Jodi Hills

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

Category Archives: Cards, greeting cards, on the table, feelings, shared


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Ruffles and horseshoes.

We used to play croquet. Lawn darts. Frisbee. We’d throw or knock almost anything around the lawn on a Sunday afternoon. But it was horseshoes that my mother loved. That may surprise you. She, always so elegant. Bloused without a wrinkle. Creamed without a wrinkle. But once her church clothes were hung, folded. Her shoes put back in the original box. Her jewelry in the dresser. We would play. And she was good. Leaners. Ringers. She could really do it! And maybe it was the unexpected that added to the joy. This letting go. This letting fly. Tossing and clanking every “should have” and every “supposed to”. 

Walking through Centennial Lakes park, I see them playing croquet and mini golf. Pedaling big ducks on the water. Not to win. Not to get anywhere, but just to be! The freedom of play. And I think, wouldn’t it be great if we allowed this for everyone. Allowed people to not just be one thing. Didn’t put them in a box. Label them. That if they had one thought, they could only have that thought. 

I don’t want to be contained. I can still hear the mantra of the Stevie Nicks 45 that my mother played again and again, “Leather and Lace.” It could have easily been ruffles and horseshoes. 

This trip I have shopped at the finest stores in the Galleria. I have thrifted at the Goodwills. Joy is everywhere. Not to be contained. I, we, can toss and clank the “rules,” and just enjoy! 

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The weight of a letter.

I bought it at an antique store in Hopkins, Minnesota and carried it back to France with me. You know it’s valuable when I allow it space in my ever overpacked suitcase. 

It’s from a time when people still wrote letters. When desk objects were given beauty along with function. On the right is a tiny scale for the weight of the words, and the left a circular housing for the precious stamps that carry them. Of course I don’t need the scale. I have a pretty good idea of the weight of the words. At least I hope the receiver knows — knows that I could have just sent a text, an email, but instead thumbed through all of my cards, along with the thoughts of this person, picked out the one that fit the situation, borrowed my husband’s best pen, wrote in cursive (like nobody’s taught anymore), signed it, meant it, sealed it with wax, and walked it to the post office. And isn’t it just as important that I know? 

My little antique scale can’t weigh all that, but it does remind me to keep doing it. Yes, I have an Apple Pencil, an iPad. I love modern technology. It is connecting us today. But I keep reminders around me — that there is more. The more of photographs printed. Books with spines. Jams without preservatives. Art with actual signatures. And I make the connections with heart and hand. And the joy that it brings, that I carry so easily, daily, makes me smile, because it actually weighs nothing at all. 

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Cards on the table.

Of course they wanted to have fun, but it was a serious thing to play. This was back when card tables were actually used to play cards. They set them up in the kitchen. The dining room. Into the living room. They gathered in fours, my grandparents and aunts and uncles. Not a lot more than table high, I could see their hands and their “hands.” I didn’t know what any of it meant, but I liked that they had a language. That the cards dictated it. Gave them the words to speak, or even the looks that spoke for themselves. 

I think of it often. Not because I learned how to play, but because I invented my own way. I make the greeting cards, I suppose, because it gives me the language, a way to speak, even when “across the table” is across the sea. Or further yet, from heart to mind. 

I was timid at first to “lay them on the table,” – all these feelings of mine. Because it’s not really the French way. Hearts are not worn on sleeves. But I’ve worked my way in, little by little, and now it’s not a surprise any more.

She picked the card up by her plate, because of course it was for her. Not for a holiday or celebration, just a Tuesday for lunch, and a whole side of feelings. And it’s not French, and it’s not American, it’s just us. Our language. We see each other’s hands and hearts, and keep playing.

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