Jodi Hills

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

Category Archives: balance


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All the arms around me.

The bisous is nice — a kiss on both cheeks — but for me, it will never replace a good hug. I have the imprints on my heart. I can tell you the progression through the years of my grandmother’s hug. The first I can remember were mostly knees. Then I was sticky faced against her apron (maybe because of me, or maybe because of the apron). She was pillowy. And welcoming. Pulling me in so close, I was almost behind her. And then there was the angled structure of my grandfather. Firm and elbowed. Offering the blessed assurance of “I’ll be here, strong, a foot in each furrow.” And then there was my mother. I knew every inch of her. Where my head could rest. Where my mind could wander. The home of every embrace. The feel of each blouse and sweater, hugged so closely, as if to wear the same. And didn’t we wear them together, our sleeved hearts, through every fashion lay-a-wayed and purchased. 

This is to be hugged.

It’s not our culture here in France. But it is happening. Slowly. And isn’t it beautiful, that without pattern, knowledge or language even, we can teach each other how we need to be loved. 

Ever since I painted his picture, Dominique’s cousin, he has hugged the stuffing out of me.  Such a joyful surprise from this man of French measure. Nearly lifting me off the ground. A melding of imprints. Strength and joy and tenderness. All the arms around me now, I paint my way home. 

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To the mountain.

I see the Sainte Victoire mountain every day. It always catches my breath. On the halfway point of my daily walk I get the best view. I try to drink it in slowly. It is the latte I order extra hot to make it last longer. It is the tentative first sip of familiar and spectacular against my lips. Delicious.

Sometimes I wonder if I would have noticed it. Would I have just gulped it in and moved on? It was Cezanne who led me to it. Painting by painting. Image by image. In books and museums. Telling me again how worthy it was. How beautiful. And I believed it before I stood beneath it. Before I climbed it. Before I painted it. 

That’s what we can do for each other. It’s why I love a latte, I suppose. Because of each one shared with my mother, with my friends. Each sip an experience. Of laughter and tears. An extension of a meal. A way to make the afternoon last longer. A gathering of love, sip by sip. 

And the thing is, we can do it with everything. When we share what we love. The things we find important. When we show each other the view from our hearts, it can be the familiar turned spectacular. I mean it’s just a rock, a giant rock, this Sainte Victoire. So if we can turn that into a “breath-taker” — just imagine what else love can do! 

It’s time to show our hearts. Look at things differently. Open our minds. And just see!!!!

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Promises kept.

It was clear to me that they wanted to come with, the lineup of baby dolls and stuffed animals on my bed. We had the conversation every summer morning, of where we would go. What we would do. They wouldn’t all fit in the basket of my banana seat bike. Perhaps it was the elephant, or the koala, maybe even Malinda who told me to take the old wagon. All in agreement, I dragged it from behind the garage to the front door. Had it ever been put away, as I’m sure my mom suggested, perhaps it wouldn’t have been so rusty. I hesitated to put down the blanket. It still smelled like the top of a baby’s head, or at least the plastic that made up Malinda’s. So I grabbed from the newspaper pile — previous editions of the Alexandria Echo Press. I left enough to clean the mirrors for Thursday’s chores. I spread them on the wagon. Then the blanket. Then each animal. Each baby doll. And we were off.

They never complained about the gravel road. And they were such good listeners. They believed me when I told them I would love them forever. As much as I believed it myself. 

I thought of them as I picked up the pine cones from our yard and put them in the rusty wheelbarrow. I am a lifetime and a country away, but never too far. As the wheelbarrow filled, I added the promises kept — they took up no space at all. And I smiled. Love. It’s what I hold on to. 

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From the front.

It was only the handle that stuck out of the back pocket of our jeans, but it was enough, this plastic curve of the comb, to tell everyone who we were. Enough to tell everyone we had seen the movies, read the magazines, understood about the proper hair style (for both boys and girls). 

My mom bought it for me at Peterson’s Drug. The light blue plastic was easily seen, but not too showy. The widely spaced teeth of the comb feathered my bangs perfectly, and inserted me smack dab in the middle of the hope that “I belong here too.” 

The level of things that would have connected us more deeply were reserved for secret poems written while lying beside the stereo — poems that only my mother and Casey Kasem understood and were privy to. 

