Jodi Hills

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

Monthly Archives: December 2024


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Someone’s Grandma Elsie.

There’s a name you need to learn if you don’t already know it. Gisèle Pelicot. Just a small grandma, living in an even smaller town in France. For almost a decade, she was unknowingly given sedatives by her husband, who raped her while she was unconscious, and invited over 80 men to come in and do the same. The horror is not something I can convey in words. There is no me-too for this. I pray there never will be. And perhaps because of the actions of Madame Pelicot, we will be closer to putting an end to such violence. 

She waived her right to anonymity and a trial behind closed doors.  In doing so, she placed the shame where it has always belonged: on the perpetrators – the rapists. The trial attracted worldwide media attention, and Gisèle’s willingness to speak out on behalf of all victims of sexual assault won her widespread support and admiration. She is someone’s Grandma Elsie. And needs to be known. How do we honor her? I think maybe in the same way that she has stood, the way that she stands, with grace, with dignity. 
I give thanks for my grandma daily. For my mother, by the minute. You know their names. Elsie. Ivy. And now we know hers — Merci, Gisèle.


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When you crawl inside.

I can put anything in front of her. A whirring mixer. Splattering dough. The most tempting of cookies — made with a French butter that could lure the strongest of wills. Even steaming loaves of bread. But she doesn’t look up. So engrossed in her book. Dazzled by the words on the page. And I know, but for the dress and the hair, she is me.

I don’t remember not loving it, reading. It started with the Golden Books. Books I still have sitting beside me. And so rightly named, Golden, for they were treasures indeed. I suppose it was my mother who taught me, not to break the spine. To cradle them with care. “Use two hands,” she would say. “Why?” I asked. “You’ll need the support when you crawl inside.”

So that’s the way I read. Immersed. Just like she taught me. And that’s the way I love. Deep. Just as she loved me.

I boxed up some of the Christmas cookies that I made yesterday and gave them to the neighbor kids. I held them out with both hands. Their gasps of delight went deep. I can feel my mother smiling.

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Tremble and try.

I’ve started packing in my head for our upcoming travels. Making outfits in my head. Which shoes will go with most? Is this coat warm enough? Should I bring the hair oil, or buy it there? I know one thing for certain, I will make room for my sketchbook. In any and all uncertainty, it reminds me of who I am.

I’ve been doing it since I was five years old. On days when nothing made sense, it was sure. Not perfect. No. Never any pressure for perfection. Just being. A capturing of moments when it was simply ok to be myself.

I see it now. As I watch my chubby hands of youth presenting it to my mom. Holding it out as a question — Will you love me like this? With all of my imperfections. Lines that don’t quite match up. Colors out of sync. Beyond the scribbles, will you see me? The answer was always a resounding yes.

And when she looked back at me. Eyebrows up. Hands on my shoulders. I knew she was telling me to ask the same of myself. Insisting that it wasn’t just important to love yourself, but knowing that you had to. You have to!

I’m not saying it comes easily. Good things rarely do. So I practice. I work out the mistakes. I tremble and try. I turn the page and begin again. Perhaps not as proof, but certainly as possibility, and maybe that’s as close as we need to come – in life and love. So I remind myself. I remind you. With eyebrows raised and hands grasping your shoulders, I ask you, will you, to believe.

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The view.

There is a color blue that I know, only because of my mother.

I had heard of broken hearts before. Saw the Disney versions on Sunday nights in living color. I wasn’t allowed to sit too close to the television, in the fear that it would ruin my eyes. But when I watched my mother’s heart break, I forgot the warnings, and pulled myself in, up so close, so personal, my heart telling my eyes, you have to see her.

We moved from our house on Van Dyke Road. Apartment to apartment. In this seemingly endless winter, I could hear her heart snapping, like the leafless limbs on frozen trees. With every painful crack, we moved. Searching. Each nest smaller. Sharp, inexpensive twigs. I stayed nestled in. In front. Beside. It was where I could feel the hope. See the “just maybe.” And time to time I would hear it, in a whisper, glancing out the apartment window, even at the garden level she would press our faces to the glass, and as the shoes hustled by on the sidewalk she would force a smile and say, “Aaah, but the view!” My eyes squinted, not from the pain, but the laughter. I would never again worry about getting in too close.

