Jodi Hills

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

Monthly Archives: June 2024


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“Go, little Quinnie!”

I had a box of trophies — statues, medals, pins — from my Cardinal days. I don’t think they made it to France. But I’m still surrounded by Cardinals. The ones I paint. The ones that visit my heart from heavenly places. Red and black can still lift me, in so many ways.

She’s almost always in red and black when we see her, surrounded by shouts of “Go, little Quinnie!” — as if the words could somehow jump into her stride and carry her along. Dominique picked up on it right away. Returning back to France, on the days when I’m scurrying about, running to get things done, he’ll say, “Go, little Quinnie!” And I can tell you that it works — they jump straight into my heart’s stride. To be connected still, even from so far away, it will ever lift me.

And that’s what I want for her — not the trophies or ribbons, they will surely get lost along the way — but to be ever lifted!  This is something!  Painting her, I realized in this moment, both of her feet were off the ground. These are the moments, I suppose, that we all want to capture. Isn’t that just like a Cardinal? To be in flight! 

Maybe one day she’ll make it to France. I just want her to know that a little part of her is already here.

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Holding everything dear.

We don’t get a lot of mail. To be honest, the mail carrier rarely slows down in front of our gate. So yesterday, when I saw the glimpse of white through the slot, it was already a surprise. But then to see my name…this was something! Not only had the letter traveled across the ocean, it transported me back in time to when I was six.

It was never lost on me, this beginning each letter with “Dear,”  — because certainly it must be, I thought. From the moment Mrs. Bergstrom taught us the salutation, all I wanted was to write a letter, and what would it be like, (I barely could let myself think of it) to receive such a letter…to know that you were in fact, dear. 

I don’t recall the cost of stamps. I barely understood the value of money, other than the quarter I received each Thursday for doing my weekly chores. I’m sure it didn’t come as a surprise when I told my mom that I wanted to forgo my allowance until I had enough to buy some stamps. She smiled and opened her purse. She unlatched the coin pocket and pulled out a stamp. She was glorious, I thought (and that didn’t come as a surprise either)!  

Not fully understanding how it worked, I wrote my first letter to the one I found most dear, sealed the envelope, licked the stamp, put it in our mailbox and raised the flag. It was the only address I knew, having memorized it before riding the school bus for the first time. I watched the mail carrier pull up to the boxes in front of our house. He put the car in park so he could retrieve the letter. He looked at the address, then saw me out of the corner of his eye. He smiled. Put down the flag. And placed the letter back in our mailbox. 

I paced the driveway nearly the entire afternoon waiting for my mom to return from work. She stopped at the mailbox, pulled the envelope to her chest, and before opening, she knew she was dear. 

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The welcome.

Of all the beautiful French qualities, being early is not really one of them. So it was more than a surprise when our newest Orsolini made his appearance six weeks early. But I suppose for little Charlie, he was right on time.

We spend so much time in our lives moving from box to box as we check off the numbers on the forms. It’s funny then that the two things which come to mind when describing humans as special have nothing to do with numbers at all, or even the age of the body. For the very young, when they do something remarkable we say, “they have an old soul.” And for the special moments of the aged we declare them “young at heart.” I suppose it’s because these hearts and souls are all we really have within our grasp. Certainly not time. We can chase it. Try to save it, speed it up, slow it down. Yet we remain unsuccessful. So then we try to gain its affection by giving it power — saying it heals — but it doesn’t. 

It’s all about what we do within the precious time we’re given. And it is so very precious. The love in our hearts and the hope in our minds, at any time, can heal, create, inspire and change almost anything, if we choose to see the possibilities within all of us. 

It often takes special occasions for us to stop and see it. But what if we could welcome a random Tuesday, an apple from the vine, a neighbor’s wave? Give it all the importance it deserves. What if we welcomed each old soul and young heart with the same enthusiasm as a baby Charlie!!! Maybe then, we wouldn’t just be wasting our time. 

Possibilities begin to rise, and so we look up. Welcome, Friday! Welcome sun! Welcome, Charlie!!!!

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Navigating the pristine.

