Jodi Hills

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

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Ever green.

They all looked the same to me — these green apples. But for some reason, my grandma would pick them and put them in brown paper sacks and write their names in bold magic marker. “So these are named Ivy? Just like my mother?” She smiled back at me. “They’re for your mother. She likes the sour ones.” “How do you know which ones are sour?” I asked. “I go to the tree.” I shook my head yes and folded the paper sack three times, just like my mother would do with my sack lunch when I started school. She started making them for me after the first day of first grade. The school lunch lady tried to make me eat a pickle. I never ate a school lunch again. My mother knew me. I carried my sack. 

We’re all so different. At first glance, you don’t see it. Most unfortunately, don’t even bother to look. And I get it. It can be exhausting. We are bombarded daily with face after face of the so-called-truth. But standing in this sea of green, I hear her, so easily, so simply, “go to the tree.” The source. The truth is always there. Some will try to disguise it with repetition, but it’s there. 

My mother didn’t look at all like Grandma Elsie, no she was full-on Grandpa Rueben. My mother was like the purple irises that grow along the road of my morning walk. So straight and tall. Such purpose in the long stem, and green fitted leaves. Just up the hill, there are few chubby little yellow ones, still with a bit of dirt from where they struggled through the earth, that’s my Grandma Elsie. Equally lovely. I smile as I pass because I saw the truth about them. And it was beautiful. It is beautiful.

Paperclipped to one of my books, my mom left for me the poem that begins…”Do not stand by my grave, and weep. I am not there…” Oh, how I know this to be true. She walks with me daily. They both do. Appearing on canvas and page. Coloring the side of the road. Fluttering by the blooms of spring. Ruffled around my neck. Beating in my heart. Growing in the trees. I know them. Still. 

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Becoming she.

I often use the word she when making a card. Some have asked, “Who is this she?” “All of us,” I reply, “possibly even me.” I say possibly because I’m not always there yet, but it’s where I want to be, who I want to become. So I “she” myself into being. 

Change is rarely simple. And it can be frightening, this unknown territory. We want to know “what happens when…”; “what happens if…” But we aren’t always given the answers. Rarely even. What we’re given is the light coming through the crack of the door, and a choice — to let fear stop us, or to keep growing. Sometimes it becomes a space to let things go. Sometimes a pathway to move through. And the strongest of us — this she — is not afraid to do either. I am sometimes her. Each time I give her a voice. Write her. Paint her. The doors become a little less frightening. Even welcoming. And I become a little more she. 

It’s what I wish for all of us. To be a little less afraid. A little more open. They’re only doors after all — a passage to possibility — to becoming anything, anyone!

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Cinderella’s March.

It was my aunt Karolynn that led me through my first “March Madness.” It’s spring here in France. It won’t snow. We don’t follow basketball. But each year at this time, I am nestled in New Brighton, MN, in front of the television.

Visiting my cousins in this near Minneapolis suburb usually meant playing with my cousins — in the unfinished basement or outside. We only ever used the back door, which opened to both. 

But snow was falling as predicted this March, and I had just had surgery on my knee. My mom was working two hours away, so it fell on my aunt Karolynn to pick me up from the hospital. The leg-length plaster cast was not the full weight of it all. I worried about the school I was missing. The mom I was missing. The fact that my new Adidas track suit pants, purchased solely for this reason, ripped upon trying to stretch over my cast. And even though I had spent much time on summer visits to this place, I had never been alone with my aunt. In the wintertime. Immobile. I started to cry in the driveway. I placed my crutches under my already sore arms and began heading on the sidewalk to the back door. No, she said, and pointed to the front door. I was confused. I had never gone in the front door. It opened to the living room — the living room I had never sat in. She plopped me in Uncle Mike’s chair. Covered me with a blanket. Placed a tv tray around my legs. Brought me a bowl of Chicken Noodle soup – Campbell’s, not an off-brand. And she turned on the television. “It’s March Madness,” she said. I agreed before understanding it was the college basketball tournaments. I liked basketball, but mostly I liked when the announcer talked about the “Cinderella” teams — those with barely a chance, who came out shining! That would be me, I thought. I hoped. Half souped, warmed, the snow kept falling outside. But sitting in this front room, cared for, loved, I was indeed Cinderella. 

