Jodi Hills

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

Monthly Archives: March 2024


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The color brave.

Maybe being brave is kind of like love, in the way that you never finish. 

I didn’t know much about it then — my grandpa’s farm. I only saw how he changed the colors from season to season. From black to green to gold. He made it look so simple.  I suppose we don’t often see people being brave.  We just see them doing. But the changing weather must have brought worry. A tractor down, a man short. With each crop something different. He had to keep learning. Adjusting. Every single day. 

I think it was the same with my mother. Most only saw the colors. How lovely she looked in her yellow. Her turquoise. Most couldn’t see beyond the popped collar, or ruffled neck, just how brave she was being. I’m not even sure she saw it herself. But I did. I still do. 

Sometimes I get impatient with myself. Why do I have to keep tracing over the word brave? Can’t I just be? But in the moments when I let myself step into the beautiful colors of it all, navigating through the brilliance of the day’s challenge, I see it. And I’m ok with the not finishing. I will be brave today. And tomorrow. But I look around and smile, because I’m doing the same with love. 

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The care of the varnish.

I had to google the expression, because it didn’t seem right to me. It still doesn’t. To “varnish over the truth,” is said to be a way to hide or deceive; while in painting, it’s just the opposite. After the paint is dry, applying a varnish not only protects the integrity of the painting, it actually brings all the colors together. The image is more vibrant. More clear. The colors are no longer individual. The painting becomes whole. Revealed.

The other day I applied the varnish to two paintings while working on a commissioned piece.  Just as they had months ago by my heart and hand, they came to life again. I can’t say that I remembered each stroke. Each movement, but the experience became alive again. So very real. 

When I tell you of my childhood — memories of family, of school days and summer suns — it feels like a varnishing. Not one of deception, but revelation. Making whole these images — these moments. Even the most simple of times (the tiniest of strokes) — a cow, a book, a walk, a promise, a bike, a hand — they become part of the picture. The story becomes whole. Even in the parts where it felt like a “taking away,” something was given. Maybe it takes time. Maybe it takes the care of the varnish…but the story is always revealed. And when I take the time to really look, I can see the beauty of it all.

I sit today in the comfort of the stories that live around and beside and within, knowing a bit will gather in this new creation, this new painting. Each moment is so precious and deserving of our care, even and long before the meaning is revealed, the beauty is there. 

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Tools.

I was always pretty certain that Monday would come. It surprised me, this wild abandonment that some of the other children had on Friday afternoon’s bus. How easily they jumped on the green pleather seats and flung every care out the rectangular windows — betting that Saturday would last forever, or somehow Sunday would come to the rescue. 

I suppose a bit of me envied it. But not enough to not finish my homework on Friday afternoon. And it wasn’t like someone was forcing me. I felt no pressure from my mother or friends. I had found my own way of setting myself free. Once the work was done, I could enjoy my Saturday. Take away Sunday’s panic. I didn’t have the words for it then, but it was definitely self care. 

All of the routines that I had made for myself in Minneapolis flew out the bus window when I moved to France. Practices and solutions all needed to be changed. Modified. Easily sending me into a frenzied Sunday on any day of the week. “But this is how I used to do it… But why can’t I…” It takes me a minute to give up the argument, but when I do, I can usually find a new solution. 

As with most things, I was given the tools long ago. I just have to remember to use them. And I want to keep learning. Changing. Growing. Keep giving to myself, in my own peculiar way, the ability to feel Saturday’s wind in my hair, Sunday’s “there, there…” and all the possibility that Monday can bring. 

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Flash.

It was Mr. Rolfsrud who taught us about the flashforward at Central Junior High. He stood tall, polyester suited in front of our class, and took us through the technique with great detail. He neglected to mention that it would also happen in our real lives. 

Listening to an audiobook during my walk yesterday, the author lept the characters into the future. And seemingly in that same flash, I was in this other country. It was as if this decade, this epic novel I’m writing, was simply paragraphed. Maybe that is the way with all living. 

Not at first I suppose. Summer steps in our youth seem eternal. But then, without our knowledge or permission, the pace quickens. Steps become leaps. Leaps turn into bounds. And finally, mere flashes. 

The moment of clarity in the book skipped my heart a little. The moment of clarity in my life did the same. But I wasn’t afraid. More grateful. I simply raised my hand, waited for him to call on me, and thanked him for my love of words. I promised him I would use it all. And kept walking.

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Dress up.

I asked my grandpa, “Where do they keep their coats?” He looked confused. “The cows,” I said. 

On the way to my grandpa’s place, we passed many other farms. Some of the cows were black. Some black and white. Some brown. Maybe it was because I watched my mother in a constant state of wardrobe change. Maybe because we played dress up. And fashion show. I assumed the cows were putting on their outfit of choice before they went to the field. Wasn’t that what the barn was for? The stalls? To hang their coats at night?

I’m not sure how long I believed it. But I remember he didn’t correct me the first time. Some magic should remain for as long as possible. I think he knew that. 

I love that I have no recollection of the truth being revealed. Not for this. Nor Santa Claus. Or the Easter Bunny. None of that magic was jerked from my heart. It was allowed to wander at a cow’s pace in the changing fields of color. 

