Jodi Hills

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

Monthly Archives: February 2025


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Well, actually…

Maybe the trickiest thing about living, and one of the most important, is that we have to be able to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. 

I’m lucky. I have found that way as an artist. Hours can go by, in a foreign country, alone in the studio, deep within the canvas, I paint my way home. And the bonus gift is, within that same finished piece, I can watch people take their own journey. For this I am most grateful.

It happened right from the start. Standing behind a draped card table at my first art show in Edina, right beside my mother, we heard it again and again…”This is so me,” as they read something I wrote, or held a picture that I had painted. To which my mother would often reply, “Well, actually, it’s about me…” And it often was. Her birthday poem. An image of her face. She appeared in almost everything, which is to say, that so did I. And we would come to learn that we weren’t alone. Behind every, “Well, actually…” there was a gathering in. A collective embrace. Losing ourselves, together, we were all, somehow, found. 

It seems the little arms of the girl in the lake are not only splashing, but pulling people in. I have heard so many times, “Oh, she looks just like…” and my heart smiles. It was just yesterday when my friend said it had to be her daughter, it’s her, it’s her! And then she continued, “Well, actually, it’s probably you…” And then I felt my mother smiling.

These are the true gifts. Our shared experiences. When you tell me that you didn’t wait an hour after eating to go into the water, I smile and feel myself aching, stomach full, toes dug in sanded beach of Lake Latoka. When you tell me that you miss waving to your mother on shore, I feel the same ache, that glorious ache, that beautiful ache of loving someone. 

Today’s world is eager to point out our differences. To divide us between vote and color. I don’t have the answers, so I paint, I write. I reach out my heart and you reach out your hands, and we know we are different, but something makes us say, “Well, actually…” And then we’re all smiling. 

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Mostly.

It was either in yesterday’s Phoenix coffee shop or sometime in my Junior year of high school on the gymnasium floor…I can’t be sure, because the feelings were exactly the same, but I knew this woman, coach then, friend now, (the roles could be easily reversed), I knew that she was someone special.

She was young and looked like Janet Fonda, and we, in our teenage years, were eager to tell her both. Eager, and yet we made sure she knew how much we loved her predecessor. We had just begun to learn about love and trust and leaving, so all our cards in the colors of red and black, our team colors, were laid out on the table.

Of course I didn’t think about it then, how hard it must have been to join us. We, who had been friends since five years old. Moved from playground to gym. Knew the language of dropping the x in Alex (our beloved hometown) and replacing it with a k. And here she was, with her new ways and new shoes and I, we, stared through the glass of her office door.

Of course mine didn’t match our volleyball uniforms. My shoes were a light blue. Not Nike, but an off-brand, half-swoosh, that fooled no one, but the only ones we could afford. But I don’t remember ever feeling bad. Not even envious. We were friends, with no where else to go after school, playing in a gym. And I do mean play. Oh, of course we cried when it was all over, but mostly we just laughed. We laughed at the songs sung wrong on the bus, the girl who “mooned” out the back window, and the way none of us really knew how to do the flamboyant flop as we to took the floor before the match. (And we had the floor burns to prove it.)

I don’t mention the games, or our record. I barely remember. What was important is that she became friends with my mother. And sitting with her yesterday, in a coffee shop in Phoenix, she said, “…that’s exactly what your mom would have said…” and I was home. We talked of how those same volleyball girls recently visited me in France. We spoke of my mother, both of us eager to share our love and longing. We gave our compliments freely, and all cards, of every color, were once again laid upon the table.

She smiled when she said, “You were just friends, playing…” I smiled, because that was true about my friends in the gym, and my mother who worked just down the hall in the superintendent’s office.

Of course we cried when we had to say goodbye. But mostly, we laughed…


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Where the ruffles meet.

She said she liked my blouse. My heart beamed. Right there in the Walgreens in Sedona. I didn’t know this woman behind the counter. I will never see her again. It doesn’t make me a better person. I didn’t make the blouse. It wasn’t even really mine. Well, it is now, but it was my mother’s. She deserves the compliment. She picked it out. Looked in the mirror. Saw the ruffles frame her face. She added the small hook and eye where the ruffles meet so they would lay perfectly. And they did. Now they do on me. 

So that’s what she gave to me, this woman at the Walgreens, a trip back to the dressing room with my mother. Getting ready for an event in my apartment. She gave to me, in my mother’s voice, “You look good too.” She gave to me the after-giggle. With just a few words, she gave me all of this. 

I mention it only because we need to know it. Know how easily we can brighten a person’s day. With just the smallest of efforts, just a few tiny words, like a small hook and eye, we can bring us together, to the joyful place, where the ruffles meet.

Never underestimate the power of a compliment.

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Rouge.

It feels like an embrace, these red rocks that surround us. It doesn’t always happen, with cities, nor humans. But here, in Sedona, I feel it, like no time has passed. Like time doesn’t really even factor into the equation, just the warmth of its arms around me.

I’m watching the sun light up the rocks this morning. One of the things that I appreciate the most is the care of those living here. The houses are part of the nature. They don’t boast, nor distract. They exist within the beauty. Along. Beside. And maybe I love it because my mother always taught me to love like this, to find a love like this — and I have. A love that supports in the nature of all. A love, not eliminating the jagged edges, because love will always have them, but resting me within. Among. Beside. Without boast and distraction, just simply beautiful. 

