Jodi Hills

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

Monthly Archives: October 2025


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Out of the nest.

I saw the nest in springtime. Of course it would have been spring, but I did not yet know the timing of such nests and eggs. What I did know was that I had my banana seat bike, the one I got for my birthday, March 27th. Youth’s privilege allowed me to see my bicycle also as a ladder. I propped it against the trunk. Tippy toe on the seat, I could just reach the lowest hanging branch. I wrapped each hand around. I needed to get my feet up as well. I pressed my toes into the seat and thrusted, just nipping the branch with one bumper tennis shoe. I did it again. Not there. My celebration on final thrust for wrapping my feet around the branch, turning myself into a swing was negated by the tumbling of my bike to the ground. I had heard the saying before, but I only now understood that I was really out on a limb. 

I did have some fear of letting myself fall, but my biggest fear now was landing on my bicycle which rested perfectly beneath me without a clue of the harm it could cause. I spoke to it on the off chance it could actually hear me, like I was sure my stuffed animals could. What I heard back in my head was an arrested apology that said, you’re going to have to do this on your own. 

My bark weary hands urged my brain for a solution. Remembering why I came up here in the first place, to see the bird nest, I had a desperate longing for my own, nest. Of course I called for my mom, purely out of instinct because I knew she was at work. Dangling was not an ever solution. I was going to have to decide. To trust. To let go. 

Some will call it luck. Fate. Faith. But I landed between bars. Unscathed. Into the beautiful nest of our unmowed lawn. 

Had I landed improperly. Twisted an ankle. Broken an arm. Would I have stopped climbing? Future me in the fifth grade, arm broken at Noonan’s Park Ice Skating rink, says probably not. My take on it, I will never be stifled nor stuck in certainty. In life and love, I’m going out on that limb.

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The unexpected lamp.

We were talking about decorating. She asked if I had ideas for her bathroom. The first thing that came to mind was, “I like an unexpected lamp.”

It’s no secret that lighting is important. It seems to answer most questions. How do we want to see ourselves, each other? “In a good light.” How do we get to the truth of the matter? “Well, we shine a light on it.” What’s the greatest disinfectant? “Light.” How will we find our way? “Lights will guide you home.” 

My mother’s makeup routine was quite a process. And she needed good lighting. Even in basement apartments, where we couldn’t drink the water, if she could light the bathroom, find herself beyond the damage and the dust, then she was, we were, saved. 

It’s all about giving ourselves the warmth of chance, the illumination of possibility. So we can set off into the world and find the best of us, the lights that offer joy, comfort, direction, hope — all the glowing of grace. And quite often it won’t be from the people we expect, the ones who are “supposed to.” Often mid stumble, they come. And they do the impossible. Offer so much light, you find yourself shining. And you find out, you too, can be the unexpected lamp. 

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The same lake.

It may seem counterintuitive, but I learned long ago that the more personal I am in my writing or painting, the more people will see themselves. And beyond that I think, the more people that see themselves makes it all the easier to see each other. 

I painted the image of my friend kayaking the morning lake. She only had the image because a neighbor captured the photo. Another friend bought several of the cards, because she could see herself navigating that same lake. 

I suppose it’s why humans have always painted the pictures. To tell the stories. And don’t we need to hear it from someone who has been there? No matter what the challenge, be it dream or struggle, to see someone navigating the same lake makes it all possible. Not with the dismissiveness of “Been there. Done that,” but with a “Been there. You are not alone.”  

Morning ripples in, gently, and I can only say, Yes.

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There. There. 

I still have the scars from the first trip I took without training wheels down the hill of Van Dyke Road. The majority of the road was more than flat. It’s still curious to me why I started with the hill. Of all my virtues of youth, patience wasn’t one of them.

The immediate speed that gathered in wheel, pedal and handle bar shook my sunburned shoulders, all the way down to my bumpered shoes. And within all that impatience, I was not taking my bike for a ride, it was taking me. I can’t tell you the amount of off-brand Band-AIDS it took to try and teach me the opposite. 

I’d like to think I’m getting better. It would be hard to label it virtuous, but I see it growing, bit by bit. 

I have begun using water soluable oils in my sketchbook. Mostly because they wait for me. They don’t dry up instantly. The colors of the woman painted the day before sit patiently to be birded the next day. And the handlebars of my palette don’t shake beneath me. And the ride is smooth. And the lesson as well. 

I know the furious speed at which you are trying to get over and around. I have traveled that wind and hung on for dear life. But the dear life I found came only in the quiet slowing down. The letting go. No longer rushing to get past, but easing my way through. And the peace. Smiled. Knowing it had always been there, as I whirled. Peace, sitting quietly next to joy, and hope, and OK now. There, there.

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Look up.

I don’t know how many fallen bird nests I saw. I stopped counting when my mom assured me that the birds did not fall with it. “They flew…” she said. “But were they sad to leave?” I asked. Never one to sugarcoat things, or possibly she knew how close we were to living the same truth, she said, “For a little while, maybe, but then they realized the sky was theirs too.” 

Everything changes. That’s life. But it doesn’t have to signify a fall. I’m getting better at noticing it. Sometimes mid flap, but I get there. So many nests get taken away, or are simply left behind. But comfort can be found. Again and again. 

