Jodi Hills

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

Monthly Archives: July 2025


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Nothing wasted.

No chef ever takes credit for creating the fish, but for how it is prepared. The same goes for time, I suppose. What to create. How to live. We each are given the day. The same 24 hours. We can’t create time. Save it. We can only make use of it. People often say, oh it will happen with time, or time will take care of it, or time will heal, when time really does nothing at all. It is but a fish at our feet. It’s what we do with the time and the gifts we are given. 

I don’t think it’s something to be feared, but aware of for sure. 

When I was six and received my banana seat bike for my birthday, I couldn’t wait to ride it. It being March 27th and in Minnesota, there was still snow on the gravel road in front of our house. But nothing was going to stop me from riding that bike. I bundled and booted. Pushed off through the driveway slush and serpentined between the potholes of winter’s ravaging. No ride was ever sweeter. No gift more loved. 

Now some might say, well children aren’t aware. But I’m not sure. Maybe we don’t have the word for it when we are young, but I think we are more than aware of the time given. And nothing is wasted. Not a moment of a bike gifted. Not a second of a summer sun. If this is childish, then let’s all be children. Let’s use the time we are given with gratitude, enthusiasm and joy!

We are the creators of each day. The chefs. The makers. The dreamers. The doers. 

What are you going to do with your fish?

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The pink passing moment.

Every year the month of July writes a poem that can only be read from my upstairs bathroom window.  My breath  — that leaps from heart to smile — gives thanks to my brain for not memorizing, but allowing it to be a surprise each time.

Certainly there are other trees in the area, we live in the south of France after all. Paintings and poems are bursting into view as I walk my daily route. But this one feels just for us. Our little private firework popping in rhyme. I, we, don’t strain our necks to look past the blooming white tree beneath the pink. The hedge blocks the view from foot and car. Framed perfectly by the window sill, it knows we will come. And it waits. And when I hear it speak in rose, I don’t dismay the temporary, but give thanks for it. If it were ever, if I heard the words again and again throughout the year, would I be breathless? Maybe not. So I give thanks for the gift of July. The passing moment. The brief and beautiful poem outside my window. 

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Stardust.

I don’t suppose the spaces left from loved ones passed can ever be completely filled. But maybe it’s wrong to think they ever were. These relationships weren’t beautiful, memorable, longed for even still, because of their solid perfection. Perhaps they were always stardust, flittering, fluttering, changing shape, with room always left for dancing, beneath the flickering light. 

It’s the way I choose to think of it, my mother’s space, not as a hole left behind, but a dance floor. And all that magic that sprinkles from her still, lights up the people around me, and they step in, tap me on the shoulder, and ask me to dance. They are my new daily connections. My new last calls. My shared laughter and secrets. Hopes and challenges. Not replacements, but keepers of the dance. 

We’re not all good at the same thing. Some are meant to pull you in, and simply sway. Other’s tap their feet and keep the beat alive. Some dizzy you into laughter. Dance you into breathless. And hold out the ladle of punch. I am grateful for them all. All of you, who keep my dance floor filled, my heart in motion, in sway, in the right tempo, under the stardust. 

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Coffee Break.

Whenever I need a reminder about how things can change, I give myself a coffee break. 

After that first lukewarm, bitter taste from the bottom of my grandma’s cup, I swore that I would never drink it. Both corners of my mouth pointed down as I tried to brush the remaining grounds from my lips. “No, no, no!” I said with zero hesitation. 

That certainty gave way a little when I had my first dunk. I snuck my chocolate chip cookie into my mother’s cup while she was making a point with her sister-in-law. Both the crumbs in her brew and the smile on my face gave it away. It was delicious. A purest, and not a dunker like my aunts around my grandma’s table, my mother urged me to get my own cup. It wasn’t immediate, but dunking led to sips and sips to drinking, and then amid the warnings of stunting my growth, (just as they had warned my lanky mother), I began to love a cup of coffee. 

Not all bitterness can be brewed to beautiful, but I have to believe there is always a chance. Each morning cup tastes like opportunity, possibility. I smile, and give this day a chance. 

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The attempt.

There is a real difference between paper, canvas and panel. Each one takes the paint in its own way. Likes a different brush stroke, even a different brush. And I don’t like one more or less for it. I’m trying to do the same with people. 

I’m not saying it’s easy. But I think just being aware, it helps me fight it less. Sure I still come with all of my seemingly best skills, but they don’t work for everyone. And sometimes I get through my whole wheelhouse — are you paper, canvas, panel? Now what? Then you look at me with all of that leather or lace, that ceramic or stone, and I know I have to try again. I used to think, well, why do I have to change? And the answer is I don’t. None of us do. But if we want to include the people in our lives that provide a challenge, (and I say provide here, because they are giving us an opportunity to grow), if we do want to include them, we may have to thin out the paint a little, and try again. Not giving up on our skills, but enhancing them. Because most likely, they are doing the same, and with any luck, we find a colorful way to be together. 

Someone said yesterday, it sounds like a prayer. And maybe it is. I write, not because I have the answers, but because I’m trying to learn them. Day by day. Bit by bit. I have always believed, even when I, we, fail, there is love in the attempt. And if we can see that, we can do anything. 

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Winged.

