Jodi Hills

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

Monthly Archives: May 2024


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The resting places. 

An elephant has a very large brain for its size and the ‘temporal lobe’ region responsible for memory is more developed with a greater number of folds – this results in powerful abilities to ‘download’ important survival data, such as who is friend or foe.The ease at which my grandmother could fall asleep in the most random of situations makes me believe she possessed some of these same qualities. I saw her take an Elsie nap at Petermeir’s funeral home. At Jerry’s Jack and Jill. In a chair for sale at the neighbor’s auction. In the back seat of the car while we were being pulled over by the highway patrol. At the kitchen table during a dice game. In the police station in Wisconsin during a snowstorm. In the church basement. In the Herberger’s basement. In her basement, while guests wandered above.

I envied this about her. This trust. This comfort. This certainty of the friendly place. She, having never used a computer, was able to ‘download’ all of this survival data. Knowing where she was safe enough to rest her weary eyes. I write of her again and again, hoping the words bring that same knowledge to all of us. 

I suppose it’s always the matriarchs of the herd. They say that during droughts, these grandma elephants lead family members to watering holes by recalling detailed maps they’ve made spanning hundreds of kilometres. I say it’s even more than that. Grandma Elsie is still leading me. I am a country and a lifetime away, and she guides me to the safe places. The resting places. I, we, live a little easier, because of her.

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On with the lesson.

He sat next to me in kindergarten, where our only source of hierarchy came from the size of our Crayola crayons box. My mom couldn’t afford the largest, but I did have a good solid 24 pack. A few in class had the coveted 64 with the sharpener included, but not many. He pulled his tiny 9 pack from inside of his desk. He barely made a scribble during the allotted coloring time. At first I thought it was because he didn’t have that much to choose from, so I offered to share. He declined. And he didn’t seem embarrassed, he just didn’t seem to care. This was most surprising! It was my favorite time of day. To be set free. To color. To create. Then hang it on the wall! Wow!  His lack of enthusiasm was doubled down with the use of only the color brown. And I must admit that there was probably some judgement in my second offer of crayon sharing, more of a “Are you sure you don’t want to try some of my crayons?” He shrugged them away. 

One day he was called out of class for a few tests. We all whispered in wonder. Well, not wonder really, but confirmation that he must indeed be stupid, like we thought. He came back to the classroom all smiles. He was colorblind. We all welcomed the diagnosis. Mrs. Strand hung his brown paper on the wall, and we went on with the lesson. 

It’s hard to see things the way other people see them. And I am just as guilty. I ask again and again, how can they not see it???? I suppose sometimes it’s so clear that it’s invisible. I would like to think we have learned and grown since the age of five, but I’m not always so sure. 

Facing the same direction, I guess we will always see things differently. And we will rarely receive the reasons why. We will be asked again and again to get from desk to wall without diagnosis, but only pure understanding. We must sit in our differences and try to learn.

The sun comes up. We go on with the lesson. 

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For a moment, flew.

Summer birthday parties were the best. A lake was always involved, as we lived in the land of 10,000. It was the beginning of our tweens. Everything was changing. No more pin the tail on the donkey. Boys were now invited. We gave thought to our swimsuits and how much cake we were eating. It wasn’t enough that our bodies were daring us in every direction, but so were our peers.

It was her father who hung the thick rope from the tree. It had a large knot at the bottom for standing. I watched the first boy do it. He pulled the rope taut at the height of the bank. Took a few running steps. Flung himself over the open water. (This is where my heart suspended in time just watching him.) Then at the peak of his swing, he let go. Plunged into the water. Whoops and hollers and hands raised in the air. A handful of others tried it. Mostly boys. The others found their way to the pontoon, or hammock. But I stood and watched. I was in that unenviable position of wanting to do it, but terrified. So I stayed planted. It wasn’t the height. I could deal with that. The swinging part looked actually fun. I loved the water, so it wasn’t that. It was the letting go. You had to let go. To swing back to land could mean hitting the tree. Scraping your feet. Worst of all, the embarrassment of the return.

I suppose that’s always the hardest part. I struggle with it now. This thing weighing on my heart. Causing such pain. This rope that I cling to. Why don’t I just let it go? I know this. I have to let it go. Even as I sit here typing, on the edge of this bank, I know it. So why do I remain planted? My heart paining with each breath.

I don’t remember grabbing it. It was flung in my direction, and short of being hit in the head, I took the rope in my hands. It seemed in slow motion. My feet began to move. Why were they moving? My heart was sweating more than my hands. Without my knowlege or permission I was over open water. “Let gooooooo!!!!!!!!!” I don’t know if it was the voice in my head, or the ones on shore, but I listened, and released my grip. I fell, and for a moment, flew, into the blue. Splash. Relief. Joy. I rose above both water and fear.

I’ve heard that in some languages there is only one word for forgiveness and freedom. Perhaps they have it right. I can feel the rope in my hand. It’s time to let it go. Our moments are brief. And I want to fly.

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My summer friend. 

