Jodi Hills

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

Category Archives: birds


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Three pounds of Twizzlers.

I suppose we always want what we can’t have. So when she asked me if she could bring me anything from the US, I said red licorice. We don’t have it in France. Nor jelly beans. This shouldn’t be a surprise when you know that Hershey chocolate bars are in the exotic aisle of the grocery store, along with the peanut butter. 

I kind of forgot about it. They had been here for hours, my American friends, before she brought out the gift bag. As she placed it in front of me, I saw the tip of red sticking out. Twizzlers! A two pound bag! I said, “If there are jelly beans in there as well, I might just pass out.” There were, and I didn’t. And then he said, “I brought some too. It’s my go-to travel candy.” He went to his suitcase and brought out at least another pound. “The bag is resealable,” he said, both thinking that seems highly unnecessary, and I knew I was with my tribe. 

If we remembered the countless things that connect us, maybe our country, our countries, wouldn’t feel so divided.

My mother loved jelly beans. Red were her favorite (mine as well). Then yellow. Orange. Green sometimes. White in desperation. Purple, never. She gave purple to the birds and sometimes her mother in the back seat on long car journeys. Driving, I would never have to wonder or even ask what color she passed back to my grandma, be it jelly bean or Tootsie pop. Before her hand even reached over the seat, we would begin to laugh. It’s not like she didn’t know. Even Helen Keller would have seen the lack of randomness in candy choice. It didn’t take many miles for her to join in. Cupping her hands around the sugared treat, she said, “You know I like purple.” I’m still laughing. 

What a thing it is to know someone. Without labels. Only by experience. To know my mother needed narrow shoes. My grandma, wide. Yet, their hands were surprisingly similar. Maybe no one “needs” three pounds of Twizzlers, but as the weight dwindles day by day, I am reminded where I come from. My joyful red heart beats wide open, never to be resealed.


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WWED.

It was in the first aisle of Jerry’s Jack and Jill that I got a nose bleed. My grandma, hands already full with a sack of toasted marshmallows, told me to reach into her folded sleeve around her right elbow. Sure enough, there was a Kleenex. It wasn’t long before I needed another. “Check the other arm,” she said. I switched to the opposite side of the cart, reached into her folded left sleeve, and pulled out another. In aisle three, even after the bleeding had stopped and the marshmallows were nearly gone, I wanted to see how far this went — if Grandma Elsie was actually some sort of magician. “I think I need another one,” I said. “Check my right bra strap,” she said quite confidently. And just like a rabbit from a hat, I pulled out another Kleenex. 

And it was magic — the ease with which she could fix any situation. How I counted on it! I suppose we all did. But I never saw the weight of it — the things she carried. How lightly she skirted through the aisles. And certainly things had to bother her – she was a woman of this world, and no one escapes, but still she never weighed upon, but lifted up. 

I think about it now. Am I traveling lightly? What is it I’m choosing to carry? The solution, or the burden? I ponder, WWED? (What would Elsie do?) I smile, and I choose the lightness of magic, the lightness of joy, wearing my heart on my sleeve, and sometimes under my bra strap. 

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Cross-legged on the gymnasium floor.

I don’t know the origin of the question, but it seems we humans have a big need to get to the answer, right from the start. 

He couldn’t have been more than five or six. I was reading to an elementary school in Minneapolis, class by class, starting from the sixth grade to kindergarten. Without exception, even down to this youngest boy, before I began to read from my book, someone asked, “What’s it about?” In true teacher form, the only person seated in a chair would reply, “Just listen…”

Of course I have been guilty as well, in response to: “I just started a new book…” or “I watched a documentary…” Needing to get to the answer. And so often for the bigger questions. What is the suffering about? Why did this happen? 

Some will tell you that everything happens for a reason. But I think there may be danger in even this…all that is, is just a longer version of “What’s it all about?”

There is a pattern, I think, when I’m in a struggle, looping through the question, “Why are they like this?”; “Why do I have to?” “How come?” …and for me, it never feels good, this spiraling… Experts of all kinds will tell you what to do. I’m not an expert. I am just another child sitting cross-legged on the gym floor, looking up for the answers, but instead I’m given the song of the birds. They call me with the starting of this new day, telling me to unfold my legs, get up, open your heart…and just listen. 

