Jodi Hills

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

Category Archives: art, artist, stone, build, dream, begin, do the work


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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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Fidelity.

The amount of fidelity cards we have from store to store, has not only made it impossible to remember the codes, but it has almost rendered the word meaningless. 

It’s not lost on me though that I do like the concept. This loyalty to brand. This adding to your account. And it occurs to me, perhaps I’m doing that in my studio each day. With each portrait. Building equity with those I love. It is a daily investment to be a part of something. A risk to say that you are a part of it as well. Some will try to shock with the paint stroke. Dare you to see what they see. I have never been one to think I could startle love into action, but there is audacity, I suppose, the audacity to think, to hope, if you could see me, seeing you, then maybe you could see the love in that. 

So I add another punch to my Orsolini card. That has to mean something. My heart knows that it does. 

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Allowed to play.

I suppose my first canvas was the empty lot between our house and Dynda’s. We had free rein — perhaps trampling as if we were on horseback. There was artistry though in the games invented. Bases made out of abandoned windbreakers. Rules sculpted from the last competition remembered. Our knees and elbows painted green from the weary grass meant to be underfoot. And oh, how we played. We worked that canvas until no summer light remained — and still five minutes after that, as our mother’s called from bug danced porch lights. 

I had that feeling yesterday. After all these years. All these miles. It was getting later in the studio. But I was six years old and running. I was paint stained and racing toward the base. Each stroke on the canvas brought the joy (not of winning — but being allowed to play). My feet jimbled beneath my hands that danced in front of my belly that quivered — leaving my brain no choice but to say, “just five more minutes!”  

They say you can’t turn back time. Can’t stop it. During the night a rare rain storm fell over our house. Going into the kitchen this morning, I could see the light blinking on the oven clock. Of course it was the lightning that took out the power for a moment – that’s what my brain says. But my heart winks at my hands and thinks, maybe not…

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Within reach.

My mother did not like a flimsy dishrag, nor dishtowel. Her hands could handle the most extreme conditions of the hottest water, so why would she expect anything less from the material within reach?

It wasn’t this alone, but she was constantly teaching me how she needed to be treated, and how to treat myself. It was down to the smallest detail. Decisions were always being made. What are you worth? What do you expect? What do you need?  And to see her find the joy, wringing it out, hanging it over the faucet, as a job well done, ready for tomorrow’s task, it still makes me smile. 

I finish the painting. Rinse out my brushes. And carry that same joy. 

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All out loud.

I’m not sure when I learned it. Maybe on the school bus with wet hair, breathing so deeply. Holding blank, fresh notebooks tightly to my waist, to simulate the last hug from my mother at the garage door. “Be a big girl,” she said. Oh, I wanted to be. But then the Norton girls got on, all five of them, in all that comfort and bickering of a shared bathroom and last name. And I wanted some of that sameness, but I only felt more alone. I sucked in my lower lip, knowing that would be the first to go, to quiver. And I closed my eyes, willing the tech-school student bus driver to move, move… just get me to school and then I would be ok. I would find a friendly face in that circle as we sat on the cool floor. If I could just hold it in until, Cindy or Barbie, Wendy or Lori, or even Mrs. Strand, could smile at me and gather me in the warmth of “what did you do last night?” and “I’m so happy you’re here.”

I learned to hold it in. Mostly, I suppose, because I knew I had a place, a home, where I would never have to.  I don’t know if it was the first time, but it was a time, and I was struggling, bubbling, simmering from lips to eyelids, and my mother asked me, “Do you need to cry out loud?” I shook my head yes. She sat me down. Sat herself beside me. And I did. And it wasn’t for long. I suppose when you’re allowed to let it all go, it can go pretty quickly. And I was saved.

And it wasn’t just tears. She gave me the safest space to do it all out loud. To dream. To hope. To become. To laugh. To sing. To try. I didn’t have to hide or wonder, brace myself or worry.  I could just be — out loud, in living color. 

I can’t say I never stumble. Never quiver. I can find myself looking back for her shadow at the door. And there are places and times when I know I have to hold it in. But freedom is never far. 

We can do this for each other, you know. We can give one another the space to be who we are. We can join in the release of laughter, and tears — both out loud!  And either way, we can be the one who says, “I’m so happy you’re here.”

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Sometimes a dancer.

You think it’s an apron. And it is sometimes. The proof is the paint splatters that are beginning to gather. And it makes sense around my waist, as a quick brush off of excess water, or a change of color, but it doesn’t really explain the spots around my neck straps. Those are probably because of the dancing. 

While the music plays along with the strokes, there are some songs that just won’t take no for an answer, and soon I am dancing like no one but the portraits are watching. Partnered by the brush in hand, I will get pulled in, hence the paint on my collar. 

