybe it does, but we won’t be here to tell. 

I could have raced after them with my cell phone. Begged for a photo. But coming from a small town, I know the code. 

In Alexandria, Minnesota we have a statue of a large Viking. On his shield, it claims this is the Birthplace of America. In the summer, when our population doubled — all those coming from the Twin Cities to cool down in one of our many lakes — we could see them laugh. Poking fun at our big statue. Jumping on his feet. Taking ironic photos before heading off to the golf course. 

I would like to say that I defended him, us. But in my cut-off shorts and off brand tennis shoes, I didn’t yet have the words. I hope I apologized on my daily ride past him, perched on my banana seat bike, but I’m not sure that I did. 

Maybe it WAS the birthplace of America, maybe it wasn’t…I’m still not sure, but it was our birthplace, of our America. All of my beginnings began at his feet. It was the end of Van Dyke Road, and the start of Main. And even though at times it felt like I was the only one living this life, somehow it was not just my destiny. No, this we shared. Maybe all small towns do. We didn’t talk about it. We didn’t have to. This was our town. Our Viking. I had to leave to find the words, but even from a country away, I will claim it. Defend it. My hometown.

So no, I didn’t find out about the three Snow Whites. That’s their story to tell. I sit back on my imaginary banana seat bike, and enjoy the view as they step outside their destiny.

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Palette.

It’s not like we were told, but I think we all assumed we had to pick one. By October in each school year at Jefferson Senior High, we fell into line. Jocks, Hoods, Preppies, Nerds, Geeks. Some of us tried to hover between band, the gym and English class, but the differences were clear. Sometimes even uniformed. The only thing I was sure about was that everyone seemed so sure in their roles. Perhaps they thought the same about me. I wasn’t.

I suppose it takes a long time to build a soul. A life. Along the way you discover parts. Tiny sparks of color that make you feel a little bit more like yourself. You grow and change. Adaptations often more regular than choice (maybe these adjustments are the real choices).

Looking at the palette that makes up my latest creation, I smile. A dab of this. A stroke of that. This collection — this beautiful mess of colors that make up my life. Yes, I am an artist. An author. But I dip my brush and I bake. I dip my brush and play yard sports with the kids. I dip my brush and travel. Play fashion show. And read. And build. And change. Stroke by stroke, I am given my wings. Not confined by stereotypes or assumptions. I am my own blend of feathers. And one way or another, I am going to fly!

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Finding Houston.

Sometimes it’s as simple as whether the sun is out or not, but I have fallen in and out of love with cities throughout the United States. And they can change, sure, a little, but mostly I think it’s me.

Cities I thought I loved several years ago, this visit, not so much. And that’s ok, it doesn’t take away from my previous visits. I’ve also been surprised in the reverse — loving those I thought I never could. Taking the extra photos, celebrating, almost apologizing for not seeing it before. I know it’s silly. Laurel, Mississippi doesn’t need me to love it, no more than Houston was waiting for me to change my mind.

I suppose it’s the same with people. We spend so much time and energy wondering what people think. Do they like me when…will they like me if… oof, it can be exhausting. Should I change? Did they? We’re all wandering, wondering. Seeing situations and people again, for the very first time. It’s a journey. We would do well to remember we’re all on one. Knowing this, (I remind myself too), maybe we could all be a little more kind, gentle, joyful, loving, along the way. And maybe when our days and time together don’t always match up, we can smile and wave… and remember how we fell in love with Houston.


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Morning heals.

The first time driving into Houston I was still in my teens. My mom and I were going to see her sister Kay. The approach to the city is a cluster of freeways. I wasn’t yet sure if the rumors were true, but certainly the cars were bigger, mostly being trucks, and they were fast! I sped to keep within the blur of the car in front of me, and out of the one behind me.

The time between then and now feels almost as quick. The memories whir in multiple lanes.

Yesterday I was at the wheel again. This time my husband beside me. We got caught up in the medical district. So many hospitals. One beside the other. Each bigger than the next. I weaved my way through the care, both urgent and long, while Dominique searched for a hotel on his iPad. I could see him swiping out of the corner of my eye. “They’re so expensive,” he said.