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A Schwan’s delivery.

It was hard to believe that something so delicious could make me ill. But it was evident after only a few tries, I couldn’t eat ice cream. Somehow still, I found it very exciting when the pale yellow blur of the Schwan’s ice cream delivery truck drove toward my grandma’s house. I began running up the gravel, hands waving in air, directing him into the driveway. I knew full well that my grandma’s love of root beer floats would never allow her to miss a delivery. I hopped and skipped and ran with the truck to the house. Uniformed and certain, he jumped the steps and went to the back of the truck. “You’re Elsie’s granddaughter?” “Oh, yes!” I said proudly. I could tell by the smiling way he said her name that he liked her. He unloaded two of the giant tubs as my grandma came out the screen door. Her hands ever floured or wet, or both, she wiped them on her apron before signing for our haul of vanilla. 

How wonderful, I thought, to deliver ice cream. Everyone must be so happy to see you. I was, and I didn’t even eat it. The only other delivery person that I knew was my Uncle Mike, who drove a beer truck in the Twin Cities. I asked him if people jumped up and down when he arrived. He looked confused. Like I do with the Schwan’s truck, I explained. Not so much, he said. Maybe you should paint your truck yellow, I said. He smiled. 

Surely it has to be taught. There must have been a million things my grandma delighted over with me. Things she had no interest in. How else would I have known, known this joy of feeling good for others. I loved art and clothes and drawing and crayons and “Look, look what I made! It’s flowers glued to a scrap of bark! Look!” And my grandma showed all of her teeth in love. An ear to ear joy. This is the only explanation I have for being happy, truly happy, to celebrate a Schwan’s delivery, not for me, but for her!

Joy is not owned. It is passed and given away freely. It is run along beside. A yellow blur of others. The day is pulling toward the driveway. I raise my hands in the air and skip to whatever joy it may bring. 

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The talking birds.

Some say it originated in the Bible. Others will say it came from Viking lore. Even Shakespeare has been given credit. But for me, I know exactly the first time I heard it, this saying — “…a little birdie told me…” — it was on the party line that I wasn’t supposed to be listening to, perched (not unlike a bird ironically) on my grandfather’s chair made out of an old tractor seat underneath the kitchen telephone. My grandma was talking to one of the neighbors about one of the other neighbors. I held my chubby hand over the mouthpiece, but my gasp was still audible when the neighboring party said, “Well, a little birdie told me…” I could hear my grandma both through the line and through the house – “hang up.” I did. And ran through the screen door in search of the talking birds.

The thing is, I couldn’t ask where these special birds were, because that would be admitting to the eavesdropping, so I had to wander the farm on my own. Tree by tree. I could hear them all right, but what were they saying? I climbed each apple tree to get a closer listen. I jumped, nearly falling off the branch when my grandpa asked what I was doing. “Listening to the birds,” I said. “But I don’t know what they’re saying.” He shook his head. “Do you understand them?” I asked. He shook his head yes. I exhaled. Deflated. “What do they say?” I asked him. “Whatever I need to hear,” he smiled and walked back to the barn.

To this day, it’s not about gossip, or telling tales, it’s about listening. Sure, some will say well it’s just your heart, your head, your soul, and maybe it’s true, but I hear them, the birds, while I’m walking, anywhere in this world. They always tell me whatever I need to hear. Telling me that everything is going to be ok, great even…and hand uncovering the mouthpiece, I thank them, and tell them, “I know.”

If you ask, ” How come you’re always going on about your grandfather? What did he give you that was so great?” “Wings,” I say, “He gave me wings.”

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Unobvious bird.