We are all given the tools. For me, wings are disguised as paint brushes and letters. Ruffled blouses and open paths. And every day I fly. The sky is always there. It turns out the answer remains — just to look up. 

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Echo worthy. 

I was a Roadrunner the first time I got my name in the local paper. Of course we didn’t know of things like budgets, but they must have been pretty minimal for our girls’ summer softball league. We were more divided up than chosen into teams, and then gathered around unmarked cardboard boxes, from which we were handed our “one size fits some” t-shirts. It wasn’t befitting of our state, nor the sport, but we proudly squeezed and drowned ourselves into our new “Roadrunner” tees. We weren’t given hats, nor gloves. Some of us even brought our own bats. Mine was golden aluminum. I balanced it atop the wicker flowered basket of my banana seat bike, that held my hand-me-down leather glove, and proudly “beep-beep”ed my way to the designated field each Monday and Wednesday afternoon. 

They must have put everyone’s team picture in the sports section of that Echo because we hadn’t won a game all season. But seeing myself, in fuzzy black and white, alongside my friends, it felt like winning. And it was. 

I don’t remember each summer’s logo. Eventually we would all become Cardinals in Junior High. And Senior High. Some of the memories get a little fuzzy now, but I’m still friends with most of those “birds.” That news won’t make the papers, but oh, how it still feels like winning. 

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Pocket of light.

The gym was on the first door to left when I entered the back of Washington Elementary, where the school bus dropped us off every week day. I had at least 15 minutes before class began. The doors were closed, but only the equipment room was locked. With no windows, it was completely dark. With a pocketful of “glow in the dark” superballs I had collected from the Herberger’s basement bubble gum machine (after my last dentist appointment with Dr. Blanchard, I wasn’t allowed any more gum) I entered the abyss. 

I can’t say why I needed the transition, but I did. Just a moment to myself before getting swept away in the whirlwind of fifth grade, and fellow fifth graders. I would start with just one. Throw it as high and hard as I could. It was like a firefly in the dark. Bouncing against the wall. Then I added in another. And it was fireworks. And then a handful and I was dancing in the stars. Little balls of light all around me. Exciting and comforting — just as I imagined magic could be, was, is still today. 

I have a string of lights in the bathroom upstairs. I suppose I added them many Christmases ago, but I never took them down. It shines a comfort down the hall. Little balls of starlight that say the magic lives on. 

I learned the usual things in school, but so much more. What darkness can’t I survive, with this never ending pocket of light? 

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Daring magic. 

It’s rare that I show anything before it is finished. I say things like “I’m afraid the magic will disappear,” but closer to the truth, I’m just afraid. I may want to change my mind. The direction. Start over even. It’s something to be so vulnerable. 

Maybe there’s less consequence with my sketchbook. Or maybe it’s because I can’t really change things. The paper won’t allow a big do-over. And there in lies the beauty, I suppose. To be ok with this being ok. Oh, I still try my best, of course, but not everything has to be a masterpiece. I suppose what a lesson to be learned for living. 

I’m reminded of Grandma Elsie’s kitchen. I mean this with all love and respect and a lot of admiration — what a mess. But she was fine with it. She could cook with chubby hands grabbing at both apron and attention. With grown men anxiously waiting to return to the field. With grown women trying to decipher a recipe while scribbling on cards. With pots boiling over and dishes stacking up in the sink. And wasn’t it magic? And wasn’t it always good? Yes. Perhaps even better because of it.

So I pull this knowledge out of the pocket carried for years and miles, and I show you my unfinished work. And I am vulnerable. And I am happy. And it is good. 

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My time is best spent trying to be a single page, and not the whole book.

In my summers of pink shoulders and cheeks, barefoot in beds of grass that lined Van Dyke Road, even though my legs spun beneath me like a cartoon character, each day was lived as slow as a single page. I didn’t worry about ending anything, or anything ending, I simply began and began.

I have to work at it now, what youth offered so freely — to measure a day without time, but blades of grass. My sketchbook serves as the reminder. There is only the page that I’m working on. Going back would only mess up the work that I’ve done. Looking ahead would bring the anxiety of work left to do. So I stay on the page, and simply enjoy.

I recorded the painting of the last two birds. I had to speed them up ten times to create the videos. To watch them now is to see the summers of my youth. Almost a blur of activity, but the knowledge of time well and slowly spent. And what a relief to know that I can simply return to the page. The slow and thoughtful picking of colors, as if they were green blades between hopeful toes.

A single blank page awaits. And I am not afraid.

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Postcards and dishrags. 

Of course I could just blow it out, but that’s not really the point. It was my mom who taught me to use a candle snuffer. With the gentle transition, the change was not overpowering, and the beautiful scent of the candle remained.

It’s not always possible, but I try to give myself that same chance with everything — a gentle transition.

I received so many beautiful gifts on this trip to the US. From hugs to conversation. So much love. I ease my way back into my daily French life, placing little reminders of it all. The postcard invitation from the party. The dishrags my friend crocheted and gifted to me. This morning at the breakfast table I see them by the sink, and I know her hands. I know her heart. And the transition is ever so smooth. 

We can do that, you know, for ourselves, and even for each other. Life is full of change, but we don’t have to stomp our way through. The choice seems pretty simple when I look at the candle on the table. I hope it is just as easy when I look in the mirror. To make my way, and let love gently linger.

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