Jodi Hills

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

Category Archives: artist


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No ordinary days.

We were surrounded by it — growth. Hugo’s field rich with grain. The swamps in the North End, ripe with thickened green. Marigolds lining driveways. Lawns under the hum of walked mowers. Discarded school books on abandoned summer shelves. Tennis shoes bursting out at the toes. Yet, it was imagination that surpassed it all on Van Dyke Road. 

We were given space. An empty lot sat between our house and Dynda’s. An empty lot to do anything we imagined. What a gift this empty! What drew us to this nothing? Made us race our bikes over gravel and abandon them in the ditch just to be in this open lot? When I type it now, this “lot of possibility”,  I have to smile, because I suppose that was it — so much — a lot! — of possibility. Here we had the freedom to imagine our way out of or into any situation. Balls and flashlights. Teams and cans and bases. Forts and races. Worlds away each day, but gently tethered by a mother’s front porch call. 

The magic still holds. When Dominique asks me, “What do you want to do today?”— and I can answer, “nothing” — we both smile. And I race toward all things possible, knowing the lot.

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But I am.

We learned early on at Washington Elementary that so many of our problems could be solved by sitting quietly. If we were too hot, “Sit quietly,” the teacher would say. Trying to memorize our times tables, it was important to “tune everything else out.” Even in our excitement of knowing the solution to the problem on the chalkboard, she never called on the ones that “Ooooh, Oooooh, Ooohed,” — no, she smiled and pointed to the steady hand raised silently in the air. 

It followed me through high school and even college. I could never do my homework in front of the television, nor with the music blaring. The answers, for me, always came in a whisper. The same has held true for everything, I suppose. Recovery, hope, dreams, even love, has never arrived as the Tabernacle Choir, but more of a hum, a bird song in my heart, that to be heard requires the silencing of all the doubt, fear, and chaos that surrounds us. 

There will always be the chatter of those who are so eager to shout, “you can’t,” “you shouldn’t,” “you won’t.” To them (and mostly to myself) I say in a gentle hush, “Oh, but I am.” 

Softly.
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Stardust.

I don’t suppose the spaces left from loved ones passed can ever be completely filled. But maybe it’s wrong to think they ever were. These relationships weren’t beautiful, memorable, longed for even still, because of their solid perfection. Perhaps they were always stardust, flittering, fluttering, changing shape, with room always left for dancing, beneath the flickering light. 

It’s the way I choose to think of it, my mother’s space, not as a hole left behind, but a dance floor. And all that magic that sprinkles from her still, lights up the people around me, and they step in, tap me on the shoulder, and ask me to dance. They are my new daily connections. My new last calls. My shared laughter and secrets. Hopes and challenges. Not replacements, but keepers of the dance. 

We’re not all good at the same thing. Some are meant to pull you in, and simply sway. Other’s tap their feet and keep the beat alive. Some dizzy you into laughter. Dance you into breathless. And hold out the ladle of punch. I am grateful for them all. All of you, who keep my dance floor filled, my heart in motion, in sway, in the right tempo, under the stardust. 

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More who.

I’ve always thought I loved shopping, but the greater truth is I loved shopping with my mother. Oh, I still love clothes. I will play fashion show at home longer, and without the prompt of any “fashion week.” And I still visit the same stores we went to when returning to the US. But it’s not the same. And that’s not to be sad about it, but to celebrate it for what it was — pure joy! I can still hear her comments. Even when I knew something didn’t fit properly, I would come out of the dressing room just to hear her say, “That’s nice, did they have it in your size?” I use it to this day, even on myself. I’m still laughing.  And when the outfit is good, oh, I let myself know it too!  Just as she did, with unbridled enthusiasm. With an extra voila! With extended mirror time. With longer strides around the room — that’s the funny thing about joy, it always makes you taller!

I suppose it’s true about everything. It’s about the company we keep. Think about your favorite vacation. Your most delicious meal. Always more who than what. 

I try to be mindful about my branches. Open, yet thoughtful. Fluttering among those that make this seemingly ordinary stretch of wood unforgettable!  I’ll see you up there.

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No ladders.

I told him I needed a ladder. No, my grandfather replied. “But I have to get it back into the tree,” I said without crying, but just barely. Not about to change his response, but curiosity getting the best of him, he asked what. “The nest,” I said. He just smiled and again shook his head no. “A bird’s nest,” I reiterated, as if he just didn’t understand and surely with the added description he would go get the ladder and help me. But he didn’t. “The babies…” I pleaded, having never actually seen them, only heard them from below. “They’re fine. They’re already gone,” he explained. “How did they know? Were they ready?” I asked, still assuming we were all afforded that luxury. “You find a way,” he said, both of us knowing we were no longer talking about the birds. Both of us knowing that it was my house, my nest, that I missed. It was a ladder back to when my father lived with us. When everything seemed certain. A ladder back to the nest of trust and security. There was no ladder. We both knew I would have to find a way. He put his finger on the sore part of my heart, “They will be ok,” he said without crying, but just barely. And I knew, with the certainty of tree and the absence of ladder, that I would be too. 