I wasn’t surprised. This I had known from being a teenager as well. Being a teenager always in the hospital. My mother by my side until visiting hours were over. Having to drive in the dark. No directions, internal or external. No GPS. No phones. Having to drive beyond the security and nearness that only money could buy. She drove to what we could afford.

Anesthesia wearing off, worry setting in, I had no way to know if she made it. If she dared to close her eyes. Dared the comfort of sleep. Miles apart. Still. Quiet. We waited for morning’s heal.

Time has blurred so much, but not the love. Not the love that I felt as my hospital door opened and my mother’s smiling face entered. What she did for me. Still does.

It’s not a spoiler to say that we made it. Then and now.

Life moves pretty fast. Somehow, slowly, thoughtfully, joyfully, we save each other along the way.

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Just getting started.

They haven’t taken down the Christmas trees here in the south. They’ve just changed the decorations to Mardi Gras. Maybe all endings are just beginnings.

It shouldn’t have come as such a surprise when we finally moved from Van Dyke Road. We had inched our way down the road, a house at a time. First the white. Then the green. Then the brown. But it did.

I dropped my bike at the end of the driveway in front of the For Sale sign. This was different. The metal stakes in the ground said this was it. The red pick-up was gone. Only my mom’s car.

We used the empty stall for a garage sale. It wasn’t the neighbors that came. They were strangers. Touching our things. Things we wouldn’t have space for in an apartment. I leaned against my bike, wanting desperately to pedal away. Not being able to move. I should have helped. I could have priced things. Sold things. Arranged. But I was stuck. Stuck in our ending.

It took a few apartments on Jefferson Street, but we got there. We got to our beginning. Filled our closets. Filled our hearts. Made new traditions. Embraced the beauty of the impermanence, and just began to live. Keeping our hearts full of Christmas, we hung the purple, green and gold of Mardi Gras.

Change is inevitable. It is constant. It can be difficult. It will be. But the colors. The colors of it all can be —. so very beautiful! And so we begin. And begin again.

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The Birds.

I really didn’t want to be scared, but still I begged to watch it — The Birds, by Alfred Hitchcock. I had heard some of the other kids at Washington Elementary say they were going to watch it. Several boys had said they even had watched it the year before, claiming it was nothing — only babies would be afraid. This sealed the internal deal for me. “But I love birds…” I whined to my mother. “That makes it even worse,” she said.

She was right about both.

I watched behind fingers. Watched repeatedly within my Raggedy Ann bed sheets. Bad dream after nightmare. I was afraid of the winter birds. Those I had so admired for their strength against the cold, I ran from to get on the school bus. I shied away from their spring songs. Timidly in the summer sun I ran under trees. In ballparks. Among friends. And one day, moments passed. I didn’t worry. Days passed. And I skipped. I biked. And I wasn’t afraid anymore.

I suppose the same thing happened with love.

I paint birds. A lot of birds! I never stopped loving them. Each one I paint reminds me, not of the fear, but of the love. We will all get hurt along the way. Be frightened. And it is worse when it is someone you love. But that doesn’t have to ruin love itself. Love will always find a way to soar. I will not miss any more seasons out of fear. One way or another, I am going to fly!

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Nothing but bath mats.



I wanted to ask him what I was supposed to do now. Why wasn’t he saying anything? He should know. Him with all the answers. The plans to each season. I kept watching him. Silent. Taking in all of my mother’s broken words. My heart screamed into my unopened mouth — say something!!!! I knew he had liked my father. I knew it wasn’t only my mom and I that felt the break. There isn’t just one crack when a family splits. But he was the shoulders — my grandfather, her father, this farmer that stood beside the kitchen table. He was the master of dirt. Changing it into green and gold. Why wasn’t he changing this?

I kept staring out the window. He said a few things to my mother. I don’t know that she felt better, no, better would take time. But I could see relief. Relief of weight. Of story. Some words aren’t meant to be carried.

I was still waiting. Waiting for my “few.” His worked hand cupped over most of my shoulder and part of my back. He leaned in. “It’s not it,” he whispered, “you get to decide.” My heart was not yet even green, but I knew better would come, in my season.

Stepping out of the shower yesterday in Mississippi, I reached for the stack of towels I had asked for from the maid in the hall on my return from the gym. The top towel — a bath mat. I threw it on the floor and got out. Second towel. Third. Bath mats. She had given me nothing but bath mats. Cold and trying to wrap in the impossibly small cloth, I started to laugh. I ran to my iPad and wrote down the words, “Nothing but bath mats.” I decided it was going to be a great day.