It happens every time we visit a museum or castle. The pristine grounds will be marked with “keep off the grass” signs (in multiple languages). With the large crowds navigating on sidewalks or paths, inevitably, there is always one person, grinning from ear to ear, certain they are the only person who was smart enough to get this camera perspective. So proud as they stand firm, unknowingly, next to the warning sign. Now I get it, sometimes the language barrier can be tricky, and I never blame children, but most of us possess the awareness to in fact “keep off the grass.” 

The thing is, we learned it right from the start, didn’t we? I remember Mrs. Strand was the first — our kindergarten teacher. And even when Mrs. Podolski replaced her mid year so she could go have her twins, it continued — this identifying the child seated in the next desk as a “neighbor.” Papers were hung next to our neighbors’. Our cubby holes were kept clean out of respect for our neighbors’. We stood in line at the drinking fountain with our neighbors. Marched out calmly in fire drills. Went to lunch. Whispered in the library. Climbed through times tables. Always beside our neighbor. 

Maybe I noticed it because I loved our house neighborhood on VanDyke Road. I loved the people. I loved knowing whose screen door was always open. Whose house wouldn’t mind an extra bike abandoned in the driveway. I even loved Mrs. Muzik’s yard with the pristine grass that we weren’t allowed to run through — because she, too, was our neighbor. And that meant something.

Today, we have the possibility to connect with more people around the world. And I am grateful for these connections. Truly. But I see how some communicate with each other. Trampling over each other. It shocks me still. I understand that things change. Washington School is filled with condos. They paved over the familiar gravel of VanDyke Road. But aren’t we still neighbors? I’d like to think so. I will go on thinking so, as I navigate the pristine. 

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A permanent connection.

I always imagined myself as the number one. Not in the sense of being first, but as the connection to my number two pencil. She never explained it as such, Mrs. Bergstrom, our first grade teacher at Washington Elementary, but I felt it right from the start. It was such a magical connection. When she passed out the number twos they felt like little wands. Little wands that took the words she wrote on the blackboard and put them into our hands. Words that were filtered through our hearts and graphited to the sheets of paper that lay dormant for six years, never to be blank again. 

I was sketching in my book the other day with a pencil that I bought from MoMA. In this book, to gain the desired effect of lightness, the actual paper must be erased away. I couldn’t find my eraser. I thought it was probably down in the studio. Being upstairs, I didn’t want to make the trip. I started looking. Holding the pencil in my left hand, I felt it. I had never noticed it before. It was colored in black, this eraser. Indistinguishable from the rest of the pencil, but it was there. It had always been there. I smiled to the heavenly blackboard that I imagine Mrs. Bergstrom still directs. And give thanks for the magic.  For making me the number one to my number two. A permanent connection. 

If you’re wondering what teachers can do, I offer you this — this giving of an intelligence so far from artificial that it can still be held in the palm of my hand. 

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A life standard.

I see her most mornings now at the top of the hill. I don’t know how else to say it, but I’m joyfully aware that the same sun bouncing off of my shoulders is warming hers, as she steps gingerly behind her gated yard. And I’m happy for her that she seems more secure in this new season — secure enough to go from house to garage without looking down at her cane. Is it a flower bed she’s tending? I can’t really see. The house door creaks as it opens and I notice that she looks back. I’m happy she’s not alone. The moment passes as I descend the slope. 

The song rings in my ear with each step. Nina Simone sings “The folks who live on the hill.” I wonder if their lives felt as fast as the lyrics, as they “added a thing or two, a wing or two.” Verse jumping into verse. 

Just as it was a jazz standard, it was also, I suppose, a life standard — these folks who lived on the hill. A less complicated, more romantic version of Instagram. But the songs that imagined these lives weren’t intrusive or invasive. I like that. This warmth of not really needing to know the exact details, just imagining the best for them — hoping for it. 

I can tell you that I carried that warmth all day. I could feel it especially walking to my studio — that same romance of my own life. What a glorious and rare thing to see. 

As we jump to the next verse in our own songs, it’s so easy to miss the magic, the beauty. But I don’t want to do that. So I hum along, and climb. I hope for it. For all. Because I am, we are, the folks who live on the hill. 