I’m not sure what it is about flying that seems so appealing. The weightlessness. The freedom. The movement. The view. Maybe it’s everything. We see it from the time we are little. We admire it in living color, given to our heroes as a superpower. We dress up in capes and wings. Pedal bicycles to exhaustion with the hope that just maybe, if we spin our feet fast enough, just this once, we could leave the gravel behind. We race down diving boards and fling ourselves over open water, flapping, lunging, touching the sky. We spin ourselves into circles. We dance. We sing. Perhaps all in this effort, for just a moment, to rise to where we know our hearts have been.

I suppose it’s one of the great reasons for love — this certainty that our arms will give out, our knees will buckle, our feet will ever be dusted in gravel — but oh, how the heart can soar. So we offer it up and out and dare ourselves to follow. The butterflies tickling our fear at first, and releasing themselves to lead the way, we grab the birded wing of love and every childhood dream reveals that it was, is, indeed a superpower, this love that lifts us into the blue. 

I have said it before, and I’ll say it again, I don’t know what the day will bring, but one way or another, I am going to fly. 

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Mid-stumble.

For some it’s the cardinal. Others a butterfly. Others still, a hummingbird, a dragonfly, a feather, a stone. All symbols, messages from a loved one who has passed. The beautiful thing is, the list can change and grow, and can never be wrong. 

I suppose it has always been the case, we see what we want to see. And it has me thinking, if I can see the beauty of those in my life who have gone before me, if I can see their goodness still, feel their love still, in a random flutter, or a lifeless object, then certainly, wouldn’t it make sense that I, we, could see the goodness in each other? That we could see, before the flutter, mid-stumble, a beauty still, of all those around us. 

Because certainly the ones we loved were never flawless. Never without mistake. But oh, how we love them still. How we would forgive any flaw to hold them again. I’m not saying it would be all that simple, but I’m thinking, I’m hoping, what if I could get to that point with everyone near and far? Give them the grace I allow my cardinals, my butterflies. Love them with all of my heart. 

As they sing and say, “I suppose I’m a dreamer…” but I’m going to give it my humble attempt. And in my humble failings and flaws, maybe you will see the love in me as well, as I stumble before the flutter. 

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Free gifts.

We stood in line for what seemed like an eternity at the new art store in Aix. The cashier seemed to be struggling with the register. The customer seemed to be struggling with her choices. And we struggled simply with time. I’m sure there were eye rolls and heavy sighs, myself included. When the eternity finally ended, as eternities so often do, I placed my few brushes on the counter. She rang me up, and offered a free pencil and eraser with my purchase. A new eternity began – this one of joy – because of my true love for pencils and erasers!

We are reminded constantly of how little it actually takes. Tiny little gestures. A smile. A wave. A word of kindness. The emotional equivalent of a free gift with purchase. 

Clutching my tiny bag, and all my teeth showing, I exited the store. The “annoying” woman who had been in front of us was now struggling down the street with her bag. She was older and weighed less than her purchase. Still in full grin, I asked her if I could carry her bag. She joyfully agreed and we talked about art the remainder of the block. She was actually quite lovely. Again, it takes so little to be saved. And it wasn’t like you may think, she was saving me. 

Between portrait and sketchbook, I pick up my free gifts, and the grin remains. I gather in my eternity. 

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Forwards, backwards and upside down.

I suppose I’ve always valued resilience over perfection. First of all, good luck with the latter, but even if it were achievable, how boring! There is no movement in perfection. No dance, no artistry, no flight at all.

Some say it’s why we love the hummingbird — the acrobats of the sky — with their ability to fly forwards, backwards and upside down. How delightful! I love even just saying it. And don’t we all have to be, emotional acrobats that is, while navigating these lives, these loves. Do you think joy, or forgiveness comes without a little tumbling? I don’t think so.

So what if we embraced it? Celebrated them — all of our imperfections and struggles survived, as the beautiful flashes of color that they are?

I’ve never been one to be get there as the crow flies. But I keep humming along. Taking delight in all of my forwards, backwards and upside downs. And it would be my honor, my pleasure, to tumble and fumble along beside you.

“I wish for you an imperfect life, and all the wonder that living can bring.”

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I am. We are.

It was not a surprise to me when she said she loved his face, my brother (I drop the “in-law” because that really has nothing to do with why we are related.) I think we are always given the tools to find our tribe. 

She, always being drawn to the creative, is why we became friends in the first place, in Chicago. Without brushes or books, was it written on our faces at the corner coffee shop? Or emitted from soul to soul? How could she see that he too is one of us, from just his portrait, posted a world away? 

I captured his image at the “Je suis Charlie” rally in Aix en provence — the uniting behind the freedom of speech after the horrific events against the newspaper Charlie Hebdo. He may still have the coat. Probably not the sticker, but the feeling remains. He still transmits this love for the arts, for all things creative, for the love of movies, and the sound of voice. And she, beginning her adventure into podcasting, must have heard that collective yes, that spirit of “I am,” of “we are.” 

I mention it now because more than ever, don’t we need to listen? Don’t we need to connect across lines and borders? Across genders and geographics? Don’t we need to look at each other, and find a commonality? We have been given the tools. We have been given the warnings. The tattered scripts. The reminders. To see each other. To love each other. Face to face.

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