Jodi Hills

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

Author Archives: jodihills


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To shift.

I was still riding my banana seat one speed when Lynn Norton graduated to her adult size bike. I could hear the gears click into place as she passed me going up the hill by Lord’s house, on the way to Van Dyke Road. Between huffs I marveled at her speed. I stood up on the pedals, fighting with all of my might, all of my heart. She was barely breathing hard. “Wait up,” I panted and hoped she not only heard, but somehow could pull me along if I stayed within reach. She stopped at the right hand gravel turn and waited. Her look back was the incentive I needed and I made it. “How did you go so fast?” I asked. “I know how to shift.” I suppose it was right then that I made it part of my life’s plan. 

Being right handed, I have recently finished all the right hand pages of my very large sketch book. There was a choice to be made. Forget half the book, or shift. I purchased the vellum sheets to protect the completed work. Are they a guarantee? No. Of course there is risk. And part of my brain says that something bad could happen, but the loudest voice in the room, my pumping heart, says to go on. What if something great happens!  What if on these left handed pages, you create a masterpiece?!!!!

Two summers after Lynn beat me up the hill, I too had an adult size bike. Three gears! Mastering those, I graduated to 10 speeds. Then twelve. It took all those gears and more for me to go to college. To take chances. To become an artist. To write books. To fall in love. To move to another country. To face today. I am not afraid. With the confidence of the oldest Norton girl, I look in the mirror and claim, “I know how to shift!” 

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Snuffing.

After reading the Dear Abby article in the newspaper on lighting your candles, my mother held a constant service in our apartment. And it worked not only as a reminder that life was short and meant to be enjoyed with illumination, but also in the sense when it became long with heartache, we had the ability to snuff it out. 

If I was worried about a Monday morning test at school, Sunday afternoon, amid the work and worry, my mother would light the kitchen candle and tell me to snuff it out. Release all that anxiety into a puff of smoke. Sometimes again and again until the smoke alarm went off. And maybe it was the snuffing, or the alarming sound, but I think I always knew that the real magic was her. 

I came to believe in myself, because she believed in me first. 

My candle snuffer is bedside. It works mostly from joy. Mostly from the candles kept lit in celebration of this beautiful life. And would I have felt it without her — I’ll never have to know. The magic continues. 

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Facing gravel.

Each day we went to combat with the gravel road. Battling on bicycle and foot. Helmets and shoes were afterthoughts. Never coming to mind until years later when we thought, “Should we have been worried?”

Sometimes I forget how brave I was, until I feel the pebbled shrapnel in my knee, or elbow. Then my Purple Heart asks, “What haven’t you survived?” And I smile and face the gravel of the day.

I used to think my summers would never end. I’m still trying to make that happen. By letting go the worry, and letting in the light. There never were pads for the heart — always meant to roam free — to fall, try, get up again, and love with wild abandon.


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The loudest voice.

We took out our tri-fold mats and were told to lie down. Most of us were tired from the morning at Washington Elementary, but there was always someone who wouldn’t go down without a fight. He began testing Mrs. Strand by beating his hands against the mat. I turned my head away. Then he began with his feet. I sighed heavily. Mrs. Strand turned from the chalkboard to give him the raised eyebrows look. Still he kept on. I suppose I was too tired, but my eyes were always the first to betray me. I wasn’t sad, yet the tears began to flow. She walked atop our sea of mats like a holy person, first picking up the boy by his t-shirt and then placing him in the corner, smirked face first. She tapped me on my dampened shoulder asking why the tears. “It’s just all too loud,” I said between breaths. She tapped me on my heart and said, this must always be the loudest voice in the room. 

Chaos can still throw me, and I have to remind myself. I have the skills now. The self care. To quiet all the noises around us, I know I can paint. I can write. I can go for a walk. Read a book. Bake a batch of cookies. Play fashion show. Listen to my heart. Of all the things I learned in kindergarten, this has proven to be the most useful.

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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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