Jodi Hills

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

Category Archives: 2024


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First I was a cowboy.

It’s one of my favorites in Paris, the Musée d’Orsay. Maybe because it feels most like me. 

It didn’t start out as a museum. At one point it was a train station, 

even a parking lot, long before it housed the most beautiful impressionists in the world. I suppose I’ve always known it — that I would have to become, and keep becoming.

When I was a kid, I thought I would just figure stuff out, you know, and be something, and that would be it…that would be my life. Because didn’t they always ask, “What are you going to be?” And especially at this time of year, as we prepared to dress up and go from door to door asking for our treat behind the question, “What are you supposed to be?” 

At first I was a cowboy, (was this my train station?). Then I was a hobo, (my parking lot?) It took a long time to become an artist. This was me. Who I was supposed to be. 

I think that I, we, just have to keep becoming. We change and grow. We are molded by love and trips around the sun. It takes a long time to build a soul. We get older, maybe wiser, (even better, we gain a little grace) but we don’t finish – we don’t have to – we begin, and be, and begin again. I think that’s the gift of living…the joy of being alive!

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Between bus and bell.

We knew nothing of love or roses, but that didn’t stop us from singing along with Donny Osmond on the counter of our fifth grade classroom. It was Miss Green who provided us with the 45 and the record player, solidifying that she was indeed not one of the elderly teachers that came before us, but she was one of us, still tethered to the longings of youth…and so she hummed along to Paper Roses. We moved the needle back again and again, allowing our hearts to spin as many times as they could before the first bell brought it all to a stop. 

It always came as a surprise — that morning bell. It seemed as if we had just stepped from the bus into the school, and it was over. Maybe we should have taken it as a warning, this fleeting time…and I didn’t. Not for years. Maybe no one does. But I’m trying to now. Not out of fear or desperation, but gratitude and respect. These gifts that we are given from moment to moment. Spectacular! 

Yesterday on my morning walk — the place where I hover between bus and bell — I saw this pink flower. I took a photo. I got down to really look at it. The pink petals were so lovely. “They look like paper, silk paper,” I thought. It’s funny how something so weightless can lift you. Transport you. I hummed the notes that formed a youthful string, a string that tethers me still. My heart sings as if no lessons have been learned. And I give thanks for the time. 

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Heaven nods.

For most things, an outfit for example, my mother’s decisions were slow and methodical, including several trips to the store, three-way mirrors, test runs with the right shoes, the accenting jewelry, the perfect shade of make-up applied in the proper lighting. Such gentle care she took to reach her destination. So it was surprising to me, on any given road trip, how quickly she could decide whether a city was the right stop for her. It wasn’t often, but it was swift and sure when it happened. Pulling off the exit, as I opened my car door, her decision would be made. “Nope,” she would say, and I knew she wouldn’t be getting out of the car. “I hate it,” she said.  And just in case her point wasn’t clear, she added, “with a passion.”  The echo of my laughter rang in the rear view mirror as we pulled out of town. 

But that’s how we did all things I suppose, with a passion. The cds turned along with the wheels beneath us and we sang! We sang as if each lyric was happening to us at that very moment. It was, we were, wild and free! So many things in this life are out of our control. And maybe that’s why she did it — say no. It feels so good. So freeing. To decide what’s right for you. Not out of spite or anger, but pure passion, passion for your own life, your own living. 

We pulled into the city yesterday (I won’t say which one – we all have our own right to decide.) I had to use the restroom. Dominique kept one hand on the car door. The words were French, and not exactly identical, but I knew we weren’t staying. I laughed as we sang ourselves down the road…with a passion.

Once again, heaven nods. 

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Let’s ride!

It was around 4am that I rolled over, secure in the knowledge that I would remember the opening line for today’s blog. Did it come in a dream? Or just a dozy thought… It seemed beautiful though, this line, this moment.

I used to be so certain of so many things. That summers would last forever. And the friendships made within. School day friends seemed easier. We were thrown together daily. Delivered five days a week by bus. Guarded through the crossings. Marched into classrooms. Plopped side by side. Row by row. Friend by friend. But summer, you had to make an effort. To see your summer friends, you had to get on bikes, run through fields, skip, sweat and swim. You had to make telephone calls from kitchen mounted phones, and wait through busy signals and unanswered rings. Sone of us even wrote letters, making promises of BFFs, signing with hearts in our names, never thinking that the new school year would separate us by room and teacher.

As quickly as the summers went, the years seem to go by even faster. People and summers pass, like moments in the dawn. But still I smile, because I believe in the forever of it all — that summers don’t really die — they live on in a place that we can only reach in dozy, passing thoughts… Where my mother still plays like a little girl.

Wide-eyed awake, I see 2024 pulling up like a big orange bus, flinging open its door and welcoming us to the new year. Chubby-legged and ever hopeful, I pull myself aboard! Let’s ride!

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