I can’t remember how long the winter lasted. Was it years? Then I saw her in front of the window on Jefferson Street. Sitting next to the stereo. Replaying the record by Shirley Bassey. She feverishly wrote down the words, “I wish you bluebirds in the spring, to give your heart a song to sing and then a kiss, but more than this, I wish you love.” Was she writing to him? To her heart? I wasn’t sure, but I knew one thing, spring had arrived, in the most glorious shade of blue.

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The visitors

I think paintings are a conversation. You know the kind. The breathless telling, started in the middle, with no explanation, and none needed. Because the heart has already double-dutched itself in, without skipping a beat. This motion, this rhythm, this movement, this love that pays a visit through your swinging screen door, is the only welcome I, we, need for each day.

Maybe I do it as a reminder. As a thank you. As a way to keep the conversation alive. The leaning in of grandfather. The twirl of mother. The dance of children. They are the gentle breezes in my heart. They are the laughter of stories on repeat. They bend me at the waist, and I struggle to catch my breath between the love and laughter, the tears of tenderness that stream the same amid comfort and chaotic joy.

If you are blessed enough to have such friends, such family — if you are surrounded by conversations that begin “remember when” and you’re already laughing — then you are truly blessed. So how do we thank these visitors? (Because love is a visitor.) Do we meet them at Tuesday’s random swinging door? With no wait for holiday or obligation. Only a wave of come in. Twirl in. Lean in. Heart nodding… Come.

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Packaged and sent.

We bought the wrapping paper years ago at Anthropologie. It was one of our favorite stores. The clothing. The scented candles. The “You look fabulous in that!” My mom and I could spend hours. And even when the items were too expensive, the compliments were free, and so easily given. 

When we saw the artisan gift paper, we knew we had to have it. We could only afford one sheet. We cut it in two and wrapped tiny gifts for each other. The little green balls were like cheerleaders — jumping and dancing and spelling out praise with the letters of our names. I suppose we had always been that for each other — the one leading the cheers. And that’s what the paper did. Each year. We saved it for nearly twenty years. Sending it back and forth. From city to city. State to state. Country to country. I still have it. When I see the little green pompoms, I smile. I clutch my heart. The love my mother gave to me was always packaged and sent. Nothing wasted.

You won’t hear anyone say it — that it’s about the packaging. No, they’ll tell you it’s the thought that counts. The thought? Who cares? If you simply think about someone, and don’t let them know, what difference does it make? I would offer that it all needs some packaging. Some expression. Some action. Love, care, concern, joy, hope, congratulations, condolences, without the actual passing on, without the actual giving of these extraordinary gifts, aren’t they simply empty? 

This year, let’s wrap everything. In smiles and hugs. In arms reaching out. Thoughts actually expressed. Let our hearts be ribboned and bowed and ever giving. Let the Christmas cheers be heard today and every day throughout the year!  No thoughts wasted. No love unspent.

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Hey, Robin!

They were always happy to see her. “Hey, Robin!” Women waving from windowsills freshly opened. Kids on bicycles, spinning newly bare-legged. The mail carriers with a little extra spring in their steps. And that was it, she supposed, this spring. She hadn’t realized what was brought each year — this promise of renewal. This hope of better days. But she had seen her mother do it, from, well, this bird’s eye view. Fully nested she watched the earth give her mother an approving wink, and she knew one day she would do the same.

She couldn’t remember the day it happened. It seemed she was just flying. Underneath her mother’s wing, she soared through city and field. Darting and dancing. Oh, what joy to be in her mother’s stream. Flowers bloomed and bees sang along in seemingly endless sun. She wasn’t worried when the colors began to change. They were still lovely. Almost the rouge of her own breast. How could that be bad? So she kept flying through the dropping leaves. She hadn’t seen winter yet. But her mother prepared her as best she could. “But if we bring the spring,” she questioned, why don’t we just bring it now?” Her mother smiled, knowing she had asked the same thing. And her mother before her. I suppose everyone wonders. Why the winter months? Poets and philosophers have always tried to answer. But maybe the most truthful was her mother — who stopped focusing on the why, and only looked forward to the sweet call.

