Jodi Hills

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

Monthly Archives: February 2026


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Ahead.

You can buy them at any of the big box stores, the fake stumps to use as end tables. But I chose to make ours. Well, finish ours…I can’t make a tree. If you were to calculate the hours spent and pay me less than minimum wage, you might say I didn’t “come out ahead.” But I would disagree. I would prove you wrong every time I placed my feet on the sanded cracks. Every time I laid a book on the still breathing wood. It’s the imperfections that I love, that I live beside, and within. A daily reminder to celebrate it in others, in myself.

When I took this photo of my book, I needed a backdrop. Not the perfection of a blank slate. I searched the house for something with character. I had baked bread earlier in the day, and the baking sheet was cooling on the counter. Why not? Didn’t it tell the same story as the stump? I placed it behind the book. Perfectly imperfect. 

I don’t know if it’s obvious, but it is to my heart. It knows, if I come out at all, I come out ahead.  

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Dishrags.

Other than being women I love, my grandma and my mom didn’t have a lot in common. “Mode” for my mother meant fashion, but for Grandma Elsie it would have been a scoop of ice cream on top. Perhaps because of this, my mother was long and lean, and my grandma short and rounded. They differed in the shoes they liked, the food they ate, all the way down to the dishrags they used, (which my mother often mentioned as she stood doing dishes at the farm sink while the others finished their dinner.) 

It was years before I could reach into any sink, and years after that that I understood the love of a dishrag. How could it be important, I wondered. I know now, here in France. My friend Sue makes them. They feel wonderful in my hands. And when I reach for them, to clean the pan, still peppered from my new French dish learned, I smile and enjoy the task. Truly. Not only because they work so well. Nor because I have such a friend. But because I have found my dishrag. Different from my grandma. Not the same as my mother. All still lovable. And I am home. 

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Bird and all.

It’s not enough to have an idea. We can all think of something. But to give it wings, to put it into practice, to risk, now this is something. 

I’ve never been one to blend, but I had no idea how much I would stick out, here in this other country. It’s like all of France can see the bird atop my head. At first I wanted to protect it. Nestle it in. But that didn’t change anything. That just made us all uncomfortable, even my bird. 

Slowly I fluffed the wings. Shook out the feathers. And one day, I just let it fly. So this is who I am! And as terrifying as it seemed, it has become everything. I may start the “bisous” on the wrong cheek. Hug when it isn’t expected. Use the wrong words. But I’m here. Bird and all. And it feels wonderful.

Painting their portraits has been the biggest risk, but the most rewarding. Seeing them see themselves, seeing me. When I showed her portrait to her, she smiled. “That’s me!” She said. And all of our birds fluttered around the room. 

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In the twirl.

Sometimes I have more patience with a batch of cookies than I do myself. That doesn’t seem right. 

I was always amazed that my grandma never measured anything. A rule follower from Mrs. Strand’s kindergarten class, I just didn’t understand. I put my head down on the desk when she asked. Raised my hand before speaking, and even drank the milk that made me gag. But then in Grandma Elsie’s kitchen, flour and sugar flew with wild abandon and I found myself caught up in the twirl. Still a bit uncertain, I would ask, “But what if it isn’t right?” “Then I’ll know soon enough,” she said. 

I wanted it — whatever that was — confidence, experience, trust, or maybe a combination of all it. Making the cookies yesterday, I found myself once again in the twirl. I made a test cookie to get to my “soon enough.” It was perfect and I finished the batch. 

The years have given me the strength to brave the twirl. To let go the worry of what if it’s not right, or good enough, but to simply try. I can feel the trust in my Elsie hands and kitchen heart. I feed my soul. And I taste this life. 

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Into the wind.

I just saw it today. The similarity of these two paintings. This taking to flight. It’s inside all of us, I suppose. But only some will dare. Because to gather in the wind, one must expose the heart. 

I see him continue to throw back his arms. Taking tests day after day. Higher and higher scholastically. I told him I was proud of him. I wonder if he knew it was not because he does so well. Scoring among the elite. This is wonderful, but just as worthy of praise is his shedding of weight. Letting go the confines of youth’s sweatshirt and fear and facing the wind, head on. This is spectacular!

Today will bring its challenges, just like yesterday. What will I, we, do in the face of the wind? My heart already knows. 

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Being gull.


I never thought of gull being slang for gullible. Maybe in not knowing, that’s exactly what it makes me. But I see them, living free by the sea, and if that’s being fooled, it’s a pretty good trick. 

We have so many words for it, naive, Pollyanna, but I’m still a believer. And I suppose sometimes, even my own brain thinks of my heart as a white and gray bird near water, and yet it comes along, footprinting in the sand, knowing somewhere in all that belief and misbelief, we will take flight. I guess I don’t know how to live any other way. I have brushed away piles of sand upon sand. And still. I have averted hands swatting in the air. And still. I squawk, when others seem to know the words to the song. And still, I believe. 

Because isn’t all that blue, lit by yellow, grounded by sand, isn’t that for everyone? I think so. I still believe. I’ll see you up there.

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Light of the lemon.

I suppose I heard it on the street. On tv. Someone called it a lemon. Maybe it was a car. Loving yellow, I looked around. I didn’t see anything. When explained that it meant something bad, something not up to standards, well, I just wasn’t having it. Not my lemons, my beautiful yellow friends. The color of my bedroom, my bedspread. The highlighter of all things important in every book. If anything, I thought they were more than special, these “lemons.” Braving all that light. I wanted to be that brave. Shining in a color so brilliant. What would be given so much notice, if it weren’t worth seeing? 

It’s not always as easy now. As the “lemons” get bigger. But I think, still, maybe this isn’t bad, it simply needs to be seen. And maybe I’m not the beautiful glorious yellow of it all. Sometimes I’m the book, carrying all the highlighted words. Sometimes I’m just the table. Worn and weary, but smart enough to hold up the light of the lemon. 

Maybe that’s too simple, but I’m not sure everything has to be so hard. So I highlight the words in my heart. Stand strong. Give me your biggest lemon. I know what to do. 

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