I can’t say that through the years I have not asked for the ladder. Thinking, just get me over this. But I eventually get there. Never over. Always through. And my heart moves from sore, to soar. And I am saved.

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Without uniform.

Maybe it’s easier to see when we’re younger. Or maybe they do the work for us. Giving us uniforms. Gathering us together on buses and in classrooms. Cross-legged on floors in circles, whispering and giggling. They give us mascots and rally songs. And we are a part of something. 

And then they send us off into the world. Hoping it was enough. Hoping they gave us the skills to recognize those around us. To connect without uniform. 

And you know it when you do. As certain as if the rally song was playing behind you. Those friends, old and new, that know you as you become and become. As you change and grow. Those that walk beside you. In moments of pure joy. In the tenderness of sorrow. Through the uncertainties of success and loss. Always. All ways. Beside. Without hesitation, they join in the laughter, they answer each doubt, each question the same, “…because we’re friends.”

It was enough. It is enough. I see you. 

…because we’re friends.
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The depths of yes.

We didn’t have words like self care or journaling when she gave me the Nothing Book for my birthday. It was just as described, a hard covered book with blank pages inside. I carried it each day to my locker on the first floor of Central Junior High School. When she got off her bus, she would run to me and ask, straight from the words on the cover, “Did you make something of it?” It made us laugh every time, and every time the answer was yes. I’d show her my newest poem and we would revel in our insight. What time we were wasting, we thought, with social studies and geometry, when we understood at such depths, the poetry of this world. 

I still have this book. I still have this friend. And isn’t that, I suppose, the most beautiful poem of all. 

And it’s a question I still ask of myself daily, “Did you make something of it?” Referring to the day, the time given, the loves around me. And it’s not pressure, but more acccountability, as I see her opening the large middle doors of the junior high. I smell the bus fumes and cling my “something” to my eager chest. Ready to offer to her, to this world, what I have made. Knowing, that if I’m not giggling with the depths of yes, then I have to do more. Be more. She’s getting closer now, and I open to today’s page, smiling. Yes!

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Open waters.

They aren’t always so clear. So when I get an obvious sign, I like to celebrate it.

I was thinking the exact same thing when he said, “I like to see the open waters.” I smiled and agreed. What was cold and white, frozen, just a couple of months ago, now rippled and danced blue under a changing sky.

I don’t know if nature is as silly as we humans. Suffering and fighting the cracks. Or does it simply release? They say we have to be cracked open, that’s where the love gets in. But each time it happens, I have a tendency to forget. Put up a struggle. And it’s not like my heart hasn’t been through the “winter months” before…found its way to spring…so why do I, we, fight it? I guess as with everything, we have to be in it to know. So for now, I will simply enjoy the water’s release into the new season. I will flow with the promise of spring and try to keep it in my memory — this nature of things.

Oh, to be open! To it all! Come spring! Cracks and all! I feel buoyant already!

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Cardinals.

I suppose we could have been called anything, and I would have loved it, but we were Cardinals, so the moment I put on the red uniform, for volleyball, basketball, track, band, whatever, whenever, I, we, represented Independent School District #206, and proudly became those beautiful red birds. 

We shortened everything. Perhaps we were in such a hurry to grow up. The name of the town, Alexandria, became Alex, and then simply Alek. Cardinals became Cards, always led with a “Go!” I see the urgency now. To get somewhere. To win. And now, it all seems like a fluttering, a blur of red and black wings. 

The Alexandria Boys’ Basketball team won the state championship this weekend. I don’t live there anymore. Not even in the country. The high school that I went to has been torn down. I can’t name a player on this year’s team. But somehow, magically, in that winning flutter, I am part of the we — the “We did it!” 

Perhaps more than any team, I think the same when remembering my mother. With each victory big or small. Selling a painting, surviving a hard situation, conquering a fear, just being happy for no reason on a Monday morning — I look to the heavens and joyfully say, “We did it!”

We are only as strong as our connections. They don’t have to be cardinals, but they should lift you, help you reach things you never even imagined. They should be the ones you look to, recognize, call you by name, ever tell you, “one way or another, we are going to fly!”

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Rocks at first glance.

You had to want to see them — and we did. We were even told where to look, and yet, for a split second, it was hard to distinguish them from the rocks of every other beach. And they weren’t beautiful, until I realized that they were seals. When I imagined these lumps up from their naps, barking and flopping, when I watched the slow up and down of their jiggly breaths, they became alive, real, fascinating even! The longer I looked, stories were revealed. One pup headed back from the water (I guess even seal children struggle to take a nap.) Two snuggled a little closer to each other. They weren’t all the same. These seemingly lifeless rocks at first glance had a story to tell.

I worry about how much we miss. How much we pass by. How many humans we just write off. What if we took the time to really see? I suppose it’s impossible to know everyone’s story, but what if we just acknowledged that everyone has one, that everyone is on a journey. What if we allowed each other to explore? To dare the sea? What if we allowed each other to rest? All in our own time. From ship to shore. Wouldn’t it all, wouldn’t we all, seem a little more beautiful?

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