Jodi Hills

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

Category Archives: book


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Cataloged by heart.

After my grandfather spoke, no one ever had to say, “Well, what he meant by that was…” He was perhaps the first to teach me the strength of word economy. When he said something, without flower or hesitation, I believed him. 

Even with the wide open nature of youth, the vulnerable cracks of the heart and brain are very small. So it was this simplicity that allowed the love in. Word, by compact word. 

When my college professors began to emphasize the point, speaking of editing and being precise, I could only smile. That point had long ago been walked in –firm, straight and overalled. My grandfather’s words built a library inside of me. Cataloged by heart. Endlessly referenced. 

And I use it still today. In my writing. My painting. My interactions. If you have to tell someone, “I was only kidding…”; “It was only a joke…”; “What I meant was…”; “The point they were trying to make…” —  then there is a problem. There’s no room in the heart for all of that. What a glorious filter it can be. 

I’m currently reading the book, “What you are looking for is in the Library.” When my friend recommended it, I accepted quickly. She had long ago made it past the filter. And the title itself walked easily in, wearing overalls. 

I suppose that’s where all the love is stored. Here. And I pull from it daily. My grandparents’ shelf. My mother’s shelf. Husband. Friends. Family of all covers, all languages. Those whispering still and again, my heart’s truth. 

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I’m with the banned.

I remember going to the new church with my mother. She wanted a fresh start. After the divorce, she just wanted to fold her hands without anyone judging her ring finger. The choices seemed plentiful enough. But after being turned away from communion in one, and altogether in another, it was all a little too “no room in the inn.” The second one offered for me to stay and go to Sunday School. I declined and chose to stay with the banned.

I mention it only because I saw the sign at the airport bookstore — “I’m with the banned.” I smiled for all the books and, too, for all the readers who have found themselves turned away from one door or another. All the stories will be told. Will find a way out. Will find a way in. And this is what will save us.

There will always be churches that won’t ask you to belong. Clubs you can’t get into. Groups who will snicker and turn their backs. This is not your story, only theirs. You get to chose your own faith. Your own path. Your own journey. You can step to your own beat. Create your own soundtrack. And if someone dares to claim, “I don’t recognize that song,” you simply tell them, “Well, I’m with the banned.“

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Words and toes.

Before there was ever a television series, nestled in the winter corner of my bedroom, book resting on my knees perched to my chest, I looked like every character in the Little House on the Prairie book. I lived in each word. I knew the steps to the house. The barn. I was the girl nestled to a loving Pa. I was the strong and worried Ma. Laura, running, always running. Mary studying. I knew each character in and out. The mean girl at the mercantile. The neighbors a horse ride away. There was no need to mark the page. I read it through. And read it again. 

The Washington Elementary School library made it possible for me to read the series a week at a time. The many years captured in these books lasted one winter of mine on Van Dyke Road. My little toes dug deeper into the carpeting as I traveled through each page. Because it wasn’t just my mind wandering. I knew I was there. That, I suppose, is the moment I learned the power, the magic of reading. 

Yesterday we visited the  three historic structures, including the Surveyor’s House, the Ingalls’ home that Pa built, and the First School of De Smet where Laura and Carrie were students. Maybe it was because of the snow, but I don’t think so…I felt it in my toes — they curled like I was seven again, as I ran to her statue. If you have a moment today, read — to a child in your house, at your library, or the one whose toes still curl beneath you. 

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Wander-welcomed.


Where your heart can rest, and your mind can wander, I guess that’s home.

We pulled into the town. I felt no connection. That feeling when you know you’re lonesome, but you just can’t pinpoint for what. We drove the Main Street. How could there be no parking spaces and yet nothing to park for? We turned on 10th per Google’s direction for coffee. It must have closed. Try ninth, she suggested. Driving slowly I saw the coffee shop, next to a bookstore. Yes!

The first sip was the familiar road. Entering the bookstore, well, that was home.Nestled in all those words, I was wander-welcomed. It’s a rare combination, this feeling of calm and excitement. This feeling that anything could be true, could be real, even the story of yourself.

I don’t have a physical place to go to, in the sense that some would call home. Not my grandparents’, nor my mother’s house. But I have something else. I have the stories they gave to me. I can take them anywhere. Everywhere.

Recently I found a note, a birthday card, tucked into one of my mom’s books. It was from her mother. I don’t know for which birthday. It would have been true any year. She wrote of what a lovely daughter she was and how she made the world a better place. These words are the open doors to my forever. My safe. My possible.