It would take years for me to gain my voice. Find the courage to use it. It’s joyfully ironic, when I stopped thinking about belonging and concentrated more on becoming, only then did I gain both. I did belong. To myself and to this world. The heart that I wear on my sleeve is decisively more connective than any comb I wore in my back pocket.

We’re given the tools we need right from the start. It takes a lot of growing, a lot of courage to use them. But it is what connects us. This sharing. It’s so delightful when I offer up an experience, and then you share yours.  More delightful even than running together wildly down the halls of Jefferson Senior High! Today I see you! From the front! 

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Tight against my smile.


I never saw my grandma holding a camera. The thought of her turning down the flame beneath the gravy so she could take a photo of the meal to come would have seemed ludicrous. The kitchen stove was in constant rotation, as was the table. If she did have a matching set of dishes, I never saw them. And the thing is, we never wanted to match. We sought out our favorite color from the aluminum juice cups, or one of the coveted A & W Rootbeer bear glasses. And maybe the images that roll through my head are more vivid than any photo could ever be. Heart captured, heart carried. Ever.

Yesterday I made bread and raspberry jam. The scent of bread baking that wafts through walls and stairs is only visible from the back part of my brain, the part with strings that pull at the corners of my mouth. My fingers have grown accustomed to the heat, just like grandma’s, as I lightly grab the bread just out of the oven. I laugh as I place it on the cooling rack because we won’t wait. We never let it cool. I make the too-soon cuts and add the French butter that melts in cracks and nooks. Then the jam. A sweet river of rouge. When the taste hits my tongue and my eyes roll back, it is then I can see the strings that are pulled tight against my smile — a smile that struggles to keep it all in. This is the photo I didn’t take. Nor did I shoot the one where Dominique got up in the middle of the night for one more slice.  But these are the images I share with you, and will carry with me forever, right beside my grandma’s stove, my grandma’s table, my grandma’s hands. 

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Packet to packet.

I have carried the remaining one or two tissues left in the pocket pack for over a year now. That means passing through three allergy seasons, yet I can’t bring myself to use them.

She followed me around for two hours, this woman from Anderson Funeral home. During the visitation before my mother’s funeral, I wept and hugged and bent and wept some more. And she was there, this small, gray haired woman, hired, certainly, but it felt sincere. It felt like she was truly there to follow my trail of tears. And she did her job well. I was never without a tissue. She began handing them one by one, and then switched from packet to packet. 

I could have picked her out of a lineup that first day, but her image is fading. I don’t remember if she had glasses. I think she had glasses. She was wearing a dress. Maybe a blazer. A dress with a blazer? Lipstick for sure. She wasn’t tall. Perhaps at my shoulders. But it felt like she was lifting me. 

As with all grief, supporters move on. They have to. It is natural. It is necessary. We all know it. We all know it, that is, until it’s you that is grieving. And the grief changes shape. It doesn’t require the same kind of attention. I don’t need her to follow my trail, but I need to not forget. As I watch the fading image of the gray haired woman, I bring to life the stories of my mother. And tears of pain turn to tears of tenderness, tears of joy, never to be wiped away. No, these tracks of love and laughter must remain. 

I reach into my purse for my lipstick, or my signature fragrance, and I smile. I touch the tattered plastic and know that I am ok. So grateful for those who walked with me, for those who walk with me still. I mention it in hopes that these words will follow those who need it. That the stories will catch your tears, will lift your smile. And the face that follows will change from mine to yours to theirs, and we will all be there, for each other. Heart to heart. Packet to packet.

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Like a floating Ginger.

She certainly wouldn’t have been considered a dancer, my grandma, but one could make the Ginger Rogers comparison quite easily. It is often said that Ms. Rogers not only did everything that Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels. Yes, my grandpa worked hard, and he had the crops to prove it, but my aproned grandma kept longer hours, with nine children and 27 grandchildren pulling from behind. 

The thing is though, as it is with most who are excellent at their craft, the work is hidden. Like a floating Ginger, she moved from stove to sink to table to garden to clothesline to town. And I never caught a glimpse of the struggle. Of course it had to be there, but I never saw her rub her aching toes. I never heard her catch her breath while offering the love and attention we all demanded. 

There were no words like self-care then. But she was smart enough to take her personal time. And we were smart enough to know that it was at noon each weekday in front of the tv set to watch NBC’s Days of our Lives. Just as some of the Bohemians on neighboring farms were thought to be relatives, my cousins and I thought the same of the Hortons from Salem. I suppose I loved this time the most because I saw Grandma Elsie from the front. Her welcoming belly was not hidden by a steaming pot or bubbling kitchen sink. No, it was there to climb on, to hug, to rest against. We took our turns dancing with Ginger as Ma and Pa Horton looked on.

