Jodi Hills

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

Category Archives: beauty


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My best Elsie.

We learned pretty quickly on the power of the wave. I thought my Grandma Elsie knew everyone. And on her country road, she probably did know most. Any car that passed got the Elsie wave. I didn’t know of Queens or parades, but she had one that lingered a bit longer than most, accompanied with a slight head bob and smile. Then I saw my grandpa do the same. The smile was a bit tighter, but it was there. I started to mimic them. My favorite time was when summer car windows could be open. It was then you could really make it clear. Arm extended in the breeze with a little more of a shake. I asked my grandma at first if she knew them…she glanced in the rear view mirror…No, she said, but I saw them. I shook my head yes. I saw them too. And I got it.

I suppose it was at school where it became even more clear — the power of this hand extended, sometimes even waving. To be called on when what you had to say felt so important that you had to use your other hand to keep that wave from flying off of your shoulder — this was something to be seen.

We do not live in a waving culture. When I first moved to France and went out for walks, I would give the passersby my best Elsie almost to no response. And if it got any attention at all, it was to stop to see if I was in distress. I suppose a lesser Minnesotan might have abandoned the wave altogether, but I have kept it through the years. And every once in a while I get the return. It was on yesterday’s path, descending down a large hill, I saw her, a woman going up the gravel just inside the trees. I have passed her a few times this spring. We have exchanged smiles and bonjours, but it was yesterday, from afar, knowing our paths wouldn’t cross she waved. And not only with a healthy Elsie open shake, but first! I waved back! I’m still smiling.

I mention it because I guess we all want to be seen. And we can do that for each other. So easily. It takes so little to change someone’s day.

Some mornings these posts come very quickly to the page. The idea shoots from my hand in the air, squealing “ooooooh, oooooh!” Today it feels important to tell you that I see you! I hope you can feel the wave, and pass it on. Share your best “Elsie.”

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Between bus and bell.

We knew nothing of love or roses, but that didn’t stop us from singing along with Donny Osmond on the counter of our fifth grade classroom. It was Miss Green who provided us with the 45 and the record player, solidifying that she was indeed not one of the elderly teachers that came before us, but she was one of us, still tethered to the longings of youth…and so she hummed along to Paper Roses. We moved the needle back again and again, allowing our hearts to spin as many times as they could before the first bell brought it all to a stop. 

It always came as a surprise — that morning bell. It seemed as if we had just stepped from the bus into the school, and it was over. Maybe we should have taken it as a warning, this fleeting time…and I didn’t. Not for years. Maybe no one does. But I’m trying to now. Not out of fear or desperation, but gratitude and respect. These gifts that we are given from moment to moment. Spectacular! 

Yesterday on my morning walk — the place where I hover between bus and bell — I saw this pink flower. I took a photo. I got down to really look at it. The pink petals were so lovely. “They look like paper, silk paper,” I thought. It’s funny how something so weightless can lift you. Transport you. I hummed the notes that formed a youthful string, a string that tethers me still. My heart sings as if no lessons have been learned. And I give thanks for the time. 

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In my best Malinda.


My first sleepover was in a hospital in Saint Cloud, Minnesota. I was only six years old. They wouldn’t let my mom stay in the room with me that night. I was terrified. I was armed only with my Golden Book — The Little China Pig, and my first baby baby doll, so brand new she was yet to be named.  The nurse in white cap, white dress, white nylons and shoes entered the room. She wiped the tears of my mom’s goodbye and said, “I’m Malinda, what’s your baby’s name?” Still stunned from the thought of being alone, I repeated the name Malinda. “Just like me!” She beamed. It was as if she placed her smile onto my face, and connected us, brought me to safety. That’s why I remember my first doll’s name, because of kindness.

The scrubs in the French hospital were flowered pink and blue. The language buzzed around me as I lay on the gurney.  It’s not lost on my that my grasp of this language is not a lot more than I had in St. Cloud. And my comfort level was about the same. They wheeled her in next to me, this elderly woman — who was not much bigger than I was then. She was scared, and cried out a little when the man who had just blocked my arm was doing the same to her. In my best Malinda I turned and sent my smile to her. I saw it travel across the sterile room and land on her lips.  She smiled back. And we both were saved.

I don’t know her name, but I remember her face. I look at my braced hand and feel myself smiling, in my best Malinda. 

It takes so little to give each other the “everything is going to be ok.” I, who have been given so much, hope to pass it on to you. Take my “Malinda,” and pass it on.

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An amazing wink.

I didn’t even know asparagus grew wild until I moved to France.  The first time Dominique pointed it out, I couldn’t see it. I was looking for the grocery store stalks, wrapped in a bundle. Right there, he said. Nothing. He had to finally bend over and pick it.  That?  I had no idea. Now, each spring, I can’t walk past one. 

It feels like they are growing just for me. No one else on the route picks them. Of all the people I see on the path, I’m the only one with a cupped hand full of green. And it makes me feel special. 

I suppose it was no accident that the man commissioned me to do the painting. I knew it for sure, after I sent a photo of the completed piece for his review. He loved it, but there was just one more thing he asked. Could you paint a little bird on the back of it, just as a special message to my wife?  I smiled from across the sea… could I paint a bird… (If you follow me, you know.). Yes!  Of all the painters growing wild across this earth, he picked me for a reason. Amazing!

I returned the wink of the universe with a little yellow flying wink of my own.  I’ve said it before, even put it on the cover of a book, “I am amazed.  Take a look around, and you will be too.”

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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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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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Dress up.

I asked my grandpa, “Where do they keep their coats?” He looked confused. “The cows,” I said. 

On the way to my grandpa’s place, we passed many other farms. Some of the cows were black. Some black and white. Some brown. Maybe it was because I watched my mother in a constant state of wardrobe change. Maybe because we played dress up. And fashion show. I assumed the cows were putting on their outfit of choice before they went to the field. Wasn’t that what the barn was for? The stalls? To hang their coats at night?

I’m not sure how long I believed it. But I remember he didn’t correct me the first time. Some magic should remain for as long as possible. I think he knew that. 

I love that I have no recollection of the truth being revealed. Not for this. Nor Santa Claus. Or the Easter Bunny. None of that magic was jerked from my heart. It was allowed to wander at a cow’s pace in the changing fields of color. 

It was my mother who always wanted to be a fashion designer. Some might say that never happened. I disagree. She taught me well. And just ask any Herberger’s shopper. She was always more than willing to lend her hand in design. She taught me that dreams don’t necessarily have to “come true,” to be valuable. The mere act of dreaming — believing in the sometimes unbelievable — saved us repeatedly.  It still does. 

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Reattaching apples.

I have no memory of the apples growing. Each year, they were just there. The branches seemed to go from bare to weighed in just the blink of an eye. And as quickly as the green apples appeared in my grandparents’ trees, we were tripping over them in the grass, loading sack after brown paper sack to give away. 

Maybe it’s the way of all living. It goes so quickly. We move from grand point to grand point, missing all the little things along the way. The how we got heres. The growths. 

I keep trying to think of her as a young woman — the journey of how Elsie became Grandma Elsie. She wasn’t always in that kitchen. In that yard with an upturned apron full of apples. She once had to have giggled with the girls behind the school. Cursed her parents and dreamed of boys. Imagined a life. A future. 

To know the exact details, I suppose, would be like trying to reattach the apples to the tree. But I think it’s enough to know there was more. There is more. So much more to all of us. There are reasons and seasons of how we got here. And maybe we’ll never know all of it, but I think there is empathy in the attempt. Compassion in trying to imagine the whole picture. None of us are just one thing. Maybe in learning that, we come to see some growth after all.

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