Jodi Hills

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

Author Archives: jodihills


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All the difference.

I’d like to think that I’m smart enough to see the choices, the solutions, the options even, that are right in front of me, (I suppose we’d all like to think that), but I must admit I often need a little shove. 

My guardian angel must have perfected her eye roll by now, as I wander past the obvious signs until finally being clunked on the head, thinking, oh look what I discovered. And still, she allows me the victory. 

I was stopped in my tracks yesterday on the all too familiar path. A group of tree trimmers told me I couldn’t pass back this way. I had been thinking for the last week or so that I was getting bored with this route, this form of exercise. But yet I kept walking the same gravel. Feeling a little annoyed, I crossed the river, started walking the route that I hadn’t visited for maybe six months. Half way down the path I saw it. A complete Fit Park — filled with bikes, an elliptical, a rower, weights, stair stepper, everything. I sheepishly smiled. Alright…I get it. 

I went back in the afternoon. So pleased with my discovery.  (I can hear the laughter as I type it — “my” discovery.) 

It’s not lost on me that we studied the poem in junior high. The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. Went through it word by word. Wrote the paper. Knowing, I would be the one who so easily took the different paths. I wouldn’t be afraid. I would be living the words, 

“I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.” 
And for the most part, I can say that I have. I have lived this. But not all by my own doing. I have been led, and pushed and guided and loved through it all. And as I read through the words now, I think maybe it has always been the love. Love that let me wander. Love that sat beside me when I was tired. Love that dared me to continue. Love that offered me to stay. Love that each day, even after stumbling along in rock filled shoes, produces a grateful grin on my sheepish heart. 

The sun is rising. Love is calling. I must go.

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To get deeper.

It was a year ago that I was swimming in Lake LeHommeDieu. It was perhaps unusually warm for a September afternoon. But what surprised me the most is how far I had to go to get deeper. 

I suppose everything seems “far enough” when you’re young. The distance from shore. What we give to each other — our family, our friends. Maybe I thought it was accumulative, giving this friendship. This love. But I’m not sure that it is. I think the more we live, the more we need to give. Every day. And not just for others, but for ourselves. 

Each year as I grew in the cold of winter, I found my summer self going deeper. Wanting to. Needing to. And sure, it was a little scary, wandering further from the safety of shore. But oh, how exciting. How joyful to be in the deep. 

In life and in love, I want to do the same — get in way over my head. Daring to feel it all. Give it all. In every shade of blue. 

It might sound silly, but I always thought the water remembered me. Remembered how far I went out the year before. Knew how much I had grown, and encouraged me to keep going. Buoying me when my feet no longer touched the bottom. 

On the hardest of them, I like to think the day remembers me as well. Knows how much I can handle. Tells me how much I have grown. Encourages me to keep going. Of course some days I’m frightened, but I learned long ago, I’m only ever buoyed in the deep.

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Story books.

I don’t know when it changed — the moment we dropped the word story and just started calling them books. A part of me wants to bring it back. 

The story books were in the basement of the Alexandria Public Library. Maybe it was because we didn’t know how to use the card catalog yet, but so many were on display, not by spine, but full cover. I can still see the bright blue cover of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. It was still above my reading grade, and sat perched on the very top shelf. I thought if I finished all the books on the lower shelves, read each and every story, worked my way upwards, that I too could fly. 

My mom dropped me off every Saturday morning. I climbed up the outer steps, then climbed down the inside ones. I read for hours. Just before my mom picked me up, I checked out as many books as my orange book bag would hold, and the librarian would allow. She never complained about having to come in and get me. Most of my friends from school sat outside waiting for their rides. Running around in the grass, soon and easily fed up with the quiet words of the basement. But not me. I wanted every moment. And my mother, being an avid reader, understood. She parked the car behind the Ben Franklin store and walked over to get me. 

I wasn’t thinking about it when I wrote the book Bird Song. Covered in the same blue, it is a collection of stories (a story book) told by the beautiful wings that carry them. But of course it lives within me. The days at the public library. Each word read. Each shelf climbed. I know they brought me to this place. They lifted me. Dared me. And faster than any childhood Saturday morning, I learned to fly. 

The stories we create are not weights, but branches. Out on the morning limb, I heart gather all the words – of mother and love and youth and chance and choice and story — I spread my wings, and I fly.

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The birthplace.

My brother left VanDyke Road for the US Airforce. Barely leaving the ground, he swooped back into town, just as he promised he would, and built his high school girlfriend a house on Van Dyke Road. Right next to Vaseks. Tom became TomandRenae. I helped them stain the cupboards. They had a two car garage and two cars. Renae wore a fuzzy peach bathrobe. Tom mowed the lawn. They called each other terms of endearment. They got a big yellow lab. Everything we had lost as a family just up the gravel road, was coming to life again. And it was all as Big Ole had promised — the statue that guarded the near entrance to Van Dyke Road — this was indeed “The Birthplace of America.”