She thinks about her daily. Hears her song in each twig that she rests on. Her tiny orange heart can get away from her. And she knows she wasn’t promised spring. No, she would have to bring it. The thought heavies her wings, and she waits. It takes a winter, I suppose, for the “have to” to turn to a “get to.” But the hopeful flutter returns. She “gets to” bring the spring. What a privilege! She leaps from branch to blue, and hears the joyful cries — “Hey, Robin!”

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The inner whir.

I wasn’t allowed to start it. But that never stopped me from riding. My legs weren’t long enough yet to straddle the seat. I folded them underneath me, which also offered the height I needed to reach the handle bars. Bundled with at least two pairs of snow pants, I couldn’t feel the snow that had collected on the heels of my boots. If I knew the words for throttle and brake, I didn’t understand them. I squeezed both frantically at the same time with a woolened tenderness. The faux fur that encircled my face prevented me from seeing Norton’s house, but as the anchor to Van Dyke Road, I always knew it was there. The two strings that secured my hat, were balled in the same fur, and tucked inside my coat’s collar. I could feel them vibrate as I made the whirring sound for speed in the motionless snow. 

I don’t know how long I spent on the Ski-doo. Perhaps it wasn’t even as long as it took to bundle. Winter outings at 5 years old rarely were. I mention it as a reminder. Glenda the good witch in the Wizard of Oz was right, “You’ve always had the power, my Dear…” I tell myself this as I set out for the day. I smile and hear the whir from within. Today is beginning — Let’s ride!!!

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My Notre Dame

After five years of restoration, the Notre Dame cathedral reopened in Paris! I don’t know that one exclamation point can signify the extraordinary feat. While most agreed that five years would be nearly impossible, the greater consensus was — “not on my watch…” It wasn’t whether it could be done, but that it had to be done. And it wasn’t just Catholics, or Parisians, the world seemed to be invested. For it isn’t just architecture, it is a story of our humanity. Some will call that faith. Fortitude. Survival. Pride. Celebration. Maybe it’s all of those things. But this building, this evidence of our living, this story that has stood for nearly a thousand years, all agreed that it couldn’t be lost to something so banal as a dropped cigarette or a loose wire. Not a war, not a natural disaster, nothing in all this time had taken it down. No one wanted to be the ones that let it go. 

Every detail was replicated. Details that most will never see, but all will feel. The voice of Notre Dame has been restored. Each rafter is aligned to the note. There is a sound that exits because of the building. It rings again. Still.

In my most humble of ways, I work each day on keeping my own “Notre Dame” alive. There is a voice to my Hvezdas. My Alexandria. My Van Dyke Road. My friends. My new French family. My Provence. My Paris. All rafters in the voice that is mine. Is ours. And I will do everything to keep that alive. It is my watch. It is my responsibility. 

And don’t we all have that? Aren’t we all keepers of the story? Isn’t it our joyful duty to do the work? To pass on the love? To keep it alive? To be the exclamation point of this time? This place? “Yes! Yes!!!” I shout, we shout, over the sound of ringing bells.

Paris, 2024
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It can be climbed.

Would I have seen it — the majestic beauty of the Sainte Victoire — if Cezanne hadn’t shown it in paintings again and again?  I’d like to think yes, but I can’t be sure. Never to lose it, the appreciation, each day when I walk by the viewpoint, I stop. Sometimes I take a photo. Sometimes I just wave and give thanks. Some days I climb a little higher. Perhaps to get a little closer. Like Laura did on Little House on the Prairie, when she needed to be in voice reach of heaven. She rattled her braids and sweated her brow. Tested the very muscles of her thighs just to get a little closer. 

I don’t measure these daily steps in “likes.” I measure them in steps. How close can I get to the real beauty of those around me? The heavenly goodness of my grandparents and mother. Of teachers and friends. I can’t take the chance that they don’t know, that you don’t know. So I keep climbing. With keyboard and brush. Telling their stories. Our stories. 

I suppose we all think we’re just one voice, what could it matter? But I have to believe it does. It matters to me. And when I see you out there, thighs burning, heart racing, I tell you I can’t climb it for you, but it can be climbed. We can do this — I tell it to my own sweating brow, and yours, yes, we can.

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