My husband saw a bright yellow parakeet in our yard. I was out walking and I missed it. I wonder what our gaggle of regulars thought. They had to have seen it — the pigeons who waddle in the driveway, almost too heavy for flight; the magpies in constant search of the “other”; the doves in between cooing… Surely the woodpeckers perked their heads with the flash of yellow. Even the little bush hoppers that flit in and out so quickly must have caught a glimpse. Because a yellow would pop! In these spring greens and pinks that cover our yard, yellow will always shine. And if they did see it, this bright yellow bird, it hasn’t stopped them from singing. From flying. From hopping around our driveway. From dancing in the water that collects on the freshly sprinkled grass. They seem just fine. Joyful even. 

As humans, it can be hard to follow “the nature of things…”  I’m trying to get better. To celebrate those around me. To know their yellow doesn’t take anything away from my beige. To understand there is room for all, hopping, flying, stumbling even. 

People often ask, “Do you paint self-portraits?” Daily, I think. Never parakeet- pronounced, but I’m there, in each painting. In each tiny, joyful, unobvious bird, I’m there — waiting, grateful for every glimpse of color that hovers by.

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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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Only perched.

I suppose it is when I am most certain that it’s necessary to loosen the grip a little and just perch. 

I can reach a conclusion pretty quickly in any situation. But I’ve learned that giving myself an extra hour, sometimes a day, or longer, to really think it through, is quite useful. Most often the solutions are a little less dug in. A little more flexible. A little more reasonable.It’s no secret that I love to paint birds. But it was only just the other day that I saw it. I had to put it on paper to really get it. I love the way they perch — just lightly place themselves on the branch. Never burrowed in with false certainty (which is usually just pride in disguise.) That doesn’t mean a lack of commitment. No, just a willingness, a readiness, to adjust to the situation. Giving themselves a chance to do what they were meant to do — to really fly!  

I won’t be perfect at it. But I think in the attempt, I will get better. I am getting better. And that in itself lifts my spirits, lifts my wings. I guess what it comes down to, (or up really), is I’d rather soar, than be sure. 

I don’t know what the day will bring, but I’ll see you up there!

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My heart’s pastels.

Long before I knew the months and numbers of the year, I could tell the changing of time by color. At the arrival of pastels, I knew my birthday was soon to follow. With each wink of pink and pop of yellow, I got more excited. Sure, I knew about Easter. I knew it was for everyone. But there was a little part of me, with each jellybean siting, each baby chick and colored egg that graced the storefronts, that took it as a sign, just for me. 

I didn’t have the words for it then, but I was learning there is a grand difference between selfishness and self care. 

Whether my birthday came before or after Easter, my mom always gave me a little plush duck. I named the first one Selma, and each one after. With baskets of candy all around, I held her yellow in my chubby hands and asked, “Is she just for me?” Yes, my mother said. And every year, I always asked, and I even when I had come to know the answer, believe the answer, it was still nice to hear the yes.

We are not alone. We have the privilege and the responsibility to care for others. But there is nothing wrong, with each sun that rises, to reach up your hands and hold a little bit of the day’s yellow, just for you. I carry the pocket of pastels in my heart, and it always answers yes. 

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Beach or Store.



Like a bird surrounded by shiny objects, I could often get myself overwhelmed with choice. So many things to do. So many possibilities. Too much, and I would render myself immobile. I’m not sure why it took me so many years. My grandfather had given me the answer early on. Standing, almost dangling from the perch outside my grandmother’s second floor sewing room, struggling with the choice, he simply called up, “Jump, or go inside.” He saw things so clearly. I jumped. 

Even now, there’s a little part of me that will argue the point, “yes, but, what if…” and I catch myself dangling. So I break it all down. Give myself the option, this or that, sometimes even the smallest of choices, and then I jump. Oh, and I stumble. I fall. I walk away. Nothing is perfect, but I have found, always found, even the hardest of choice has always been better than dangling. 

And being the distracted bird that I am, the universe has to remind me, often and again. Walking in Cottagewood the other day, I saw the signs nailed to the tree, again and for the first time. One arrow pointing to “Beach.” One arrow pointing to “Store.” My grandfather would have liked this directional tree, just as if he planted it — and I suppose in many ways, he had.

Today’s path may not be clear, but my heart is, so I greet the sun, and jump…

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