As they drove past Big Ole, on the way to the hospital to have their first child, he told her, “When we drive past Big Ole again, our lives will never be the same.” They brought Joshua Thomas home two days later, and all of lives changed. For the better. They were parents. I was an aunt. My mother was a grandma, and somehow we belonged to something again.

Three years later, when Rachel was knocking on life’s door, my brother was on a hunting trip. Freshly licensed, I was the one to drive with Renae past Big Ole. My mom stayed with Josh and I stood inside the miracle. I breathed in time and watched them pull Rachel out of Renae with forceps. Sometimes life has to be encouraged.

I am in another country now, and a world away from being able to lift either one of them, but I do still carry them with me. I always will. In so many ways, we were all born together. I suppose that’s what Big Ole meant, we would all be asked to change and grow, to star over, to let go, to begin, again and again.

I can still hear the gravel popping fresh beneath the tires. It’s the birth of a brand new day. And so it begins.

Happy Birthday, Josh Hills.

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Come-with gal.

She would go to almost anything. See almost anyone. One ring of the party-line telephone and she’d be getting in the car. With me hesitating on the steps of her farmhouse, she’d look back and say, “Be a come-with gal.” And even though it sounded like a horrible thing to do — this garage sale, this coffee in the church basement, this visitation at the funeral home– she would continue to smile at me, and the curl of her upper lip cartoon-pulled at my t-shirt, and soon I’d be getting in the car. 

“Oh, it’s gonna be great,” she said, talking over the farm report on the radio. I loved her and I wanted to be convinced. Only Paul Harvey could stop the sell. We rolled up the windows and listened. 

Each event itself would have been, well, uneventful, but it was the time with my grandma that made it so special. Everyone knew her. From the moment she entered a room, or a lawn, the words, “Oh, Elsie…” rang through the crowd. All I could do was watch the show. I marveled at the fun she was having. More than anyone else it seemed. I guess it was because she had already decided while opening the car door, that she was going to have a good time. All worries and expectations flew out the window. Her extra wide house shoes turned into ruby slippers and she was determined to have some fun. 

It’s easy to forget. The mundane tasks of grocery and hardware can seem like a drudgery at times. Dominique will ask if I want to go to Leroy Merlin (our version of Home Depot) and it feels like it would be so easy to turn away. But then I see her. Hear her smiling. “I’m a come-with gal,” I say, and get in the car.

If she missed a day, I didn’t see it. I think she heard the voice that called daily, to come along for the ride. I wake up to the morning, smile, and listen.

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Beside her.

My grandparents had apple trees. All variations of sweet, but for one. That tree produced sour apples. My mother loved them. During peak season, my grandma would pick sacks of apples. Ready for any visitor that came by. Reused brown paper sacks from Jerry’s Jack and Jill grocery store filled with green. Only one was labeled. She wrote Ivy in bold, black magic marker. The sack with the sour.

I had only begun to put letters together to form words. I knew my name, of course, and I knew my mother’s name. I ran to it in delight. In this sea of ordinary brown paper, there was her name. “Are you famous?” I asked her. “Yes,” she nodded and smiled. My heart beamed. I knew it!

During my husband’s first visit to Alexandria, Minnesota, my mom took us to Herberger’s. We walked in the back door by shoes. Jessica looked up from her customer’s feet, “Oh, hi Ivy!” Sue from the bra department waved, “Hi, Ivy!” Dominique smiled. Claudia from the Clinque counter asked her how the new moisturizer was working. A man stopped, put his hand on my mother’s shoulder and said “It’s good to see you, Ivy.” “He’s the manager,” my mom offered. Dominique looked confused. “Is your mother the mayor?” he asked me. I smiled. “Of Herberger’s… yes.”

I suppose we all want to be seen…noticed for the bold markings of our own magic. But just as important, and rewarding, is to see others. What a privilege it is to be let in. To be trusted in someone’s truth. My mother gave me that gift. Let me walk beside her. I give thanks for this, every day.

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Mighty.

There’s a small stack of pots resting by the side of the house. A little plastic one on top. I think I used it as a scoop when repotting another plant. I guess some soil was left behind. Were seeds blown in from the wind? Watered by the almost non-existent summer rain? I can’t be sure. And I don’t need to be. Because it’s there. Not a weed — but a real plant. And it’s not similar to the two types we have in the house. No, it’s brand new. Strong. Greening and growing without our help. Without our knowledge or permission. Coming to life. Strong. Through all the madness of this world, it found a way. 

I’m not proud of it, but I can be a worrier. Inventing scenarios in my head that may never happen. But thankfully, I can also see the signs. The beauty all around me that says, “Look. We’re given everything we need.” I smile and carry the image with me. And on the days when I feel no stronger than a seed blowing in the wind, I think, I’m going to find a way. Hope grows mighty.

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Eggs in a pan.

