Jodi Hills

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

Category Archives: dance


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Drop the needle. 

There was a certain freedom to it – being in the girls’ gym. You might think freedom a strange word for this windowless box in the basement of Central Junior High. But certainly there were no pressures to impress. 

We cycled through the normal courses. Basketball. Volleyball. A simple change with a new set of balls. But when it came time for the gymnastics week, the whole pink gymnasium was transformed. Beams and mats. Horses and Bars. Certainly we should have been padded on knees and elbows. At the very least helmeted, gauging our limited expertise. Yet, we flung ourselves without knowledge or permission in unwashed gym shorts and t-shirts for the allotted 50 minutes. No guidance. No spotters. No inhibitions. 

The floor exercise came with a record player. We were decades ahead of the popular saying, “Dance like no one is watching,” — believe me, no one was. Dropping the needle with a scratch, then racing to the mat, we made “routines” (completely ignoring the definition of routine, because certainly these movements couldn’t be repeated, as we made them up to the music.)

We were never graded. If you could make it up the cement stairs back to the locker room, you passed. 

I can feel it sometimes. Hear the turning of the record as the day begins. And I just abandon rule and worry, and move. I get to decide. We get to decide, how to make our freedom. How to fill it. Drop the needle, and simply dance. 

And so she would dance.
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Keep on dancing.

We don’t wear gowns in France for visits to the doctor. The windows where modesty must fly out, are left wide open. I keep a mental pile of these things I would have thought to be traumatic, just as a reminder — not unlike the sticky note above my mom’s phone that read, “What haven’t you survived?”

Yesterday, to check my lymph nodes, the doctor asked me to place my hands on her shoulders. She in turn put her hands on mine. Then just under my arms. I’m not sure anyone else heard the music, but I could have been back in Junior High at the gymnasium dance, swaying arms-length apart from last night’s worry of “would he ask me to dance.”  

And that’s how we save ourselves, I suppose. Our brains our wired to come running, sticky notes in hand. Some as proof of what we’ve survived. Others just to make us laugh. 

Is that why I love the color yellow? Because all of my original thoughts that come dancing on the original yellow pad? Or maybe that’s just another thought to distract me and remind me of all the love around me. I don’t know, but I still hear the music. So I raise my arms on shoulders, in the air, and I keep on dancing. 

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Note to self.

There is a trend of writing letters to your younger self. And I must admit I’ve given it a little thought, but as I remember back to my first class on perspective  — how the assignment was to draw the hallway in your house — and I thought, how nice, the teacher actually thinks I live in a house… I went home, (because you can have a home that isn’t a house), sat in the apartment kitchen where you couldn’t drink the tap water, looked through the living room and drew the small space between my mother’s bedroom and mine, completely in reverse perspective. I mention it because it occurs to me that this younger self already knew she saw things differently. So it probably won’t come as a surprise that I do the opposite now — it is she writing to me, daily. Each one starts off the same, “Dude…” (she calls me dude, because she was cool like that, and because I know it’s as harsh as she going to get…) “Dude,” she says, “you’ve already learned this…” “But I’m doing it all wrong — backwards,” I tell her. And she replies, a little more gently this time, in my mother’s voice, (because she, my mom, was kind like that) with the same thing my mother said to me when I brought home my incomplete assignment on perspective. I told my mom, “I did the whole thing backwards,” hanging my head. She pulled up my chin and said, “Great!” “Great?????” I questioned. “Sure,” she said, “you’re Ginger Rogers!” I smiled. I was learning perspective after all. 

There will be a mountain of things I have to relearn today, and again tomorrow, but in this moment, l look around, offer up a little kindness, and this dude begins to dance. 

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In all of this wild. 