He didn’t explain the science of crop rotation to me. Not that I would have understood. But I did recognize when we took a different path to the tractor, one summer to the next. All he said, my grandfather, when I pointed to where I thought we walked the year before was, “That field needs to rest.” 

I was best friends with Sheri and Jan in the first grade. When we were in sync, it was fantastic. Jumping rope. Bike rides. Breathless stories with flashlights under the covers of curfew. But “three is always tricky” my grandma explained, as I cried having turned into the one of “two against.” We had all spent our time in that rotation of being the one left out. And it seemed endless when you were in it. 

I never saw my grandfather angry. I had heard stories, so I knew that it could happen. But it was never directed at me. And certainly never at the fields. “It’s the nature of things,” he said. Never faulting one field’s need to rest. I suppose it was this that brought me the most comfort — to not fight the timing. I smiled with him, as we walked through the dirt. He asked me about school, it having just ended for the year. He asked about my friends, “We’re resting right now,” I said. He shook his head. He understood. He felt like my summer friend.

Our fruit trees in the yard seem to be taking the year off. I love them. We’re still eating the jam from last year. Next year will come all too soon. I nod to myself, taking comfort in the sweet nature of things, my summer friend.

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Je suis Charlie.

Maybe we were all just as fragile as the sticker we stood behind. This sticker with only three words. But three chosen words could bring us together, couldn’t they? Hadn’t they brought us together so many times? So we wrote three new ones at the moment of the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris — Je suis Charlie (I am Charlie). And we marched. We gathered. Together.

Lifted by the scents of the boulangeries, we asked for the same — something new, something fresh. We weren’t just journalists and jokers. Not only French, but humans — humans all over the world. People standing up for the rights to be free, and to be safe in that freedom. Safe to laugh, to create and to grow and to love. So we shuffled from foot to foot, knowing there is never really “safety” in love or creation. Knowing that there’s risk in both. But we lifted signs above our heads and out of our hearts, believing still, the risk was never, is never, meant to be our lives. We had to be secure in the living. Standing next to the ones we loved, and the ones perhaps we’d love to know, we said we were one. We said we were together. We said we were “Charlie.”

I can’t tell you which tragedy happened next. One blurred into the next. And we changed our pictures on Facebook from one flag to another. Vowed our support on Instagram. Shouted our discontent. And changed our banners the following week, and sometimes daily. And it was never enough, and too much for others. So we went back to our smiling selfies, and soon stopped changing our banners altogether.

I don’t want to grow immune to it. To look away at injustice. I don’t want to merely shrug my shoulders and move on. But neither can I, we, carry the weight of it all on our shrugging shoulders. Our weary hearts. Somehow we must keep standing, for and with.

This painting is of that day, that day when we claimed who we were. Standing behind the sticker is Pascal. He is my brother-in-law. Really, he is just my brother. The sticker of “in-law” has long worn off and dropped. Maybe that’s what family is — those who are still there once the stickers have worn off. Once the flags have been changed. And changed again. It is who we really are.

Maybe we need to ask ourselves each day, “Am I a part of this world?”; “Am I a part of the human race?”; “Am I a part of this family?” — look in the mirror, look at those around us, and proudly answer, I am.

Je suis Charlie.
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Touristing.

I’m not big on sport analogies, but there is one that always sticks with me, as I navigate this world, and other relationships. It was during a football game. He had just scored a touchdown, which we all agree can be exciting, but the player made a gigantic display in the endzone, far exceeding any natural elation. As he continued it back to his side of the playing field, the coach simply said, “Act like you’ve been there before.”

It’s exciting to be a tourist. I love it. It’s easy to get caught up in the moment. I understand. But it seems that a majority of us have lost the ability to recognize that we are wandering through, not just monuments, but other people’s lives.

We sat near the altar in La Cathédrale de la Major for Charles’ confirmation. Of course this is one of Marseille’s grand cathedrals. A coveted destination for sure. But throughout the service, tourists, in their brightly colored shorts and graffitied t-shirts that declared the latest concert attended, wandered beyond the velvet ropes nearly on to the altar, snapping photos, waving to the rest of their group to signify that they made it to the “endzone.”

I mention it mostly as a reminder to myself. Without our knowledge or permission, we are touristing through the lives of others. I hope that I, we, can ease up on the trample, even on the most exciting of days. Because on this day that we are celebrating our victories, someone is losing someone, someone is lost. I think our joy is meant to be seen — definitely. Never as a taunt, but as a welcome.

I want to get better at this journey. Maybe the best way to start is to realize we are all on one.

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Little puffs.

I’m working on a new portrait. The main character is in a crowded city, so the amount of detail is extraordinary. People, buildings, reflections, restaurants. After working for hours, one’s eyes can begin to play tricks. Everything becomes just shapes. It’s hard to differentiate one from another. It’s then that I have to take a photo and regard the image as a whole. I was struggling the other day because I was working on a woman in the background — there were so many shaded lines to her jacket. My hand was going through the motions, but it wasn’t quite making sense. After I took the photo, it was so clear. “Oh, it’s a puffer jacket!” It was no longer a problem at all, only puffs — light and pillowy puffs.

