Jodi Hills

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

Author Archives: jodihills


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Heaven’s TikTok.

It turns out my mother is currently living under the assumed name of “animal prints” on TikTok. I know this to be true, because yesterday when I posted this video, she was the first to respond saying “I love that striped top. I need to be wearing it.” That is so my mother.

We had a shared language. From ruffles to stripes. One developed through years of shopping malls and our own closets. Playing dress up. Fashion show. The joy flowed like well draped fabric. And I understood completely. For her to say she was “scouring the catalogs for that blouse” after seeing a recent painting, was the best compliment she could give to me. 

So how could I doubt that heaven has TikTok? 

I suppose believers will always believe. And I do. And if you needed any more evidence, there’s this — while typing today’s post, I checked google to make sure I was spelling “scouring” correctly — here’s the sample definition that appeared — “I scoured the mall for a blue and white shirt, but couldn’t find it anywhere.” Feel free to say hello to my mother on TikTok. 

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There’s the sky.

I don’t think anyone has to convince the birds to fly. Has to motivate them. Nor give them a reason. I’m sure it’s pretty clear. There’s the limb. There’s the sky. What do you want to do?

Repeatedly I’m asked “What motivates you?” I suppose we all want the answers from time to time. I know I did, standing on the shore of Lake Latoka. Watching, admiring, envying even, those on the diving dock. I’ve told the story many times. Seeing the older kids fly off into the air, like birds from a limb, my heart fluttered. Before I was even old enough to swim past the buoys, I knew, one way or another, I was going to fly. And it took some work. Battling nerve and wave. Every day braving a little further. But I did it. I did it!  

I guess I simply keep making the same decision. Every day. Limb or sky. And I always choose sky. 

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No restraint.

It’s one of those things, hard to define, but you know it when you see it, when you see them, people at ease, comfortable in their being. The lack of tension in the body. I saw it in my grandfather, the leaning in. My grandmother, the letting out. I continuously try to paint this feeling. Mostly to remind myself — a reminder not to carry, to strain or keep. What I need will flutter in. What I don’t will fly away. And there is beauty in both. 

Visiting our relatives in Kansas City, I experienced something special with the music. Maybe it’s the way with jazz. This letting in, and letting go. A lovely freedom. Not confined by paper or recording, but simply played — for the first time, and perhaps the only. And to hear that, a sound that simply rests on shoulders for but a moment, you feel a magic that was never meant to be contained. 

I suppose it’s the same with love. With life. This letting in and letting go, with the grace of no restraint. No protection. When I remember this, I release, I relax, and let the music play. 

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Minus the grocery cart.

With each new person I paint, the first question is usually “Who is that?” And I can’t blame them for asking. Didn’t I do the same at Jerry’s Jack and Jill grocery store each time my grandma stopped the cart and talked to the person in the aisle. Too old to sit inside, I hung on the front of the cart, and every word exchanged, looking, listening for clues to solve the mystery of who they were. Maybe they would say where they worked, who they were married to, or what they were making for dinner. I could never tell by looking at my grandma. She was nice to everyone. And not that fake kind of nice that I had seen, even experienced on the playground, or that she herself pointed out to me while watching Days of our Lives. She was just genuinely interested. She cared. She was curious. She was indeed the “party” of her party line, whether on the phone or at the grocery store. I could see that it didn’t really matter to her, the details for which I searched. She just wanted to visit. 

I suppose that’s how I paint (minus the grocery cart). I’m just interested in all who appear. It’s a conversation of heart and mind. Grandma Elsie taught me that — that’s who people are — kind and curious and worth the pulling over. 

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Given to Sparrow.

When I turn the pages of my sketchbook, I have to laugh at the sizing. The weight I can give a sparrow!. And that’s wonderful, if directed toward joy. But I have to be careful that I don’t do the same with problems — make them bigger than ever possible. And that’s easy to do. But it’s also easy to shift. 

When the weight of a random day is too much to carry, I try to paint it away. And once I begin, to squeeze out a little paint on my saturated palette (I’ve done this before), wet my brush to lip, begin to color the page, what felt so heavy on heart, is so much lighter on wing. It’s funny how that works. I suppose it’s not really even magic, more likely, it wasn’t that heavy after all. I mean, if the sparrow can carry it away… And so I keep painting, lighter, once again learning, hope will never weigh you down. 

The morning sky is bright. It seems like it might be a good day to fly!  I’ll see you up there.

