Jodi Hills

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

Category Archives: barn


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Today’s barn.

I learned quickly on that you don’t tell a farmer, “I have nothing to do.” 

We weren’t allowed to be bored on Rueben and Elsie’s farm. And truth be told, there really was no reason to be. Trees to climb and gardens to race. Barns to explore. Cows to annoy. Cupboards to climb into. Lazy Susans to spin. Party lines to listen in on. A balcony to jump off. An electric fence to dare. Flowers to make into dolls. Grass to stain knees. Gravel to collect in shoes. Stairs to count. Overalls to climb into. Dropped off for a summer day, my mother could leave me without prompts.

Writing my daily blog, I ignore the supplied suggestions. Why would I want to write what everyone else was writing? Live like everyone else was living?

Years ago I wrote, “It isn’t that something comes along and gives you a reason to get out of bed. You have to get out of bed and go find that reason, everyday.” It’s ever how I want to live.

I see my grandpa’s portrait on the wall in front of me as I write this. I smile and ready myself to race around today’s barn.  

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Unexpected Lilies


Before there were air conditioned cabs on tractors, there was my grandfather and a lone tree left in the field. It provided much needed shade. A respite from the heat, and even navigation beneath the blinding rays. 

They still surprise me, these unexpected trees. From Minnesota, to the south of France. And maybe even more so now, because they may no longer serve the practical, but still, they serve a need. Because even in all the comfort available, a little reminder is always welcomed. 

He came home with a bouquet of lilies on a Wednesday. Unexpected lilies. Love can still surprise me. And find a way to grow. 

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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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The tender fields

I only had to hear it once for it to stick. “There are no stupid questions,” Mrs. Strand said, addressing the thirty strained-necked five year olds looking up from their cross legged positions at Washington Elementary. So the questioning began.

Behind our house on VanDyke Road, there was a field of grain. Hugo’s field. Lined from green to gold every summer. My grandpa had the same, but he also had a field for the cows. Unlike the fields of grain, it was fenced and trampled — “But still a field?” I asked my grandpa. “Yes, he said. “But what will grow?” “The cows,” he said. I shook my head in agreement.

I was surprised the first time my mother dropped me off at the field to play softball. This was a field too? This sanded and based lot. The teenage boy who we loosely called coach said he would teach of the basics – hitting and fielding. Fielding? No one else raised their hands. Why wasn’t anyone else questioning all these forms of field. I put down my hand and began to play.

It wasn’t lost on me that when you were asked to choose your line of work, it was your field. And when you became good at your chosen profession, you were “outstanding in your field.” The first time I heard this, probably because of Mrs. Strand, Hugo, because of Grandpa, because of the teenage boy, I heard, “out standing in your field.” I still think of it that way. Because this is where I go to create, to the tender fields that led me here. And they were tender. Even through every cracked bit of earth, with every run and trample, I learned. When yields were low. I learned. Each season, I grew. Never with a guarantee, but always a promise of hope. It is with this welcoming of wonder, I wander today’s field.

Something will grow from all of this, and it will be me.

Something will grow from all of this, and it will be me.


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A place at the table.

I asked him if he wanted to draw with me. He was still in his overalls, tired, needing to wash up before dinner. I open my Big Chief notebook wide. Folded the crease of the binding so it lay flat and spread before the two of us on the card table my grandma had set up for me. “I don’t know how to draw,” he said. “Yes, you do,” I said. “I couldn’t even draw a straight line,” he said. “But I don’t need a straight line,” I said, holding up my ruler. He laughed and picked up one of my crayons. I knew he was tired from a day of farming under the sun. I just needed to know he wasn’t too tired. For me. He wasn’t. Soon I told him it was ok, that he didn’t have to draw anymore. I would finish the picture. He smiled and went to wash for dinner.

I drew a picture of him on his tractor. I had watched him earlier in the day. Moving with precision up and down the seeded field. The rows were perfect. Straight. Beautiful. I replicated them with my ruler. 

When he returned to the table I handed him the picture. “It’s you,” I said proudly. He smiled. “See,” I said, “you CAN draw a straight line, only you use a tractor.” He gently held the proof in his hand. 

There is always a way to connect. A way to find a place at the table.

