Jodi Hills

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

Category Archives: bird


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Word and promise.

Long before I could read them, I carried them. I knew the words of the books, my mother having read them to me night after night. Not being able to read yet myself, I was under the assumption, (or I was probably just of the age to hope) that if I kept the words nearby, cradled in hand and tucked against hip, that they would stay with me. They did. Now, I can’t say for sure that it was because I held them close, pressed them dear…but I can’t say that it wasn’t. 

I have done the same with love. Kept a library in my heart.

I walked a new path yesterday. My feet plodded up the unexplored hill. My head peaking above as I neared the top. A school. A soccer field. And then, not the promised land, but a box filled with promise, a community library. And the biggest surprise, two books in English. The collected works of Mark Twain was as thick as my open hand. I clutched it to my heart and put the paperback in my back pocket. The proportion of books to body was nearly the same as when I carried them in youth’s palm. My steps, as light as they were then. Carried in the word. 

I had been right. It stays with me. Coddled close, this love for word and promise. Did I walk home a little faster? Probably. Did I smile the whole way? Indeed.

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Your own kind of music.

In 1938, Douglas Corrigan earned the nickname “Wrong Way” for mistakenly making a trip across the Atlantic from New York, when he was headed for California. I only know this because in the fifth grade, during an orienteering field trip, my team, after completing the wrong course, and also backwards, was awarded with our “Wrong Way Corrigan” certificates. I’m sure this is not the sole reason, but I have been making my own path ever since.

That’s not to say that I’m completely flockless. I have come to rely, appreciate, value and enjoy a wide array of people. And I know that I belong, but that doesn’t mean I always “fit in.” Fitting in asks you to change yourself so others accept you. Belonging asks you to stay true to yourself no matter what. This is what I encourage you to (forgive me) flock to. 

So if you see me in the trees. In the sky. I’m probably the one wearing the beret, playing the violin, as most of the others sing. But isn’t it all music? Beautiful, sweet music teaches us, you don’t have to blend to belong. 

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Pulling an Elsie.

I recently learned that when birds sleep in a row, the two on the outer edges keep one eye open to protect and allow those on the inside to fall asleep. It doesn’t surprise me, I have rested within that protective watch. 

There is a big scientific name for it, which I’ve already forgotten, this act of being able to keep “one eye open” while being in a half sleep — we’ve always just called that “pulling an Elsie.” She had to have been doing the same thing — birding her way through every card and dice game played on her kitchen table. Able to sleep while we pondered over our next move, then waking at the exact moment to handily beat us with chirping joy! And I saw her do it everywhere. In the funeral home where she phone-sat. At the grocery store check-out line (she did indeed check out). Even once in the car. But I was never worried. The speed at which she could belly-jiggle herself awake allowed all of us to rest, to play, to run in a carefree summer, to sleep soundly under her watch. 

I suppose you could just rule it all as nature. But I know not everyone was blessed with a Grandma Elsie. So I give thanks. And make my way to the outer edges. 

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The lift of linoleum.

You can’t tell me that they’re always trying to get somewhere. Most of the time, it looks like they’re playing in the wind. Dancing even. These birds so elegantly bouncing and bounding above. And why wouldn’t they dance, they already have the song. 

She never wore a tutu, nor spandex dresses, but oh how my mother could dance. She would teach me on the carpet of the living room floor. It was slower. But when I had mastered the steps, she’d lead me to the kitchen floor, and I barely felt my stockinged feet touch the linoleum. She’d sing along to the boombox, pull me in and spin me out and I knew I was flying. I asked her if she had dance instructors? No, she said. In school? I asked. No. Did grandma teach you. She laughed (sure it was a bit of a dance maneuvering through all those people in the farm kitchen), but no. Then how did you know you could dance? I asked. I could always hear the song, she said, and pulled me in once again. 

And wasn’t that belief? Wasn’t that the true art of living? Just listening for the music. Trusting your feet would follow. Believing, one way or another, you were going to fly!  