I’m the lucky one. I can walk into this unfamiliar bookstore, in this unfamiliar town, and be gathered in. Sensing the stories I carry, the words that rest on shelf and table say, “Come in, you and your heart sit down.” I do. We do. We all are home. Indeed, a better place.

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That’s enough.


They did the best they could to fill our minds, but it’s a longer path to the soul.

I’m sure we had a section about her — Rosa Parks. But to be honest, I’m certain we spent more time talking about our own bus rides to and from the very school that was trying to teach us.

In these desks, I had always assumed the word “enough,” was used in anger. Exasperation. “That’s enough!!!” — the teacher might say, often accompanied by a book, ruler, pencil, anything slammed against the desk. And we could be, well, exasperating for sure. We heard it from the bus driver who just couldn’t take the noise anymore as he drove us to Van Dyke Road, where parents, tired from a day’s work, said the same at the dinner table.

It was much later that I learned a new meaning. A calm, gentle enough. An enough that says farewell to the hurt, the anger, the torment, whatever it is pulling down on you. I suppose it takes a while to find this inner place. This inner peace. No bus can actually take you there, you have to find it from within. And when you do, you can say, just as Rosa Parks did, in the most graceful of ways, enough. To say with all of your mind, heart and soul, in a whisper that shouts louder than any slam, “Oh, but it is my place…” and take it.

We all have to learn it. But I’m so grateful for those who give us the examples of how it is done with grace. I have heard it from my grandmother. My mother. Rosa Parks. I painted the bookmark as a reminder. There is still so much to learn. So much to let go. But we CAN do it with grace. Enough of the name calling. The bullying. The fighting. The soul crushing, spirit limiting behavior.

Enough.

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Finding place.

We were taught that it was sacred, right from the start. “Children, be quiet,” she urged, as Mrs. Bergstrom walked us from our first grade classroom to the library. I don’t remember asking why. I guess I always assumed it was because the books had so much to say, we needed to listen.

With this opening of worlds, it became necessary from the start to mark our places. The librarian told us, pleaded with us, never to “dog ear” the page. Imagine, she explained, if every time you walked into your home, your mother grabbed you by the ear and folded it over and pulled you in to show you your place. We all agreed that would be terrible. I know some still did it. I can’t say who for sure, but I had my suspicions. And the proof was often there in a big crease going diagonally down the story. I didn’t do it. I still don’t. Not because I was so perfect. No, it was because just down the hall, in art class, it was Mr. Opsahl that taught us paper had a memory. When you folded it, it stayed. Everything we were being taught at Washington Elementary told us that these books, these pages with words, were alive. And it was here, that I found my place.

I still live there. Here. In the word. It’s where I find my truth. My hope. My joy. It’s here I can find company. Comfort. I can welcome you in, and with any luck, give you the same. Because I think that’s what they were always telling us, as we raced to make our mark — to listen, to be kind. We can do this. For each other. We’re all hear to tell a story.

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Plain to see.


I suppose it all takes time. To see the ordinary. And to appreciate it. Those of you that follow me here, have come, I hope, to know my grandparents, my mother, my schoolmates, and teachers. Some might say “just plain folks.” And that’s probably true. But maybe that’s the real beauty of it all. To find the spectacular in farmers, housewives and receptionists. To see the extraordinary in the daily living.

And in seeing them, it helps me see myself. Helps me find the gratitude of the day given. Of the toast for breakfast. The smell of coffee. The hand that reaches out for mine.

I am reading the book, “Love, Kurt (The Vonnegut Love Letters). I have this book, only because I have a special friend. Last year, together with our husbands, we went to Stillwater, MN. My friend and I stood in the bookstore as if before the Christmas morning tree. So many gifts in front of us, we had a hard time deciding. We each settled on our present. I loved her choice as much as mine. This year, she gave her book to me. Those simple words don’t seem to give it enough meaning, but I will tell you that it fills my heart. It brings me back to a laughter filled day on brisk streets and slow choices. It, for me too, is a love letter.

In the book, Kurt Vonnegut writes with his young pen, to his young wife, “Angel, will you stick by me if it goes backwards and downwards? Holy smokes, Angel: what if I turn out to be just plain folks?” Tears fill my eyes. I imagine we’ve all had the worries. Will I be special enough to be loved?

It’s these memories, of course, that give me that comfort. That give me the yes. My heart is packed full of the love from these glorious and plain folks. And I have loved them. Love them still. And I am one. Proud to be living with these extraordinary people. It is plain to see, they, we, are more than enough to be loved.

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Story books.

I don’t know when it changed — the moment we dropped the word story and just started calling them books. A part of me wants to bring it back. 