It was only a moment, I suppose, but it has stayed with me. Here in another country. A March filled with its own unique kind of madness circles around me, and I am safe. I will walk out the front door, and know that I am loved. 

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The bridge to everything.

Today is a packing day. I finished my recent commission and it’s time to send it to another country. To release something, put it in the hands of others, is no small thing. But that’s what it was made for, to reach this destination. So I have to let go. Trust — the final bridge to everything, I suppose. 

Trust has always been hard for me. As a child, I gave it away freely, this precious cargo, until one day, it was damaged. Beyond repair? I didn’t know. So I kept packing. Protecting that heart at all costs. Bubble wrapped. Shrink wrapped. Permission wrapped – tightly. Even behind all that protection, I guess I always knew this was not the final destination. 

It’s not lost on me that to reach our home, you have to cross a bridge, the Pont des trois sautets. I made that choice. To cross over. I trusted my heart. His. And found myself at home.

You will be asked today, tomorrow, to keep moving forward — to cross that bridge. Not as a punishment, but as a gift. There is so much beauty that lies ahead! 

It’s all about the choices we make. We can choose to stay or to cross over. We are offered these bridges as gifts. It’s not always easy to dare to cross over, to get through, to get beyond… but it is a choice. So many rivers to cross. And with one step, we choose… we decide to love, to be loved… we decide that we are actually worthy of the giving and receiving… we choose to live… and we cross over… we cross over to the beauty that lies ahead. What a journey!
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The color brave.

Maybe being brave is kind of like love, in the way that you never finish. 

I didn’t know much about it then — my grandpa’s farm. I only saw how he changed the colors from season to season. From black to green to gold. He made it look so simple.  I suppose we don’t often see people being brave.  We just see them doing. But the changing weather must have brought worry. A tractor down, a man short. With each crop something different. He had to keep learning. Adjusting. Every single day. 

I think it was the same with my mother. Most only saw the colors. How lovely she looked in her yellow. Her turquoise. Most couldn’t see beyond the popped collar, or ruffled neck, just how brave she was being. I’m not even sure she saw it herself. But I did. I still do. 

Sometimes I get impatient with myself. Why do I have to keep tracing over the word brave? Can’t I just be? But in the moments when I let myself step into the beautiful colors of it all, navigating through the brilliance of the day’s challenge, I see it. And I’m ok with the not finishing. I will be brave today. And tomorrow. But I look around and smile, because I’m doing the same with love. 

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The care of the varnish.

I had to google the expression, because it didn’t seem right to me. It still doesn’t. To “varnish over the truth,” is said to be a way to hide or deceive; while in painting, it’s just the opposite. After the paint is dry, applying a varnish not only protects the integrity of the painting, it actually brings all the colors together. The image is more vibrant. More clear. The colors are no longer individual. The painting becomes whole. Revealed.

The other day I applied the varnish to two paintings while working on a commissioned piece.  Just as they had months ago by my heart and hand, they came to life again. I can’t say that I remembered each stroke. Each movement, but the experience became alive again. So very real. 

When I tell you of my childhood — memories of family, of school days and summer suns — it feels like a varnishing. Not one of deception, but revelation. Making whole these images — these moments. Even the most simple of times (the tiniest of strokes) — a cow, a book, a walk, a promise, a bike, a hand — they become part of the picture. The story becomes whole. Even in the parts where it felt like a “taking away,” something was given. Maybe it takes time. Maybe it takes the care of the varnish…but the story is always revealed. And when I take the time to really look, I can see the beauty of it all.