One day after our 10 year anniversary, I once again forget about the time,  and nestle into the assurance of this embrace. Surrounded in rouge. The color of love.

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Almost purple.

When we got to the end of a bag on a road trip, my mother always, with a grin, suggested we give the purple jelly beans to the birds by throwing them out the car window. So it’s not surprising that yesterday, in the Petrified Forest National Park, when the crow made no attempt to fly away, even after taking pictures, that I went to the back seat of the car and picked out a jelly bean. (Of course we have them, mostly only purple left, it’s a road trip after all, and I am my mother’s daughter.). I walked right up to the big black bird. Gave the jelly bean a little roll, and the crow plucked it right from the ground. I think he loved it. I watched. You know, just in case. I wasn’t sure a crow could eat a jelly bean. (I was prepared to do cpr.) But he pecked it smaller. Ate it up, like everything in my history told me he would. 

I promise I won’t make a steady habit of feeding the birds jelly beans. But how could I miss the opportunity to bring my mother along on our trip?

Gazing out over the painted desert, looking at the trees that now were made of stone, time could have seemed too big to imagine. But maybe there is no time at all. Maybe everything is, all at once. Trees are stones. My mother is with me still. The black wing of the crow, shines blue, almost purple.

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Dazzling with joy.

We were just starting out. Not making headlines, so we made them for ourselves. Walking into our collective workspaces, we would announce each other. I had just sold my first piece of art. I entered his photo lab/living room. He shouted joyfully, “Local girl makes small splash in medium size pond!” 

I would go on to sell much bigger pieces. More expensive. Even “across the pond” as they say. But the joy has never changed. To be seen, I suppose, for any size ripple, is heart-tickling. 

Not much has changed, (and I pray it never will), from that five year old girl in one of the 10,000 lakes of Minnesota, trying to get my mother’s attention from shore. Dazzling her not with tricks, but joy. I’m still doing that. Because that’s what would have impressed her. What did impress her. The fun I was having. 

I have a name for it now — joie de vivre — the simple joy in living your life. That’s all she wanted for me. That’s all I want for myself, forever, and for everyone. But I know we mostly have to find it from within. I don’t sell a painting every day, but that doesn’t keep me from going to the studio. Each day, I wade in, summon the strength from my belly, never waiting an hour after eating (who could possibly wait?), and I giggle my arms into the air, and know why I am alive!


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High hopes.

Today was one of my mom’s favorite holidays — Groundhog Day! No pressure of gifts or events. No worries of saying it right, offending someone. No “should-haves” or “supposed-tos”. It was, and always would be, only what you made of it, she said. Because whether or not shadows were cast, (and certainly she knew about that), spring was going to come. 

And wasn’t that exactly how she, we, lived. No control of weather, or those who tried to cast things over us, like doubt, or fear, or worry, (all things dark). And even if, or when, they did — we too, just like everyone else, held the promise of spring. It was not based on wealth, or the building you prayed in, the name you held, or the person you voted for. Spring was coming, sometimes later than we wanted, indeed, but it never failed. And wasn’t that a beautiful reason for hope, for celebration! 

Some will call it silly. (I’ve never thought of silly as an insult.) And so what if it is. I will never look down a moment of hope. A day taken just as a reminder that no matter what we do, what is done, spring is coming. Spring is coming! What a gift! What a thing to celebrate! Happy Groundhog Day, my friends! The sun is shining through the window, my heart, my fingers — make of it what you will!  

And off we flew with all of wildly different high hopes!
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Impermanent birds.

I am not supposing that my bird paintings will last for the next 700 years, but I feel a part of the history, the conversation, each time I paint one.

Yesterday, we visited the Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It protects one of the largest petroglyph sites in North America, featuring designs and symbols carved onto volcanic rocks by Native Americans and Spanish settlers 400 to 700 years ago. These images are a valuable record of cultural expression. 

We’ve been doing it since the beginning of time — recording our stories. From rocks to the sides of buildings. Paper to internet, we put out our experiences. Our feelings. Our hopes. Our lives. And maybe it’s all too impermanent now. Things are thrown out without thought. Without care. Maybe we think it will all be gone tomorrow. Throwing out insults and disparaging words. Maybe it’s all too easy. What if we really had to think? Sweat above each word? Carve them with heartfelt intent? Would we give our history it deserves? 

I think about our legacy. How the future will regard what we did with our time. 

Mine are not birds on rocks. But in my moment, I am nesting with the Natives, sitting beside a lamp lit Emily Dickinson, trying to find the hope on feathers. Trying to find the goodness in our stories, our time. And I am just as guilty of being impatient. I live in the “I want it right now” — the same time as you, but as I see the concerned expression on the rocks beneath my feet, beside my hands, I think, I hope, maybe we can take a little more time, a little more care in telling our stories. In listening to others. Because they are valuable — or they could be. 

Maybe today, before we make the post, send the email, say the words, we give them a little more thought. Maybe we carve the stone, instead of throwing it.

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