You’ve probably seen it if you watch the Food Network, or Youtube.  To test the new students or employees, the head chef asks them to make a French omelette. It sounds simple. I suppose we’ve all thrown eggs in a pan. What could be the big difference, right? I decided to give it a try. I melted the butter in the heating pan. Whisked the eggs with just a pinch of salt. Poured them into the hot skillet. Using a spatula, moved the eggs around, almost in a scramble. Then flattened it out gently. While the top remained a bit wiggly, I gently made the first fold. Then the second. And the third, rolling it onto the plate. Just a glossing of butter on the top, and as we say, “Voilà!”

Almost anyone can tell you a story that is plot driven. Fill it full of noises and sounds. Oooohs and aaaaahs! The big stories! The big events. But for most of us, our lives contain only a few of these. The majority of our stories are Tuesdays and Thursdays. Not holidays. Not the trips of a lifetime, but the ones to the grocery store. This is not sad. Well, I suppose it could be…if you choose not to find the beauty of the ordinary… you know, if you’re just going to throw the eggs in the pan…

But I don’t want to live like that. I want to Voilà even the simplest of tasks. The simplest of days. I want to be in love during the week. Be excited at home. Find the story along the gravel path. Don’t get me wrong, the Eiffel Tower is pretty spectacular. And it still takes my breath away, but I can say with joy, and certainty, so do the eggs in a pan. 

Voilà!

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Hands at the wheel.

There are scientific studies that show actual hormones are released when you share, physically increasing feelings of well-being.

I didn’t have the words for it then. I barely do now. But I didn’t need the proof either. I knew for certain that every event — every book signing, gallery show, television appearance was extraordinarily better with my mother by my side. And it wasn’t just about the event itself. Her involvement started long before. Upon initial creation of the words or painting, she was first to see. From the very beginning she was my safe space for this most vulnerable act of sharing my heart and soul. Each time, preparing me a little bit more. Giving me the courage and confidence to risk it all and show others.

Some have explained artists as a giant nerve, sent out to experience all the feelings, returning as proof that it could be felt, or reminding those who have forgotten, or bringing in those who had to turn away. I can’t be certain, but it feels pretty real to me. I do know one thing for sure, I wouldn’t have dared the nerve without my mother beside me. And even if I had, it certainly wouldn’t have been as fun!

Because it was never in just the allotted hours. No, an event from 2pm – 5pm on a Saturday afternoon started with morning giggles. Extra-hot, skim, vanilla lattes. Outfits laid out. Jewelry arranged. Swapped. More giggles. Make-up. Fashion show. Compliments exchanged. A very light lunch. Nibble really. As not to ruin the ensemble or lose the buzz of caffeine. Then the glorious event. Laughter and hugs and tender, joyful tears. Still flying high, we would make it to a favorite restaurant. The wine and plates shared. Slowly. Mapping out and traveling the day again. Returning home. All exposed nerves filled to capacity, safely tucked in. Muted giggles swallowed in pillows.

Listening to a podcast yesterday, a woman was explaining her time as a Donut Dolly, working for the Red Cross overseas in WW2. With the same courage as any soldier, these women braved the front lines to bring the much needed supplies of coffee, treats, news, letters, smiles, compassion, comfort. Dodging bombs and boosting morale. She spoke of her best friend beside her. She explained that she “drove the truck,” but it was her friend “who brought the joy.”

Tears streamed down my face. People have told me through the years how brave I have been. To follow my dreams. Risking my heart. Exposing my life through the work. And yes, I did dare to “drive the truck.” But just as brave, just as valuable, it was my mother who sat beside me, bringing the joy.

We’re still doing it. Hands at the wheel, I gather in her joy. And the journey continues.

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Finding shine.

I suppose it’s only natural to get used to things. Even the things we dreamed about for years can become ordinary while living them. And we all want to be comfortable. There’s nothing wrong with that. But the shine, I don’t want to lose that. So I make the small changes. Daily.

It might sound silly, but for me, it’s the little things. I change the painting in my direct view from the breakfast table. And this brand new, this shiny comfort, reflects my smile, and the day begins. 

After lunch is my usual reading time. I switch up the place. Moving daily from chair, to bed, to outdoor hammock. Yesterday’s sun jumped off the pages as I swayed above the grass. 

Being my mother’s daughter, it is not only my joy, but my responsibility, to change my clothes frequently throughout the day. The more challenging the day, the more changes. I will hold the conversation in my head. Clutching my pearls, sometimes real, sometimes imaginary. Humbly offering my thanks. Accepting the worked-for shine that only a mirror and a mother’s memory can reflect.

Now some might say, well it’s easy for you, you live in a beautiful country. You have inspiration all around. Yes, that’s true. But I don’t eat breakfast under the Eiffel Tower each morning. I, like everyone else, am not given a reason to get out of bed…I (we) have to get out of bed and go find that reason every day.

I don’t know what today will bring. I’m not even sure what I’ll wear, or how long I’ll wear it. The clouds overhead say, “you’re on your own today.” I smile. “I’ve got this,” I say. And set out to find my shine.

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