I have to admit, (physically and metaphorically) I’m shooting most of my photos in the wind. As I walk along the gravel path, the wildflowers seem to pop up, blooming as proof that it can be done, even in the strongest of winds that race directions through the hills. Some barely petaled, they still have the audacity of hopeful beauty, and I think, if I could just catch them mid sway, it would be like capturing the wind…and if I did, in fact, capture that wind, it would find its way into my heart, spreading limb to limb, and even against all forces of the natural and unnatural, I too, would dance. 

So even as the sun blinds the screen of my phone, I point and shoot, not knowing until much later what will appear. Looking at yesterday’s photos from the comfort of home, I have to swivel in my chair. I smile at the blurred backgrounds — the forgotten hardships — and see the dancing petals. So fragile. So strong. So beautiful. And I smile, knowing today, it just might be me, who flowers in all of this wild. Me, barely petaled, who dances in the wind.

…and so she would dance.
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To keep our pink ladies dancing.

I used to imagine that the front stoop of my grandma’s house was only there for the family of Hollyhock dolls that grew on either side of the cement steps. I was only allowed to pick a few each season. She showed me how to pluck the flower from the stem, flip it upside down and push an unopened bud through the then top to make a head that rested above the pink flowing dress. And for the rest of the afternoon, this small gathering of elegant ladies danced outside the entrance reserved just for them.

I gave them the voices to compliment each other. “How lovely is your pink dress!” “And yours is beautiful!” I danced them together like my mother once did at the Lakeside Ballroom with her cousin Janet. And the music from the transistor radio scratched in and out as I adjusted the antenna in the summer breeze. The lessons of last summer were forgotten. I had no fear of the wilting dresses. I only played. And played, believing that all beauty on Rueben and Elsie’s farm would ever remain.

I wasn’t wrong. Yes, the flowered dresses lay almost flat by the end of the day, but decades and countries away, the beauty remains. Yesterday, in the French countryside, she showed me the one Hollyhock flower that somehow grew between the century old crack of the house entrance. I wasn’t surprised. I had enough French words to tell her of how I made the pink ladies on my grandma’s stoop. We both smiled and touched the rhythm of her little pink dress.

I wrote in a poem, “This year… let’s love like no lessons have already been learned…” Of course we have to grow and educate and evolve. But some “lessons,” like those that deal with lost love, disappointment, unreached expectations — to keep our pink ladies dancing, we have to let those go. The heart stoops must remain clear and ever hopeful.

Countless things grew on Rueben and Elsie’s farm. Again and again. And the beauty will ever remain. I wake to this morning sun, and keep on dreaming.

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Spinning into stove.

Rita will turn 98 on the fourth of July. I only know this because of an apron.

It was her niece who bought it for her — this apron of mine. She had been a ballroom dancer with her husband. Still dancing in her nineties. And wasn’t that the whole point of what I wrote on that apron — “and then one day you realize, every floor is actually a dance floor…” Life is something! We are pushed and pulled, sometimes knocked over, knocked flat, by the pulsing beat..but the wisest, the strongest of us all, keep dancing.

It was my mother who taught me to dance in our kitchen. Nothing stopped her. In the green house on Van Dyke Road, in her lengthy arm exuberance, she knocked the light fixture from the ceiling. It fell like a disco ball, just missing both of our heads and crashed to the floor. A broom, a paper sack, and the record kept playing. When we moved to the brown house, she turned up the stereo in the dining room, and we danced within the frame of the orange countertops until we lost the house, and began apartmenting. Each floor became smaller, but never the dance. Still she pushed her hand into mine to signal the turn, and I would – sometimes spinning into stove, sink or fridge, but the dance continued.

So it seems no accident after all that I was invited into Rita’s kitchen. Aproned and joyful, she led me onto her dance floor. Watching the video she shared, I wanted to capture everything. I knew I would paint her. Every dish in the cupboard, plaque on the wall, it all felt so important. And it is!

I finished this painting yesterday in France. This image of her in California. Beginning from the lessons I had learned in Minnesota. We are all connected by this joyful beating of hearts. This music that never ends. This rocket’s red glare!