I’m not proud of it, but I can get caught up in the details in real life as well. The he saids and she dids of it all. The monotonous shapes of discontent. I remind myself again, as if it were the first time, and then once again — Step back! “Look,” I tell my heart, it’s only little puffs, you can handle that, you can handle this.”

I suppose it may sound silly, but most of the time, that’s my goal, to get there — where my problems turn into puffs. Today, may I, we, step back for a minute, and all find the way.

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A dip in the magic.

My mother wasn’t one to swim, but she made sure that I learned. And right along with it she taught me how to take a DIP — how to access the Dream In my Pocket. “You never know when you’re going to need it,” she explained. So before anything ended, we made sure our pockets were filled. Before making a return trip home, a new trip would be planned. After an event, we’d plan our outfits for the next one. And one of the most important, in the last pages of a current book we would add to our “To Be Read” pile. 

I finished “Killers of the flower moon” yesterday. Within hours, I went to my TBR. I had purchased these two books about a week ago. I chose Paul Auster’s “The New York Trilogy,” because he had recently passed. I had only planned on getting this one, but on my way to the counter I saw the book, “The Details,” by Kira Josefsson. I had just listened to a podcast about it on my morning walk, so I grabbed that book too. They both waited patiently by my bed.

I was tired last evening. I had taken my actual first dip in our pool. This summer’s dream was officially out of pocket!  The water that may have been splashed onto the lawn was replaced with smiles.

Getting ready for bed, I randomly grabbed the top book, “The Details.” I wasn’t even six pages in, when the magic outshined the lamp clipped onto the pages. The character in the book began talking about her love for reading, specifically for her love of the author Paul Auster. My heart giggled. She went on, her favorite book was “The New York Trilogy.” You just can’t make this stuff up! 

I’ve always trusted the readers, and the dreamers. My mother gave me that. Perhaps these pockets were filled from heaven. I don’t know, but I slept in the knowledge that I was still surrounded by magic. And I will take a luxurious dip in all of it, every chance I get!!!

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Woulds and weeds.

It’s amazing the power they have, these weeds. Even the ones in the garden.

Whether you call it imagination or worry, or awfulizing even, I can conjure up a lot of situations long before they have a chance to even occur. Most, thankfully, don’t occur at all. 

I was at my grandma’s house, stooped over on the front cement steps. Waiting and worrying about my cousins arriving. Alone and surrounded by woulds. Would they still like me? Would they remember me from last summer? My grandma saw me, face curled, resting on clenched fists. “Why are you sitting here in the weeds?” she asked me. I looked around the cement. I didn’t understand. “I know that little brain of yours. Popping out all that worry, faster than a garden of weeds. Look out there. Are the birds worried? Do the cows have their heads in hooves?” Heads in hooves — I laughed. She waved her hand and scooted me off of the stairs. The woulds and weeds dropped from my chubby legs as I raced under the summer sun.

I was pulling the weeds surrounding our front entry. I tried to match them pluck for pluck. One from the garden. One from my brain. It made me laugh. Both put up a bit of a fight, but getting my head out of my hooves, it made it a lot easier.

I think a lot about the things my grandma did and said. When they were uniquely hers, we called it “pulling an Elsie.” Her letting go of the weeds was and is the main Elsie I’d like to pull. I keep the drawing of her hands behind me and try to live in the words, “If she did worry, it never showed in her hands. She held. She gave. She touched.” 

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I choose bloom.

“In April, millions of tiny flowers spread over the blackjack hills and vast prairies in the Osage territory of Oklahoma… In May, when coyotes howl beneath an unnervingly large moon, taller plants, such as spiderworts and black-eyed Susans, begin to creep over the tinier blooms… The necks of the smaller flowers break and their petals flutter away, and before long they are buried underground. This is why the Osage… refer to May as the time of the flower-killing moon.”  David Grann

We didn’t study the Osage, or perhaps I would have thought it was May, the “cruelest” of months. No, at Central Junior High, Mr. Rolfsrud had us studying T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, touting “April” as the cruellest month.” Maybe we were too young to understand either one — the cruelty of April or May. We, barely into living our collective Februarys, still believed in all things good. All things possible.

I’m reading Killers of the Flower Moon now. I’m a bit embarrassed to come to it this late, but I am here, now, learning. Maybe that’s all any of us can do. I am but a tiny bloom, for sure. And while some may find that terrifying, I see it as a yearly victory. Resilience. There are parts of me that have been trampled by the largest of Susans, but I’m still here. And each time, there comes a decision, bloom again or stay buried. I choose bloom. May we all choose bloom. 

As we keep springing forward, maybe it becomes easier to see. (I hope. I pray.) Empathy reveals our constant struggles and beauty. We’re only asked to keep growing. To not be trampled by the understanding, but set free. 

The sun begins to warm our spring day. The cool of early morning offers my heart just a hint of February, and I still believe.

“And each time, there comes a decision, bloom again or stay buried. I choose bloom. May we all choose bloom. “
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