I sit today in the comfort of the stories that live around and beside and within, knowing a bit will gather in this new creation, this new painting. Each moment is so precious and deserving of our care, even and long before the meaning is revealed, the beauty is there. 

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Waddler.

We’ve never had a duck in our yard before. It was a delightful surprise when I went to open the shutters. Perhaps even more surprising, “canard,” was the word that popped into my head (french for duck).

That is the very thing that keeps me coming back to the page, the canvas, the morning shutter — this belief in the unexpected. This hope that I’ll see something new. Create something new. Feel something waddle across my heart. 

And it’s never been about shock. Shock is simple. Anyone can severely rattle and create a response. But to find the beauty in the simple. To see the spectacular in life’s gentle and daily offerings, this, I think, is the extraordinary. 

It may not sound like much, but for me it was a sign of learning. A sign of growth. And without that, what am I in this for? Sure it may be at a waddler’s pace, but I am learning continuously about life. And this is hope. This is joy! 

Je suis un canard!
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I’m with the banned.

I remember going to the new church with my mother. She wanted a fresh start. After the divorce, she just wanted to fold her hands without anyone judging her ring finger. The choices seemed plentiful enough. But after being turned away from communion in one, and altogether in another, it was all a little too “no room in the inn.” The second one offered for me to stay and go to Sunday School. I declined and chose to stay with the banned.

I mention it only because I saw the sign at the airport bookstore — “I’m with the banned.” I smiled for all the books and, too, for all the readers who have found themselves turned away from one door or another. All the stories will be told. Will find a way out. Will find a way in. And this is what will save us.

There will always be churches that won’t ask you to belong. Clubs you can’t get into. Groups who will snicker and turn their backs. This is not your story, only theirs. You get to chose your own faith. Your own path. Your own journey. You can step to your own beat. Create your own soundtrack. And if someone dares to claim, “I don’t recognize that song,” you simply tell them, “Well, I’m with the banned.“

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Nothing shy of super.


I bought a Bat Girl t-shirt at Ragstock yesterday. I like to give myself super powers. Wearing my sunglasses, I summon my best Anna Wintour. My gloves, Ava Gardner. I know it’s all internal, but I like to give it a name. Maybe we all do.

We went to Down in the Valley, the record store near Ragstock. It felt like a Time Machine. I thumbed through stacks, just like I did when there was nothing but time stretched far ahead of us. When we bought full albums at full price. Played it on the stereo. Lying heads beside giant speakers, feeling each note, each lyric as if it were written just for us. Wondering if our lives were soundtrack worthy. Willing to believe they were, and would be ever. 

My husband bought two Kris Kristoffersons. One for himself. One for his best friend from those days of lyrics and promise. I watched the man behind the counter place youth’s super power in the bag and hand it to Dominique.  

The afternoon sun bounced off of Highway 55 and we drove, each a little lighter, armed with nothing shy of super.

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Words and toes.

Before there was ever a television series, nestled in the winter corner of my bedroom, book resting on my knees perched to my chest, I looked like every character in the Little House on the Prairie book. I lived in each word. I knew the steps to the house. The barn. I was the girl nestled to a loving Pa. I was the strong and worried Ma. Laura, running, always running. Mary studying. I knew each character in and out. The mean girl at the mercantile. The neighbors a horse ride away. There was no need to mark the page. I read it through. And read it again. 

The Washington Elementary School library made it possible for me to read the series a week at a time. The many years captured in these books lasted one winter of mine on Van Dyke Road. My little toes dug deeper into the carpeting as I traveled through each page. Because it wasn’t just my mind wandering. I knew I was there. That, I suppose, is the moment I learned the power, the magic of reading. 

Yesterday we visited the  three historic structures, including the Surveyor’s House, the Ingalls’ home that Pa built, and the First School of De Smet where Laura and Carrie were students. Maybe it was because of the snow, but I don’t think so…I felt it in my toes — they curled like I was seven again, as I ran to her statue. If you have a moment today, read — to a child in your house, at your library, or the one whose toes still curl beneath you. 

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