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Each rising.

She’s held this pose for over a week, my lovely tulip. Just like me, no one ever told her she wasn’t a dancer, and most likely (just like me) she wouldn’t have believed them if they had. And who could blame her? Donned in that lovely yellow. Gathered in and matched by the strength of the sun. How could she not keep reaching, moving, believing in all things morning as she opened each day. She did feel it! With each rising. From her very stem. And so she would dance.

A writer writes. A painter paints. A baker bakes. Not because someone pays them. Tells them that’s what they are. We decide. For ourselves. The same is true for happy. For love. You get to decide. You get to feel what you feel. No restrictions or limits. If the yellow calls to you, wakes you with a joy that not only can be, but must be, released back to the blue of the sky, then, dance, I say, simply, joyfully, rise up and dance.

Happy Easter! There’s nothing here we can’t rise above.

And so she would dance.
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Ever warm.

There is a light that comes through one of our smallest windows. It angles just enough to pass its bedroom door. Past the open hallway door. Beyond the closets. Landing directly on Margaux’s face as she leans toward the water. Something happens to my heart when I see it. All I want is to capture it. This warmth. And I have tried with my phone. My iPad. Our 35mm camera. Nothing. It tells me, time and time again, to just be in it. So I stand, quietly, enough to the side not to block, enough in the path, to feel it on my shoulder. 

And isn’t that the way of love.

I used to try to fight it, draped in the beam of my mother’s memory. Then I tried to gather it all in. Neither were possible. I don’t always get it right, but mostly now, I simply let it shine. Let her shine. Never to block. Never to capture. But simply feel. And I tell you, it is a warmth, like no other. That only the heart can see. 

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Never empty handed.

There was an undeniable security in knowing there would always be what I needed inside my grandmother’s purse. A Kleenex. Of course. And if you used them all up, there would always be one rolled up in her sleeve. Aspirin — sure. Breath mints. Slowpokes. Sugar daddies and babies. Toasted marshmallows. Roasted peanuts, sometimes sacked, sometimes floating at the bottom. Safety pins. Paper clips. Pencils. Paper. Crayons. Perfume. Change for the meter and the gum ball machine. And all the white gum balls that we didn’t want, begging for just another nickel, sure that the next one would be red or yellow. And I suppose mostly that’s what her purse held, what she held, the promise that things could always work out if you didn’t come empty handed.

Throughout history, people have said it much more eloquently, “Ask not what your country can do for you…” and so on. I’m sure they’ve said it in every time and tongue. But waking in France, I still hear it in the language of my grandmother’s hands — what are you going to bring today?  I smile, and begin rifling through my heart’s purse. 

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To build a nest.

When painting a nest, you have to create the base first. All the blacks and browns must cover, then the lighter twigs can be added. It would be impossible to add the structure afterwards. To put in the dark shadows after the tans and whites. 

I guess it’s the same in real life. You have to do the work. Put in the time. Do people still do it? The hard things? It’s easy to want to skip ahead. We’re all guilty of that. But I have the reminders. Of all those who nested me. The dirty steps my grandfather took to the field each day. The heeled steps my mother took to the office. Without glory or praise, they built the nest that comforts me still.

Maybe it’s silly, but I put them out for my mother. Jelly beans or a chocolate egg. A small thank you for keeping me safe until I could fly. And still in mid air. The base to my ever changing nest.

So I craft the words each morning. Each a twig. A thank you and a hope. That we all will be saved. 

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A bird on the shoulder.

Kindness was probably the biggest similarity between my grandma and my mother. Just behind that, they shared a mixing of metaphors, or the complete fabrication thereof. When Grandma Elsie would start a sentence with “You know what they say…” I would have to laugh because the truth was, no one else really ever said it. As she put the bag of toasted marshmallows in her shopping cart, and then threw in a second, she finished the sentence with, “A bird on the shoulder…” and I waited, and waited, finally I finished the sentence, “is worth two in the cart?” “Exactly,” she nodded. Maybe it was her smile, or all that certainty she carried in her jiggly steps, but it seemed to make sense to me. She would open one bag and have it almost eaten by the time we reached the counter, because we had a lot to do when we got home, she explained, to which I quoted my mother, “You’re as busy as a squirrel.” We both nodded with marshmallows poking from our cheeks. 

I can get caught up in the semantics of life. I suppose we all want to be right. But more so than that, I often find myself just wanting to jiggle. 

Find the joy. It’s out there. 

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