Jodi Hills

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

Monthly Archives: July 2024


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The gift of the balcony.

I was about her age when I read it for the first time, The Great Gatsby. The green light that I sought was never about the opulence of wealth and fame, but I had one. Pick any one of the 10,000 lakes in Minnesota where I grew up, and I could see it dock dancing. It was my love of words. Paint. Creativity. Expression of any kind, reflecting Gatsby Green in my eyes and heart. I follow it still.

At first glance, looking up at her from the Mediterranean, I’m sure they think she has everything. That she is shining green. And yes, she lives in a beautiful home. The right cars and clothing. Even her hair looks expensive. But I have the privilege of seeing her up close, in home and heart. Her newly teened soul is looking. She paints in those perfect dresses. She bakes and cradles the cat. She takes the summer course of theatre and dares to dream of the stage – that one day it will be her script, loud and clear and glowing green.

When I invite her out on the balcony, (the only gift I have to give really), I don’t need to tell her to assume the pose. She is living it. Looking outward. Onward. Not reveling in what she has, what the others see, but looking for her own light. And what a thing to behold! — all these words from the page coming to life, right there in front of me, shining so possible — Margaux, on the balcony in Marseille.

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BANG!

As far back as I can remember, July never promised to stay. But without fail, each year we banged it in with a welcome so loud, thinking this time, just maybe, it would. 

It was the Schulz brothers at the bottom of the gravel road that introduced us to the firecracker. They didn’t bother to wait for the fourth. By July first, they were armed and ready. Pockets filled with matches, they wandered VanDyke road to make sure its young inhabitants were awakened to the magic of summer. Feet perched bare and tentative, I watched as they pulled the firecrackers from their tattered jeans. My toes curled in as they lit the matches. I held my breath, as they put one to the other. BANG! I jumped back! BANG! BANG! It screamed the warning – summer was here! BANG! BANG! BANG! Do not miss out, they cried! The bangs got closer and louder and skipped in the gravel. And I cheered and vowed to not miss a day!

Without my knowledge or permission, July has once again raced through its month of days. I hear the bangs of the 31st at my heels, and know I can’t let this moment pass, not one moment, without a celebration.

Sleeveless I sit beside the open window and still believe my summer will never end. I can feel it in my heart! Bang! – it beats against my suntanned chest! Bang! Bang! I do believe! BANG! BANG! — I shout the Schulz warning, uncurl my toes, and skip in the gravel of my endless day!

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Without even falling.

It happened three times on the playground of Washington Elementary. Once falling from the swings. Once from the dragon head of the monkey bars. (Why it didn’t have a monkey head, I’ll never know, nor why we didn’t question it.) And once from the horizontal spinning pole. Each time landing splat on my back, “knocking the wind” right out of me, gasping for air, the breath I took for granted, gone. The solution from the faces that stared down at me was this, “just breathe.” And they were always right, but the thing they never told me, us, these teachers and principals, (and they had to have known, I realize this only now), that this could and would happen again without even falling. 

Does anyone ever realize how much “wind” they have been given? I have been writing about it for decades. Painted it. Danced in it. But still, when it is taken away, this breath of love… From grandparents and parents. Children. Friends. It’s hard to imagine that you’ll ever breathe again. But it comes back. And then one day, you find that you did indeed survive, and you are now the one looking down, smiling gently, having captured all the breaths of love that never really left, saying “just breathe…just breathe…”

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An actual rally.

The guaranteed impermanence of both the net and our interest, allowed us to put up the badminton game in our grandma’s front yard. No matter how far we stretched the poles, there was a permanent sag in the middle, which ultimately worked to our advantage. Each shuttlecock, or birdie as we called it, was worn down to the nubs, either by racket or grandpa’s truck that drove over them. We swung with exuberance, hitting mostly only summer farm breezes. We struggled to keep score — the real “wins” coming in the few moments we could strike up an actual rally. 

When I see them play badminton at the Olympic level, I have to laugh. It is not the same game. I mention it only because I’m reminded how we do this in our daily lives — compare our experiences. When someone tells us of a certain struggle or situation, we are often so quick to say, “Oh, I’ve been through that, it’s not so hard”… or “Here’s what you should do…” or “just get over it…” The thing is, we’re not playing the same game. What might be a swing in a summer breeze to you, may be an international struggle for someone else. Neither right nor wrong. Just different. The best we can do, I suppose, is to sag the net a little and help each other rally. Maybe in doing so, we can all get back to the comfort of a summer breeze, in our time and in our way, and we could all win.