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In the Sunday evening.

I had already seen it several times, The Wizard of Oz. I had it almost memorized. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say it changed from black and white to color. We were about to leave my grandma’s house when it came on the large console tv set in the living room. Recognizing the music I ran in and plopped directly in front of the television. “Not too close,” my grandma urged. We were still of the belief that the screen could make you go blind. “We’re leaving anyway,” my mom said as she tapped on my shoulder, reminding me it was a school night. I knew it was a Sunday evening. All the good shows were on Sunday night. “I just want to watch a little…” I said, staying cross-legged on the floor. “It’s getting late,” my mom continued, purse in hand. “You know I’ve never really watched it before,” my grandma said. “Oh, look,” she continued, “it’s in black and white.” “She doesn’t even know,” I screamed to my mother. “We have to stay until it turns (I then whispered the rest behind my cupped hand) to color. Or else she’ll be afraid.” That is what sealed it for my mom — this not wanting anyone to be afraid. My grandma sat down in the recliner. I backed away from the tv and leaned against her legs. My mom put her purse down and sat on the organ bench. It was only a moment, I suppose, but a rare one, where three generations sat together, waiting for the change to come.

I mention it only because I’m afraid we’re losing it. These moments. The changes never stop, but we often forget to. Maybe it would be better if we faced them together. Leaned against one another, in the Sunday evening of all that is to come.

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Promises kept.

It was clear to me that they wanted to come with, the lineup of baby dolls and stuffed animals on my bed. We had the conversation every summer morning, of where we would go. What we would do. They wouldn’t all fit in the basket of my banana seat bike. Perhaps it was the elephant, or the koala, maybe even Malinda who told me to take the old wagon. All in agreement, I dragged it from behind the garage to the front door. Had it ever been put away, as I’m sure my mom suggested, perhaps it wouldn’t have been so rusty. I hesitated to put down the blanket. It still smelled like the top of a baby’s head, or at least the plastic that made up Malinda’s. So I grabbed from the newspaper pile — previous editions of the Alexandria Echo Press. I left enough to clean the mirrors for Thursday’s chores. I spread them on the wagon. Then the blanket. Then each animal. Each baby doll. And we were off.

They never complained about the gravel road. And they were such good listeners. They believed me when I told them I would love them forever. As much as I believed it myself. 

I thought of them as I picked up the pine cones from our yard and put them in the rusty wheelbarrow. I am a lifetime and a country away, but never too far. As the wheelbarrow filled, I added the promises kept — they took up no space at all. And I smiled. Love. It’s what I hold on to. 

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The sweet spot.

I turned the light off last night with only a handful of pages left to read in my book. Trying to tightrope my way through not wanting to stop reading, but not wanting the book to end. 

You wouldn’t think I’d still feel it after so many years, but as June opens, I’m on the final bus of the school year, about to enter summer vacation. No longer tightly gripped, papers fly through open windows, dancing to our new found freedom. We encourage the tech student who’s driving our bus to take the long way, knowing all too well, the minute we step off, it begins. And of course we love summer, but this space just before, with all of its anticipation and wonder, may be the most magical of all. So we hop up and down the aisle of this yellow moving beast. Green seat to green seat. Shouting our hopes and plans. Arms clinging to sweaty shoulders, then out windows, waving to a summer that waits at the end of this gravel road. 

I make my way slowly to the front, as the bus driver pulls out the stop sign beside the mailbox that holds my last name. I take the giant steps one at a time. The gravel crunches underneath my bumper tennis shoes. He releases the sign and pulls down the road. I didn’t have the words for it then, but I knew I was standing in something sweet. Not after. Not before. Just here. 

It’s harder to get there now — this sweet spot. But I aim for it daily. Sipping my coffee. Tasting the lavender honey on my toast. Lacing my shoes. Stepping onto the gravel path, I hear the crackle under my feet, and I smile.

I’ll finish my book today and start a new one, but for the moment I’m just going to stand here, neither waiting or even beginning, just breathing in the sweet spot.

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