Jodi Hills

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

Category Archives: a rose, by any other name, name, called, goat, greatest of all time, Simone biles, life, art, artist, painting, growth, lessons, beauty, wine, france,


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The truth about you.

I thought I must be surrounded by the smartest people in the world. Imagine my grandfather, farming, alone. How could he possibly? (And I also had every “W.”) Who tells you what to do? What is that for? Why do you get up so early? When is it finished? To everything he simply answered that he knew. And once I got my arms around the fact that he gathered in all the information, I was still surprised at his discipline. No one told him the hours to keep or to finish that job on that day. I asked him if he let it go until tomorrow, who would know? I would know, he said. I walked in the certainty of his overalls that shadowed a path to an open field.

I asked the same of my grandmother, as she placed the empty bag of toasted marshmallows on the counter to pay at Jerry’s Jack and Jill. Certainly there were no camera’s at Jerry’s. No one even paying attention. Who would know? I asked. I would know, she said. I started to see a pattern.

Without event or occasion, my mother dressed. Put on her make-up. Faced each day with the scrutiny of the unproperly lit bathroom mirror in our basement apartment on Jefferson Street. Even for a driveway toss of the frisbee on a quiet Sunday afternoon. You already know her answer to the question. But no one is going to see us, I said. She smiled behind her lipstick.

It’s an old table. Most would probably say unworthy of the effort. And I just saw the latest influencer praising the inexpensive IKEA table. And it crossed my mind. But it’s the only table I’ve ever had in my studio. So I began filling in the holes. Strengthening the right bottom foot. Sanding. Filling. Resanding. Painting. Sanding. Painting. I love it. Not many will see it. It will be overshadowed by displayed books and paintings. When I move them to do the work, it will be ready. It will feel the weight of wood and canvas. The pinch of clamps and the splattering of unintentional paint. And I will feel special, because I get to know. Not this arrogance of “Oh, I know!” — but it’s what I had been shown, had been living in — the privilege of getting to know, being involved in the truth of the experience. I got to know them… I had the joy, the work, the breathless chasing, the tender tears, the heart in lap resting love of knowing them.

I won’t photograph the table. But I will stand in its certainty.


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Momentary wings.

She stood in front of the original painting. Tracing the movement from the woman’s feet to her hand. “She’s so light,” she said, “it’s like she’s being lifted.” I smiled and replied “That’s actually the name of the piece — Being Lifted.” Her pleasure doubled. It was not only the view, but that she could see it. 

And isn’t it always the way. It’s what we bring to the situation. How we want to see things.

Knowing her, I’m aware of the weight she is wanting to release. And the fact that she can see it, right there in front of her, I know that she will. 

It’s why I painted her in the first place. This release. This letting go. I suppose I’ve always wanted it. Ever since I swam out to the diving board on Lake Latoka, I have yearned to fly. Since I felt the weightlessness of springing from the board. The wind in my feathers. My momentary wings. They carry me still. 

It’s why I stand before her each night, the woman in the painting. Because I see her. And I know, when morning comes, one way or another, I am going to fly. 

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The stoop.

As a child, sometimes more than once a day, I would have to gather and push all of my swirling thoughts out the front door of our house on Van Dyke Road. It was there on that cement stoop that they could breathe. All of my hopes and plans. My dreams and curiosities. They felt free, like summer toes in green, dew-damp grass. They tumbled without spotters. They grew without restriction. Voices were given to dolls and animals. I planted my future in Hugo’s field. Dared my existence in the North End. Outraced my worry over popping gravel behind my banana seat bike. And in all that release, I felt complete. Full. 

I still try to allow the space for the swirling. Letting it loose on canvas and paper. Roaming up the hills of the Montaiguet. Splashing in the pool. I don’t think any of it was meant to be contained. Not imagination. Certainly not love. So I give it space. Room to tumble. And on the stoop of all that feeling, all of that letting go, I am saved. 

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Flutter and weight.

I think I need a new word for it — this mixture of flutter and weight. I’ve often called it melancholy. But it’s not sadness. I suppose it could be tagged with a bit of nostalgia. I get it at the same time each year. This “back to school.” And oh, how I loved school. I can smell the books and hear the chalk against the walls. And it weighs my heart, not with sorrow, but importance. My scapulas twitch with each winged word held and written. I know the learning isn’t finished, and I’m so thankful for that. 

Charles will begin university in 8 days. 7 nights of Christmas Eve. And then the gift will begin. Of course I have all the wishes. That he will have fun. Study hard. Mature. Be curious. Always safe, but never satisfied. That each word will give him wings.

It’s hard to type as I look for the new word. And I suppose that’s it, isn’t? Joyfully, I’m not finished! There’s still so much to learn. 

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Simply falling.

I’m not in a hurry. And it’s not like I’ll forget which book I’m reading. Still, I place it in the “current read” holder a top my desk. (Those wishing to rain on my parade might say that it’s just a letter holder, but in the spirit of keeping my cheeks dry today, I joyfully claim differently.) I pause for a moment enjoying how the colors gather and bounce around my grandfather’s painting, and I fall in love with my life once again. 

Be it dish rag or soap dispenser, a smoothing of bedding, a lighting of a candle, I am someone who needs the romance of daily living. I suppose in youth, I thought someone should supply this. Getting older I made the big step of thinking that while I could do it for myself, you too should marvel at the same thing. I’m only coming to the realization that neither has to be true, I simply can enjoy what I enjoy, and that’s more than enough.