It was my mother who always wanted to be a fashion designer. Some might say that never happened. I disagree. She taught me well. And just ask any Herberger’s shopper. She was always more than willing to lend her hand in design. She taught me that dreams don’t necessarily have to “come true,” to be valuable. The mere act of dreaming — believing in the sometimes unbelievable — saved us repeatedly.  It still does. 

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Reattaching apples.

I have no memory of the apples growing. Each year, they were just there. The branches seemed to go from bare to weighed in just the blink of an eye. And as quickly as the green apples appeared in my grandparents’ trees, we were tripping over them in the grass, loading sack after brown paper sack to give away. 

Maybe it’s the way of all living. It goes so quickly. We move from grand point to grand point, missing all the little things along the way. The how we got heres. The growths. 

I keep trying to think of her as a young woman — the journey of how Elsie became Grandma Elsie. She wasn’t always in that kitchen. In that yard with an upturned apron full of apples. She once had to have giggled with the girls behind the school. Cursed her parents and dreamed of boys. Imagined a life. A future. 

To know the exact details, I suppose, would be like trying to reattach the apples to the tree. But I think it’s enough to know there was more. There is more. So much more to all of us. There are reasons and seasons of how we got here. And maybe we’ll never know all of it, but I think there is empathy in the attempt. Compassion in trying to imagine the whole picture. None of us are just one thing. Maybe in learning that, we come to see some growth after all.

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The telephone game. 

Not out of obligation, but there must be strings.

It’s still a lovely piece of work, but without strings, this violin plays no music. The sweet sounds lay silent in the wood. I suppose it’s the same for the heart. It needs to connect. 

I understand the meaning of the familiar saying — to give without expectation. And that’s a lovely sentiment, but then I think of the beautiful, melodic strings.

It was Grandma Elsie who first taught us the telephone game. When we asked what it was she simply said, “You know, telegram, telephone, tell-a-hvezda.” We laughed and began to string together the two empty tin cans she supplied. We spent the afternoon, through windows and doors, telling our secrets on our home made phones, Hvezda to Hvezda. Even when the sounds weren’t clear, when we got it all mixed up, we were still connected. 

It’s true today. We continue to get the messages wrong. Misunderstand. But we’re still connected. Always. Even with the tiniest of strings. This family. And when I remember, when I believe it, when I let my heart whisper the truth, I hear the sweetest music, still. 

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Waddler.

We’ve never had a duck in our yard before. It was a delightful surprise when I went to open the shutters. Perhaps even more surprising, “canard,” was the word that popped into my head (french for duck).

That is the very thing that keeps me coming back to the page, the canvas, the morning shutter — this belief in the unexpected. This hope that I’ll see something new. Create something new. Feel something waddle across my heart. 

And it’s never been about shock. Shock is simple. Anyone can severely rattle and create a response. But to find the beauty in the simple. To see the spectacular in life’s gentle and daily offerings, this, I think, is the extraordinary. 

It may not sound like much, but for me it was a sign of learning. A sign of growth. And without that, what am I in this for? Sure it may be at a waddler’s pace, but I am learning continuously about life. And this is hope. This is joy! 

Je suis un canard!
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Wild tulips.

We have a lovely bed of roses at our front door. When in bloom they are, of course, spectacular. My husband takes good care of them. Weeding. Watering. Pruning. Getting rid of the pests. And in return they reward us in sight and scent. 

I only mention it because each year in the pre-spring, as the roses lay dormant, something else happens (I would argue just as beautiful, maybe more.)  Without our knowledge or permission, without our planting or care, a bouquet of wild tulips pops through the earth in the corner of this sleeping bed. So confident. So strong. They have the audacity to bloom orange at half the height of their soon to be red-headed neighborhood. Seemingly without comparison or worry, they open each morning to the sun. 

It’s easy to envy the roses of this world. But I think for me, I am more than happy being a wild tulip. If I can wake each morning, petals to the sky, grateful for what I have, and bloom, bloom without need of praise or vase, bloom merely in hopes of gathering up the sun, then my life will be so much more than a bed of roses — my life will be — is — beautiful!

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Cataloged by heart.

After my grandfather spoke, no one ever had to say, “Well, what he meant by that was…” He was perhaps the first to teach me the strength of word economy. When he said something, without flower or hesitation, I believed him. 

Even with the wide open nature of youth, the vulnerable cracks of the heart and brain are very small. So it was this simplicity that allowed the love in. Word, by compact word. 

When my college professors began to emphasize the point, speaking of editing and being precise, I could only smile. That point had long ago been walked in –firm, straight and overalled. My grandfather’s words built a library inside of me. Cataloged by heart. Endlessly referenced. 

And I use it still today. In my writing. My painting. My interactions. If you have to tell someone, “I was only kidding…”; “It was only a joke…”; “What I meant was…”; “The point they were trying to make…” —  then there is a problem. There’s no room in the heart for all of that. What a glorious filter it can be. 

I’m currently reading the book, “What you are looking for is in the Library.” When my friend recommended it, I accepted quickly. She had long ago made it past the filter. And the title itself walked easily in, wearing overalls. 

I suppose that’s where all the love is stored. Here. And I pull from it daily. My grandparents’ shelf. My mother’s shelf. Husband. Friends. Family of all covers, all languages. Those whispering still and again, my heart’s truth. 

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