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Welcome to the garden.

I found out yesterday that I have been gardening since the age of five.

I certainly never wanted to get my hands dirty. Some of the neighbor girls made mud pies — the thought of it…. no! I constantly checked to see if the outdoor hose was working, just in case. 

My grandmother made real pies, but still, her hands… deep in the garden, she pulled and cut the rhubarb. You could see it from the dining room window. And I was fascinated that the day before, or even that very morning, it was in the ground, and now, here it sat, round and steaming, crusted, on the table.

I was asked the other day at what age I started to write, to paint. 5 years old. Did you share it? she asked. Oh, yes! With my mother. I would come out of my bedroom, arms straight out – holding it like the steaming pie I imagined it to be, and presented it. Words and paintings, I thought, were meant to be devoured.  

Mid-feast in my newest read, “Our Missing Hearts,” by Celeste Ng, I read that the word “author” means to bring to life, to grow. Like a gardener, I thought. 

She asked me if there were other writers, artists, in the family. No, I said, but there were gardeners, farmers — people with hands and hearts, dirtied by life’s abundance of heartache, challenge and joy. Teaching, inspiring, giving everything, with arms reaching straight out — the authors of living.

Each day, ready or not, we will be asked to grow, to give. The sun comes up, and says, “Welcome to the garden!”

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Making heirlooms.

I looked it up, to see the exact definition —. Heirloom: a valuable object that has belonged to a family for several generations.


I don’t suppose we’ve ever been a family of objects, but I’don’t feel badly about that. Because we do have valuables. My grandparents, being farmers, grew something every year. Not for display. But for the growth. The life. And the stories that remain, even after every truck and tractor, every tool, had been auctioned off, the stories remain. And I hear them. I write them. And I pass them on – these heirlooms.

Since I can remember, I have only seen my brother in overalls. He is not a farmer. I’m sure if you asked him, he would say for the comfort, the pockets, easier to work in… and those reasons are probably all true. But it occurred to me that maybe he is creating his own heirlooms. Just as I write the stories, he puts on my grandfather’s wardrobe, and gives his own grandchildren an image of the past. An image that they certainly will carry with them forever. Their Grandpa Tom wore overalls.


We get to decide what is valuable in this life. What is important to us. For me, it has always come down to the human connection. Never to be displayed on shelves, but certainly displayed daily, in hands reaching out, arms pulling in, love grown, lives shared.


Some days, as I type, I wonder, is it really important, to write these words? And then you respond with memories of your own. Share your stories — your heirlooms — and grandparents are kept alive, traditions, schools, hometowns… and I smile and know it is valuable — making these daily heirlooms.

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Black barns.

I have never smoked. I don’t really care about tobacco, but I was interested in the black barns of Kentucky. The woman at the tourist office told us they were used for tobacco. The black kept the barn hotter, and helped in curing the tobacco. So many are no longer in use, but I think they are still beautiful. They are so different from the red barns I grew up with.

We stopped at the Muhammad Ali museum in the next leg of this journey. I was never a boxing fan, but I was interested in the man. He was not a perfect human, but I haven’t seen one yet. I do know that he helped raise awareness for Parkinson’s Disease, the Olympics, the Civil Rights movement, and being human. I think that is beautiful.

It’s getting harder and harder to know who and what we are supposed to like anymore. We are constantly being told you can’t like this painter because he said bad things. Can’t like this music because the singer was a drug user. Can’t shop here, they support the wrong ideas. Can’t be friends with them, they voted wrong. I don’t even know if I’m allowed to eat that chicken.

And I want to support the things I believe in. I really do. But I want to know the world. Experience different things. Meet different people. Eat some chicken. So what do I do? What do we do?

If I write about something you aren’t interested in one day, does that negate the 20 other times you laughed or cried when you read my words. I hope not. I hope we can all be open to each other. I hope we can all believe in different things, and still be kind to each other. Walk different paths, and be open. Look differently. Laugh differently. And still believe in love.

I will sketch the black barns. The champion horses. The beautiful losers just wandering the field. And maybe when I get home I will paint the black barn. I don’t think my red barn will mind at all. I want to find the beauty. I think it’s even there in the search. Probably there, most of all.

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