The story books were in the basement of the Alexandria Public Library. Maybe it was because we didn’t know how to use the card catalog yet, but so many were on display, not by spine, but full cover. I can still see the bright blue cover of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. It was still above my reading grade, and sat perched on the very top shelf. I thought if I finished all the books on the lower shelves, read each and every story, worked my way upwards, that I too could fly. 

My mom dropped me off every Saturday morning. I climbed up the outer steps, then climbed down the inside ones. I read for hours. Just before my mom picked me up, I checked out as many books as my orange book bag would hold, and the librarian would allow. She never complained about having to come in and get me. Most of my friends from school sat outside waiting for their rides. Running around in the grass, soon and easily fed up with the quiet words of the basement. But not me. I wanted every moment. And my mother, being an avid reader, understood. She parked the car behind the Ben Franklin store and walked over to get me. 

I wasn’t thinking about it when I wrote the book Bird Song. Covered in the same blue, it is a collection of stories (a story book) told by the beautiful wings that carry them. But of course it lives within me. The days at the public library. Each word read. Each shelf climbed. I know they brought me to this place. They lifted me. Dared me. And faster than any childhood Saturday morning, I learned to fly. 

The stories we create are not weights, but branches. Out on the morning limb, I heart gather all the words – of mother and love and youth and chance and choice and story — I spread my wings, and I fly.

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Not too busy.

Maybe because I never had to doubt it with my mother, I was able to write about it. 

We used to spend hours trying on clothes together. When the “fit” really fit — oh, it was magnificent. Praises of oohs and aahs filled the air. And when it missed, the knee hugging laughter went on through the entire fashion cycle. We were safe. Together. Seeing each other. Loving each other. From the lowest to the highest moments. Finding the beauty of it all along the way. 

For a couple of years, the clothing store J.Jill carried my book, “I’m not too busy.” Of course it was also at bookstores. Galleries. Gift stores where I sold my artwork. But this was something special. J.Jill didn’t sell any other books. Just clothing. We had shopped in the Ridgedale store enough for some of the clerks to know us. One Saturday morning, properly caffeinated with Caribou, we began trying on the J.Jill clothing. Continuously giggling in the delight of books being in the dressing room and on display throughout the store. It was the perfect pocket of time. 

My mother brought the white linen blouse to the counter to purchase. She looked lovely in it. I told her so. The clerk had as well. My book rested on the counter as my mother reached for her credit card. The J.Jill employee looked at me, in that way that maybe she knew me. And perhaps she had looked at my bio in the book, or maybe she just remembered from last Saturday. It didn’t matter. We all had been seen. And that was the gift. 

I have that blouse. Along with those precious moments. I carry them daily. I will never be too busy to remember. My heart giggles, and I am seen.

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Weekly. And forever.

I suppose we all knew that the “F” in BFFs, (Best Friends Forever) could never really be forever. Things changed so quickly at Washington Elementary. Fights could be resolved with two words, like “just kidding,” or “no offense.” And while we all knew there was both truth and offense in most of it, we moved on. There were new games to play. New promises to keep for a week at a time. And new best friends could be made with a smile, or a heart dotted “i” in an invitation for a sleepover. 

I can’t tell you what everyone clinged to. What grounded them to this perpetual moving playground and school. But for me, it was the Weekly Reader. The magazine all about books. The magazine, that if you were blessed with a mother that also loved to read, and if that mother allowed you to spend her hard earned money on words — this was the magazine that indeed saved me. My constant. My balance. My future. My ever. 

Of course we had library day. And I was grateful for sure. But there was something so very special about knowing these words didn’t have to be returned in two weeks. These words could stay beside you. In hand. On bedside. Wherever. Whenever you needed them. In this world that moved as quickly as grade school hands on monkey bars, it was the assurance I needed. It was the “F” I could really depend on.

There is an uncertainty in living a visa-ed life. Dominique and I are both dependent on those who allow us to stay…but at the same time, could say, “just kidding…” and our lives would be changed forever. We’re in a bit of an anxious moment. A moment in which my brain tells me, it will all work out, but my heart says, maybe we should go buy a book… So we did. Yesterday. The smell of the print is familiar. The weight in hand is a “there, there…” for my soul. Time disappears as I begin to read. Worry gets lost on the page. And I believe again in forever.

From my mother’s pursestrings, to the grasp of my husband’s hand, I suppose it was really always love that saved me. Love that saves us all. It’s the one true forever. But still, it’s always nice to have a book nearby. Weekly. And forever.

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