I often use the word “she.” Today I mean Rita. I mean my mother. Myself. (And hopefully you!) When I write the words, “…and so she would dance.”

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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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Like a floating Ginger.

She certainly wouldn’t have been considered a dancer, my grandma, but one could make the Ginger Rogers comparison quite easily. It is often said that Ms. Rogers not only did everything that Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels. Yes, my grandpa worked hard, and he had the crops to prove it, but my aproned grandma kept longer hours, with nine children and 27 grandchildren pulling from behind. 

The thing is though, as it is with most who are excellent at their craft, the work is hidden. Like a floating Ginger, she moved from stove to sink to table to garden to clothesline to town. And I never caught a glimpse of the struggle. Of course it had to be there, but I never saw her rub her aching toes. I never heard her catch her breath while offering the love and attention we all demanded. 

There were no words like self-care then. But she was smart enough to take her personal time. And we were smart enough to know that it was at noon each weekday in front of the tv set to watch NBC’s Days of our Lives. Just as some of the Bohemians on neighboring farms were thought to be relatives, my cousins and I thought the same of the Hortons from Salem. I suppose I loved this time the most because I saw Grandma Elsie from the front. Her welcoming belly was not hidden by a steaming pot or bubbling kitchen sink. No, it was there to climb on, to hug, to rest against. We took our turns dancing with Ginger as Ma and Pa Horton looked on.

Working in my sketchbook, alone in the studio, I know these small paintings won’t sell, or even be seen, but as my hand stumbles through the pages, I know, without pressure, or even promise, it is my time to dance.  

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One more twirl.

Just before leaving the Mall of America, I tried on one last dress. I twirled a little in front of the three way. I put my hands in the pockets. Looked to the side. Over my shoulder. Floated out to the main area of the store. Dominique said it was pretty. I smiled. Saw myself in summer’s south of France, and gave one last spin. Put it back on the hanger. And we went back to our final night by the airport. 

We used to do it all the time. Just try things on. My mom and I. We had everything when we were together, but for extra money to spend. But that didn’t stop us. Standing waist high, the tag of her dress dangling in my face, I looked up at her at her three reflections, and knew she was a princess. A queen. She tucked the tag in and gave a twirl. Dancing with all four of her, I was sure she was going to buy it. She took it off and gave a smile of “maybe next time,” to the clerk. 

We went on to another store. She was swinging her hand in mine, like she was really happy. I was confused. “But you didn’t even buy it…” She bent down. “It’s better to look pretty in it, than to own it. Anyone with a few extra dollars can do that.” I nodded. “I want to try,” I said. And we never stopped. 

Of course she bought things. Of course I do. But the real treasure was, and still is, the experience. With anything. Everything. How we feel, will never be surpassed by what we have. I, we, cannot own this day, but we would do well to swing it by the hand, and enjoy it for all it is! 

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The in-betweens.

She was sitting just a table away from the band. Was it a wedding? In between the ceremony and the dance? To see her sitting there at the table, my not-yet mother, early twenties, I know her. One eye on the other woman at the table. One ear on the music. Size tens slightly tapping under the table. Ready for the dance.

It wouldn’t have been “old time” dancing then. Just dancing. Surely there would have been a polka — I see the tuba. But she was good at the in betweens, my mother. Teaching me that what we had, was exactly enough. It was easy as a child to get caught up in the next of it all. Rushing through Halloween. Making a path with the candy to lead to Thanksgiving. Clear the table. Get the dishes done so we can decorate. Wrap the gifts. Shake the gifts. Unwrap them. Happy New Year! But she taught me to enjoy the middle.

We both loved to read, so she compared it all to a book. Those center pages, when you are so immersed in the story, you don’t want to stop reading, but you don’t want it to end. This was the glorious part of living. This is where I want to live. Still.

It’s still easy for me to get caught up in the what ifs and whens of it all, but then I look at the photo. And I sit in the moment just before the dance. Breathe in the music. I will be happy. Right here. Right now.

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