Oh, I’m still going to show you my delight. How could I hide romance?! Look at that book waiting for me!!!  What a time to fall in love. 

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Weightless.

Once she realized that “soon” was no more real than “a long time ago,” — that she could just be in it, this shouldered and weightless grace — there was no more worry of where it had flown, or if it would fly away, it just was…and she was… What a relief to be feathered this way. Not to be ready, but simply be, and know that it was ok.

She smiled at the slyness of this effortless grace, not asking for it to remain, (because certainly grace needed no request) but hoping that she could, that she would… Be.

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The curve of a woman.

I have had this canvas for about 15 years. It has transitioned and traveled with me through abstraction and country. The last painting was here in France, a seascape of sorts. But I can’t tell you exactly what came before that. I know it’s still there. Underneath. Behind, within this woman. 

If you ask me who she is, prepare yourself for the underpainting. She is the curve of every woman. 

She is my grandmother whose hands never stopped. Hands that I watched in amazement and wrote, “If she did worry, it never showed in her hands. She held. She gave. She touched.” 

She is my mother. The posture of grace. In an apartment kitchen filled with more worry than nourishment, she lifted a hand, and gently directed me in the dance. 

She is my friend, long past her days of professional dance, who still walks in the garage as if onto the stage. 

She is another friend, deep in grief, (a depth that only comes with love) who dares the dance of my mother, and releases, again, and again, with the curve of a woman.

When I look at the sides of the canvas, I see these bright and dark colors. Not who she is now. Not who I am now. But I see the lines of the underpainting — the embossing and debossing of all that paint (the experience) that has come before. And it adds pattern to her dress. Movement to her hands. Strength to her feet. And opens the sky. Opens her heart. My heart. Your heart. Wide open. 

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Through and above.

At first glance, you may have thought her superpowers came from her clothes. But I was witness “after the phone booth.” 

I stared at the gravel road, waiting for her to come home from work. First came the puffs of gravel from Van Dyke Road. Then I could see her car. The blinker. And every schoolyard worry exhaled from my elementary body, as she pulled into the driveway. Her skirt and blouse were wrinkle free, just as she had left at 7am that morning. Not a scuff on her shoes as she sat on the side of her bed and placed them back in the box. She took off her run-free pantyhose. Washed them in the sink. Hung her clothes back in the closet. Sweeping down one last time, not to dewrinkle, but more I thought, in thanks of a day well served. 

Donned now in her house clothes, her posture never changed. Shoulders back. Head high. Her size 10’s seem to glide across the kitchen floor. “You could be a dancer on the Lawrence Welk show,” I praised. She leaned into her smile and started dinner. 

In my newest painting, I’m trying to convey the elegance. You might wonder when you see the curve of her hand, or the strength of her neck, how she could be in a simple house dress. But I know where she came from. I have witnessed the puff of smoke she rose through and above. The canvas is big. I have to stand. To reach. And I know it is the praise she deserves. I raise my chin. I raise my brush. And continue. 

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Wanded.

Lying in front of the television set on a Sunday afternoon at my grandma’s house, I had no idea the amount of times that I would relive the words that she spoke to Dorothy, that she always had the power, the very things she needed… 

But I did know that it was magical, as it turned from black and white to color. And each year, as I inched my way closer and closer to the set, pulled relentlessly amid the warnings that I could go blind, somehow, even knowing the script by heart, it all came as a joyful surprise. 

I only had to make the slightest of cuts to get the birds to fit into the frame — a frame that was here long before I arrived in France. A frame that I passed over countless times. And then I saw it. Just the other day. I think I could make that fit, I thought. And sure enough, just a little off the sides, a little sanding, and voila! My birds were framed. And Glenda didn’t even have to say it, but I saw her out of the corner of my eye, coiffed and wanded, smiling as she always had. “Oh, Auntie Em, Uncle Henry!” I am home. 

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The pace of Jerry’s Jack and Jill.

I recently started a large canvas. The difference between this and a small one?  Patience. There are no quick scrolls to the details. The juicy parts. The larger work must be complete. But isn’t that what I also love? Sure. I have to remind myself, but it is true. I liken it to reading an excellent book. You know the kind. Where the characters are living in your soul. Words that keep you fighting through nightime’s blinking eyes, and doing the dance between the urgency of your brain that wants to see how it ends and your heart that never wants it to…. It is the glorious and deliciously painful anticipation of falling in love with the canvas. Why would I ever want to rush that? So, patience…

Certainly we are given lesson upon lesson. I don’t imagine it was my first, but it was early on. Waiting for my grandma in constant conversation in the aisles of Jerry’s Jack and Jill. Cart by cart, she spoke to everyone. We’d just finish one exchange, and I’d think, hope, that we’d make it around to the next aisle, but then there, by the beef, or the boxed cereal, it would begin, “Oh, Elsie…” and we’d be locked in for another five to ten minutes. I’d like to think I was patient at first. Even accommodating. But I’m not sure it was very long before my shoulders started to droop. Before my head tilted backwards, as if my neck were no longer able to support it. My hand hanging on to the silver chariot, willing me to drag along. 

And I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I can’t say why. Wasn’t the point to just be with her? I see it now. Caught up now in the whirl and twirl and scroll of it all, I simply want to slow it down. To love slowly. With attention and intent. To maneuver the days at the pace of Jerry’s Jack and Jill. 

I don’t always get it right. So I lesson myself again. I stand in front of the large canvas. I pick up my slow paintbrush, and hear the words, “Oh, Elsie…” 

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