My neighbor continues to ask, though I’ve answered many times, “Are you a singer?” I’m sure she hears me on the way to my studio. I say, “Sometimes.” And I am a dancer sometimes. And sometimes a poet. Sometimes a baker. I suppose I used to give the answer no. Not anymore. Because I am sometimes all of these things. And more. And it’s not a judgement or declaration of things that I do extraordinarily well…but rather if I can say, “Well, I had a time!!!! Wasn’t that some time!” 

And the song will change on the player and I am a painter again, but I smile above my painted straps, tap my foot,  and know the truth of all that can be.  

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And other anthologies.

Receiving a letter in college was monumental. We shared a community phone for our floor, and had to pay for long distance, so it was rarely used. The mailboxes were the tie to the outside world. Located in the entrance of our fifth floor walk-up, what lay behind the gray square door was significantly tied to the speed at which I could climb the stairs. One small letter could erase the added weight of my backpack, loaded down with the likes of Shakespeare and other anthologies. Anticipation picked up each foot. Thumb trying to break the seal before opening the door. Books thrown on sofa, I cracked the remaining seal, and breathed in the connection. And I was saved. 

I could always count on the weekly letter from my mother. Sometimes my grandma. An occassional random boyfriend marked with a mascot of another school, or PFC. And I learned quite early on, to get a letter, you needed to send one. To be lifted, you had to do some lifting.

When I was painting her yesterday, the stories ran through my head. Up and down the staircase of my heart and brain. All those things I needed to say. All those things I needed to hear. And I wondered how you would see it. When you saw her. At first glance. Was she getting the letter? Or was she sending it? I suppose it depends on if you are needing to hear something, or if you have something that needs to be said. 

We’re always navigating through both. And I guess the key is to keep the chain open. To be lifted. To keep lifting. 

Life will weigh us with worry and “other anthologies,” but it will also give us what we need if we choose to participate. 

I live in the word. And I am lifted.  

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Before complete.

Forgiveness comes so easily as I allow the portrait to come to life. I actually enjoy the beauty of the becoming. I hope I can do the same in real life. With others. Possibly even me. 

It’s easy to get hung up on the timing of things. People often ask me, “How long does it take to make that painting?” “This painting?’ There is no answer. Or there is every answer. I know with repetition, some things come more quickly. A bird can appear readily, because I have ridden that wing so many times. I have fluttered and flapped. And still, not every time is the same. 

I smile because isn’t it the same when it comes time to “snap out of it” — the mood, the feeling, the getting over. I’d like to think it comes “more readily.” I think it does. But I’m learning it’s not just about the getting through, but the beauty of becoming. As messy and unfinished as it all can be, it can be beautiful before it is complete. Before forgiveness, before healing, before love, it is all still beautiful, within sight, within reach.

So I keep fluttering and flapping, from hand and heart, and with this morning sun, every answer awaits. And so I become. 

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Shouldered.

She asked me how I chose the bird for each portrait. “They simply fly in,” I said. 

I suppose I’ve always believed in the pure randomness of it all. That it could happen to anyone, at any time. Pain, happiness, confusion, even love. And there’s comfort in that. And if it does, simply fly in, I have to remember that one does not outweigh the other. If I can shoulder happiness, then I can do the same with the next challenge carried in. 

Sometimes I wonder, what if her kindergarten nap mat hadn’t been placed next to mine? What if she had transferred to Lincoln Elementary, from our beloved Washington? Would we still be friends? Would she still fly across the world to see me? And then we exchange emails on our current reads. Talk about the lemon boats at Roers’ bakery, our gym uniforms…and joy lands gently on my shoulder as wonder flings away. 

And isn’t it all barely more than air? Whatever the day may bring, this winged moment, all will be shouldered. Even, ever, love. 

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Big. Sometimes.

For five days I read the book. Eagerly returning. Thinking about the characters in between. On the last page, I flipped for another. That was it? The ending? Huh.  

It’s not the first time I’ve enjoyed a book without loving the ending. And still, I had to remind myself that time wasn’t wasted. Time was enjoyed, no matter how it ended, or didn’t.

How do we respond when there’s nothing at the end? It’s never promised. And it occurs almost daily. How do we react when the response is underwhelming? When the email goes unanswered. The post lacks response. Even worse the love.

We’ve all felt it, I suppose, the arms drop mid hug when you yourself are not finished. 

It’s then I have to think, why do I do what I do? I paint because I have to. Writing — the same. Loving, just as with both, it has to come out. And with it all, it is joyfully terrifying. 

And would I spend hours getting the reflection in her eyes, the soul that can’t remain ruffled in the dress…would I do each leaf, each flower, each stone, any differently if you cartwheeled or simply walked away? Singing as I paint, I’m reminded of the words of K.D. Lang, “I gave my love, didn’t I? And I gave it big sometimes!” 

So there’s my answer. I will reach for the words and the paint. Without knowing the length of hug, I offer these arms. 

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