We don’t always get to chose the words we are given, but make no mistake, we decide the story.

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Unlaced.

My first and only question to the clerk at Iverson’s shoes was, “Are they fast?” He assured me that they were, but encouraged me to race to the front window of the store. He neglected to time me, but still, these felt faster than last year’s pair. He put my old pair in the box. My mother paid. I wore my new bumper tennies home. Not certain if I was racing them, or they were racing me.

I don’t know what we did with the box, but I assume they didn’t come with directions. I was left to my own devices. I decided it was completely up to me, what these beautiful shoes could or couldn’t do. Testing if they could pedal faster, I took my banana seat bike from the garage and set out for Lake Latoka. It was hard to gauge on the gravel of Van Dyke Road, but when I hit the paved hill by Lord’s house, I began to really move! They were faster! On the long stretch toward the lake, my knees blurred into the blue of my new shoes. I had never gone so fast. Perhaps in my eagerness to give them a spin, I had neglected to tie the laces sufficiently. In a scramble of laces and chain and heel hitting the tiny spikes of the pedal, my right shoe flew off my foot into the air. For a brief second, my heart in my throat, my legs in the air, the pedals still spinning, my shoe beside my head, it felt — no, I was sure — I was flying! That’s the thing about magic, no one can ever prepare you.

Time moves faster than last year. I have the final pair of Van shoes my mother bought. I don’t know if she asked, but they turned out to be fast. They sit beside me now. Unlaced. Almost brand new. I was unprepared for this as well, but heart in my throat, I know she is flying.

I can’t be sure if I’m carrying the magic, or it’s carrying me, probably a little of both. The pedals keep turning — what a ride! My heart keeps believing — What a ride!

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The river blushed.

I have no ownership of it. Still, I feel connected to the Mississippi River. Living in Minneapolis all those years, we got to know each other. Understand each other. The secrets and concerns I told over bridge rails. It promising not to erase them, but carry them down. Easing worry and weight. Turning flounder into flow.

I’d like to think I thanked it, this river, for carrying my precious cargo, but I’m not sure I did. Not well enough. Perhaps it is the way with all those we love. We get used to them sharing the weight beside us. Expect it. Rely on it. 

My mother was alive the last time I stood on the banks of the river between Louisiana and Mississippi.  Yesterday evening in the setting sun, she still was. The love had been carried, just as promised. Ever flowing. 

Some might explain it away, saying it was only the moon…but when I looked up in the sky, there was the smile. My mother’s smile. Telling me she knew. She always knew. I smiled back. The river blushed, telling me the same.

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Hop on.



I didn’t know about tides then. Didn’t know that trust itself, as easily as it came in, could be pulled away.

I saw the bikes, entering the lobby of the hotel in Long Beach, Mississippi. (Even as I’m typing the state, I can’t help but spell it aloud in the rhythm we learned at Washington Elementary.) They weren’t banana seat bikes, but my youthful heart beat as if it were my sixth birthday. Having learned the repeated lessons of adulthood since then,I timidly asked if the bikes were for rent. “No, you can just take them, enjoy them, and bring them back.” She said it so easily, smiling, not knowing the beauty of the gift — or maybe she did…

Dumping the suitcases into our room as fast I could, I raced back down to the lobby. “We’re going to take them out,” I exclaimed. She smiled.

With the first wisp of my hair, the Gulf coast became the road to Lake Latoka in the summer of my Alexandria youth. I was riding. Free. Balanced by the trust in everything. good. Because it was there that we could hop on and off of our bikes. Lean them on sides of buildings. Drop them in ditches. In vacant lots. Neighbor’s yards. And they would be there. Waiting. Ready for our return. And maybe this was the truest of freedoms. Even more than the wind in our hair, against our bare legs — this trust.

Time and circumstance has a way of pulling it back. But it can return. I have felt the tides. Even come to believe in them. Trust in their return. Trust in trust itself.

Sand sparkles the backs of my legs. And the depths of my heart. Reminding me that today is a day to hop on. I am free to believe. Balanced in love. Ever and still.

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