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Having been there.

I find it thrilling, reading a book and entering a place I’ve already been. Like I’m in on the secret. Like the letters of the words are eyelashes in the wink that says, I see you. 

I’m nearly finished with the book, “Geek Love.” It is perhaps the wildest ride I’ve encountered for quite some time. It couldn’t be further from my reality, and yet… yet, there it was, as clear as if I were en route on Highway 7, looking up at the green sign, “Hopkins, Minnesota.” Never have I read a book that mentioned it before. Minnesota, sure. Minneapolis, of course. But never Hopkins. And I was knee deep, no, heart deep, in the word.

Maybe it’s empathy. Validation. Or simply our need to be seen. But it got me thinking. If mere words can do that, simply on a page, couldn’t we do that for each other? Aren’t we supposed to? Having not only traveled through place, but emotion, don’t we have the responsibility to turn back and say, “I’ve been there. And I see you,”?  I think so. So I gather the words and arrange them on this page, and maybe you see yourself, and maybe that gets you looking, and maybe you see someone else, and they find comfort in you having been there… and… and they see hope… and someone else…and the story never ends. 

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Wing and wink.

It’s not lost on me that the words are so similar. So often when painting the birds, I feel the smiling, winged “wink” from above.

He didn’t really know me, when he commissioned the painting for his wife. (Didn’t know that I have a “bird by bird” daily regime.) When I finished, he asked if I could add a little something special on the back. “Could you paint a bird in flight?” I looked around the open sky to see who was watching, “Yes,” I smiled, “I could paint a bird…”

I painted for her a yellow bird to match the yellow house on the front. And I wasn’t sure if they were led to me, or I was chosen, or if we all simply met mid flight. And I suppose it’s that idea that I like the most, thinking we’re all just trying to make this journey a little lighter, a little more joyful… and wouldn’t it be something if we did our best to lift each other, even with just a wink and a smile. 

Anyway, it’s always a good reason to keep looking up. 

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On lengthy stems.

I don’t remember anyone telling me it was beautiful (and I remember everything), but somehow I knew. It’s everywhere. Just grass and trees. Leaves and bushes and lawns. Flowers left to scatter wild on lengthy stems. (I suppose that’s where they get me, because I think I’m one of them.) 

My mother had long legs. And better yet, the longest strides. I thought it was her superpower. For years I ran behind, trying to hang on to her cape. Which day was it that I caught up? No longer in the wave of that cape, the wave of her superpowers, but side by side. There was nothing we couldn’t do. Nowhere we couldn’t go. Stride for stride. 

I love to walk still. Though it feels more like flying. I see people in groups in every country. Some wonder, even ask, “Why do you walk alone?” I only smile, because the truth is, I never am. Never will be. I wave and whoosh along the pash. 

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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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Go ahead and sing!

The most fun was not when we got it right, but when we got it wrong. Maybe it was the hum of the wheels, or just the fact that we were together, but there was definitely something about being on the bus that made us all want to sing. 

We had to rely on each other. We had no cell phones. No radios. Just the memory of the last song we heard on KDWB-63. And I don’t know where the confidence came from. Maybe it was youth. The comfort of open windows. Or just being on a bus with no judgement. That’s not to say there wasn’t laughter. Mid song, someone would always stop between gasps of giggles to say, “You think it’s what?????” 

“I’ll never be your beast of burden,” was easily mistaken for “I’ve never seen a pizza burning.” Or when we “heard it in a love song,” — someone sang the ending of “can’t be wrong” — as “ten feet tall.” And we would laugh longer than the length of any song. 

And it’s this freedom that I miss the most. The freedom we gave each other. The freedom I gave myself, to make gigantic mistakes. And not be concerned about how it looked, how it sounded — to just have fun! 

You know we can still do that. Be free. Free as the birds to just sing it out loud. Without knowledge or permission, we can have a little fun!  The buses are running. The skies are open. Will you join me?

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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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