Perhaps it’s just an Olympic size dream raised up from the barefooted grass of my grandparent’s farm, but I owe it to myself, we owe it to ourselves, to keep swinging!

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Shoes of our humanity.

Sometimes I find myself in a hurry for no particular reason at all. Returning home in my good shoes, I have to fight the inclination to simply throw them in the closet and change quickly into my “around the house” gear. Then I see the paper forms that the shoes were originally packed in — and I pick up my mother’s torch. I place the forms back in the shoes. Toes and heels. Safe. Cared for. Wrap them in the larger sheet of tissue paper, and place them gently in their space. 

It’s always about the torches. These things that were carried, through all kinds of inclement weather, tumbled down hills, and struggled up mountains, with tired grips and hopeful hearts, excited grins that reached through outstretched arms to say, this is important, this is who I am, who we are, the best of what I could be, the start of what you can become!!!!

The athletes gather in my adopted country, under one flame, lit by millions of sparks. Passed on from mothers and fathers. Grandparents and teachers. Coaches and companions. Tiny flames that say it all matters. We all matter. And we have to care. We have to take the time to place the forms back into the shoes of our humanity, and keep them strong, keep them alive, and walk proudly on, farther, further, into the best that we can be.

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Shoulders back.

Maybe it was just a collision of the times. Or maybe the universe sent her exactly what she needed.

Since I can remember rushing to the kitchen table to grab a piece of toast before the bus, I could hear my mother say, “Put your shoulders back.” It was part of the morning vocabulary, which also included, “I love you. Have a nice day,” as I raced out the door, my wet hair dripping, my toast crumbling, my shoulders back. 

You can’t give someone confidence, but you can show them what it looks like, even in themselves. 

At her lowest point. After my father left. After we lost the house. When she forced down Heath Ice Cream bars, just to keep up her weight. It was then the world introduced shoulder pads. She wore them every day to the Superintendent’s office of ISD #206. Each blazer, each blouse, gave the illusion of confidence. Strength. She needed to see it. She needed me to see it. 

I don’t know who realized first. Was it Herberger’s? Dayton’s? My mom? Women of the world? I suppose it doesn’t really matter who got there first, but we got there. I got there. No longer needing the padded version of ourselves. She was strong now, my mom. Standing. Laughing. Loving. Living. Confidently. Beautifully. 

Our internet was barely working this morning. My mouse was out of juice. I needed to restart my sluggish computer. Slouched over my keyboard, I heard it — “shoulders back.”  I smiled. Sat up straight. I rebooted along with my computer. And here we are, telling you to be strong. Nothing is more beautiful! 

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The dream continues.

I’ve never been someone who thinks things will last forever. I know there are no guarantees. I have moved out of enough homes and apartments to understand the impermanence of it all. I’ve owned blowdryers for heaven’s sake — one of the best examples of obsolescence.

I know we have to let go.

Yesterday we had to throw away a perfectly good printer, only a little over a year old. The toner cartridges are no longer made — not even in the vastness of the World Wide Web. I suppose it should be nothing. But should it? It’s not about this plastic box. I guess it’s the simple act of disposal. This is necessary, I know. And I’m not talking about letting go here. I have no personal relationship with this printer. I just don’t want become accustomed to the ease of throwing things away. I worry that if it all gets too simple, we begin to value nothing. A garbage full of electronics is one thing, but how do we keep the bin free of people’s hearts and dreams, ideas and growth, visions and hopes — I, we, must not be so quick to dispose. And it can be easy. With just a click of a button we can unfriend. A few more clicks and we can hurt. Destroy even. Complete disposal.

And this is not to be stagnant. Real change, real growth, I believe comes in the nuturing of ideas. In discussions. Sometimes even hard ones. But just because they can be difficult, we don’t throw them away. We learn from them. We grow. I heard once, when you stop dreaming, you die. When you stop learning, you stop living. So I put together the new printer. I download the manual. I struggle through the “keep it simple” directions on the box. I connect to my phone and iPad. I print out the labels to ship my sold painting to the US from France. And my dream continues. The world can take away your Wi-Fi, your printer, but not your dream. Not your heart. That is for you and you alone to decide.