Working in my sketchbook, alone in the studio, I know these small paintings won’t sell, or even be seen, but as my hand stumbles through the pages, I know, without pressure, or even promise, it is my time to dance.  

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It’s not the Louvre, but then again, it isn’t trying to be.


My grandma never made apologies for her wide feet. Standing on them for decades, as she did, rubbing her rounded aproned belly, holding a rootbeer float — “it was bound to happen”, she smiled, and sported her men’s Thom McAns proudly. And I loved her all the more.

My mother never made apologies for her long feet. “I’m going to rely on my heart for balance?” She laughed. They lengthened her already long legs, and stabled her heart that bounced and bruised and giggled again. And I loved her all the more.

We have been, I gratefully say, to the finest museums in the world. From Paris, to Rome, London, Amsterdam, New York, Chicago…seeing the finest artists of all time. So it may surprise you when I say we enjoyed our visit to the National Cowboy Museum in Oklahoma. Not because it could compete with a Cezanne or VanGogh, no, but it wasn’t trying to. It was cowboys. From films, to wars, to horses, and cattle, it told a story, their story. And it was beautiful.

Sometimes, when visiting a smaller city, they try to compete, and it never works. But when a place embraces their history, goes all in, wearing their shoes proudly, (or boots as it were), now this is something to see! I hope I do that. Give that. I was taught this, by two of the most different and lovely women that I know.

I hope we all can, step into each and every day, proudly, lovingly. We all have a story to tell.

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Heart-flakes.

It’s not that I don’t make resolutions, it’s just that mine are more of the day to day kind. Perhaps even moment by moment. I don’t know why I thought of it this morning. Maybe it was the crowd of Valentine’s Day hearts hanging in the hotel breakfast room that shouted January is almost over!

It goes so quickly. And I don’t want to waste any of it. So I looked it up this morning. This “resolution.” I had to scroll down a little, but I found my answer. By definition, in scientific terms, resolution means the smallest interval measurable. I smiled, because I guess that’s how my heart runs, my brain operates, in these smallest of intervals.

If the coffee is good and strong, and the hotel has peanut butter for my toast, breakfast is good. When the words come for my blog. When you respond. I feel connected. I fill my sketchbook slowly, page by page. The story, my life, unfolds.

I remember making those paper hearts in school. Folding the paper in half. Cutting out the heart shape. Then, still folded, making all the tiny cuts. Even then I remember thinking we had just done the same thing for snowflakes. In a blink the teacher took them from the wall, we changed the paper and made the same little cuts into heart-flakes. We didn’t think about the whole school year. We just made the tiny adjustments. The tiny cuts. And moved through each day.

I guess I’m still doing that. Making the tiny cuts and unfolding the day. Determined, resolute even, to measure the moments heart by heart.

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Uff-da, y’all.



Two of my mom’s sisters ended up in Texas. Being a child in Minnesota, that seemed about as foreign as it could get. (Little did I know…) When my Aunt Sandy returned on her first visit, she already sounded different. I didn’t have the word for it then, but she definitely had a drawl. How strange, I thought. But I wasn’t that worried, until years later when my mom and I took my grandma down to Texas for a visit. Tired from the drive, I didn’t really notice when we arrived, but the next morning, there she was, my full-on Texas aunt, asking my grandma — the one that her northern children only called “mother” — “Mama, do y’all want to go for biscuits and gravy?” Wait! Mama? Y’all? Biscuits and gravy? What was happening???? Perhaps there was a slight emphasis on the word mother when they returned and my mom asked her, “Did you like the biscuits and gravy, Mother?” I was already smiling when she answered, “Uff-da, y’all…”

I can see now how it happens. Living in France. They say I have an accent. There, of course, and even when I return. We all want to belong. Be a part of something. And we gather ourselves in, word by word, bit by bit, to make ourselves whole, to find a place at the table.

Visiting the Starbuck’s in San Antonio yesterday, they were all out of the butter croissants, so I said “I’ll take the pain au chocolat.” She looked at me so strangely… Uff-da, y’all, I thought. “I mean the chocolate croissant,” I smiled. I am a part of it all.

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