“After all the tears and questions, she realized that only she could decide if her heart was disposable or not…and it wasn’t.”

**The dance woman pictured is on her way to the US!

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A lot of strokes.

I’m in the middle stages of a new painting. From time to time I have to stop and take a photo of the work, otherwise it just becomes a series of shapes. If I stay focusing on just these tiny pieces, they become very hard to unsee, and I can lose the whole. 

I suppose the danger at large is in real life. It is so easy to grab hold of these tiny pieces. Latch on to one thing and then assume. These small pieces are often the ones with little hooks, maybe even sharp edges, so it’s simple, I’ll give you that.  And it’s ironic, these little things that make us so unsure, can give us such certainty. Like, she’s divorced, so she must be… or he’s a democrat, so he has to be… he’s old, she’s blonde, they don’t speak our language, he’s elite, she’s too young, he’s too fat, they’re the wrong religion, the wrong color, they’re just so… oh, the tiny pieces. 

If we want to be more, we have to see more. Step back. Stop naming and defining each piece, and instead see the person. When all the tiny pieces are placed together, they’re not so sharp after all. It takes a lot of shapes to make a puzzle. A lot of strokes to make a painting. So it is with people. 

“And if we did, see past it all…If you saw that I am not just my face, but all that I have faced…and if I did that for you…

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This becoming.

They didn’t make it clear when they bent over to get face to face and asked the question, “What do you want to become when you grow up?” They made it seem like it was a one time thing. I never dreamed it would be daily.

The easiest thing would be to just let them all fall to the ground, the wild plums from our garden tree. But that’s not who I am. So I stand bucketed beneath the limbs and pluck and shake and fill. Wild plums do not give it away easily. Skin and pit are prepared to put up quite a fight. I could just smash them all together, and it would be easier, but again I answer, possibly with less conviction, but still, that’s not really who I am. So I peel each tiny fruit. One by one. Put them in the colander to let the juices flow. Smash them by hand, struggling to release the pit that hangs on, and on…but I can’t blame a pit for being a pit. The juice and sweet pulp that remains gets sugared and boiled into the most beautiful rouge — prune rouge. 

We had it on our homemade bread for breakfast. The day becomes, and I begin.

Maybe there’s no way to be warned. And maybe it’s better that we aren’t. It would be a little overwhelming to hear that you are going to have to become, and become and become. Every day you will be asked to become the person you want to be. For me, it’s from canvas, to paper, to table. From person to person, customers online, strangers en route, family in house…who am I to each of them, to myself? Of course I fail, but therein lies the beauty of it all, I get to become again. We all do. 

That’s not to say it’s easy. Tears and sweat will need to be wiped away constantly, but when you get there, to the sweet prune rouge of it all, it is beautiful, this becoming, so I face the mirror and ask myself, still and again, to become.


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Dancing between alarms.

I’m not sure any of us believed there would ever be a fire. Still, when the blare of the alarm sounded, pencils shot across worksheets, books fell from desks, shoes that dangled from heels were shoved back on, and we all jumped to attention. We lined up at the door and serpentined down our designated hallways, our feet moving twice as fast as the group itself. The front doors of Washington Elementary were flung open. We sniffed the air and scanned the streets for big red trucks. When the threat was certained to be just a drill, the thrill of being outside took over. The air was so fresh on a Tuesday at 1:15 in the afternoon. We jumped and waved our arms in this new found freedom. Maybe we didn’t learn the seriousness of what could happen, and maybe we weren’t supposed to. But I know we appreciated the gift of the unexpected. These moments, ever so brief, when we were released to dance on the sidewalk, two hours ahead of schedule.

The thing is, we think we’re prepared. But in between all the alarms, our shoes still slide from the backs of our heels. We’re surprised when something bad happens. We dance in something good. Needing both, to tell the difference. The only certainty is that the doors, will, and always can be, flung wide open.

Nothing prepares you for this day. Your heart is cracked open. So you cry. The world keeps turning. So you live. No one tells your heart to stop beating. So you love! Nothing prepares you for this beautiful day.

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