Jodi Hills

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

Category Archives: dare


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Seeing blackbirds.

I was shocked when she said it. I couldn’t believe my ears. I looked at my mother, who couldn’t hide her surprise either. What did she say? We were riding in the car together with my sister-in-law’s mother. Headed to some sort of family event that had spread to include a good portion of this small town. We were discussing the family tree. She asked about one of my mom’s brothers. Surely she couldn’t be thinking of Uncle Tom, I thought. “Oh, yes!” she continued, “he’s so handsome!”

No disrespect to my Uncle Tom. But this is not how he had been branded to me. He was the rough one. Tough one. Bold. Straight talking. Intimidating? Sure. Colorful? Indeed. And I guess, once we’re presented with something, we often stop looking, as if this were the only answer. 

After the event I went home and looked at the family portrait. I guess he was handsome. Huh! I wonder if he knew. I hope so.

I love to paint birds. You might think the colorful ones offer the biggest in painting lessons, but for me, that’s not really true. The black bird is a beauty that really forces you to see. Because to create the deep richness of the black, you have to see all the other subtle colors. The blues. The grays. The taupes. And browns. There is no depth without these other colors. And with no depth, there really is no beauty. 

But where does the responsibility lie? Within whom? Is it up to the person to show you their true colors? Or the viewer to see it? I suppose it’s both. And this is not a hardship – no, this is something! Because when you look, and you see it, it makes you feel special — you are allowed into all the beauty. You get to see beyond the shadowed wings of the blackbird and watch the glorious flight. You get to see beyond the expletives of your uncle’s mouth. Beyond the overalls and slight smell of cow, and think, wow, he really was handsome.  

I have been flawed. I haven’t always seen what is right in front of me. But I’m learning. I’m trying to do better. Be better. And like the Blackbird song says, “Take these broken wings and learn to fly…”

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…and then the beauty comes.

My grandfather was perhaps the first to teach me about color. Each year he planted in the black dirt. He worked under blue skies. Prayed under gray. And with the daily stroke of his hands turned the field from green to gold. It was the most beautiful canvas I had ever seen. Were it not for him, would I have seen it? I can’t be sure.

I often speak of the Sainte Victoire mountain. It rests in our daily view. Cezanne was perhaps the first to point it out to the world. Painting it again and again. Showing its beauty in every light. Dominique was the first to point it out to me as he drove me from the airport. Would I have seen it? Would I have felt it? Would I have painted it without either of them? Probably not.

Georgia O’Keeffe had her own mountain. Her own “Sainte Victoire.” She painted the big mountain (as she called it) again and again. Braving the heat and the cold. The solitude. The doubters of women. All to show us the beauty of what was around her. The beauty of what she saw.

I suppose all of it was unlikely. Seemingly almost impossible at times. But this is what gives me hope. This is what enables me to put my grandfather, Rueben Hvezda, alongside Paul Cezanne. Alongside Georgia O’keeffe. To write about him. To write about my grandmother making kolaches and quilts. My mother dressing in the crispiest of whites, even on her most crumbling days. OH, my beautiful mother! Were they artists? (…a rose by any other name…) They took what was in front of them, inside of them and made it beautiful. Not only showing me, but showing me how.

So I make the pictures with paint and words. Each daily stroke, with brushes of Rueben and Elsie and Ivy — my open fields, my sturdy mountains. What are we here for, if not to show each other the beauty? The beauty of living.

You have something. Right here. Right now. Live it. Something beautiful will come. The world is waiting to see.

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Hearts wild.

I wrote the combination on my hand. On my notebook. And on a small scrap of paper that I put inside my mom’s desk in her office at Central Junior High. I had never had a locker before. I had never locked anything. Not our front door. Nor my bike. Not the car doors. Not my journal. (The only one who was there to read it was my mom, and I already told her everything — feelings as open as the streets roamed.)

This was all new – these lockers at school. I wasn’t sure how I would navigate. How would I remember the numbers? And to date, on bike, on foot, on feeling, I roamed randomly. How would I become so exact? Turn left to the number. Right. Stop. Back again. Numbers. Turning. It all seemed so calculated. I read the number from my left hand and turned with my right. Carefully. Slowly. Then pulled at the handle. Nothing. I did it again. Slower. Counting. Breathing. Sweating. Pulling — nothing. My heart beat faster. Why???? Left. Right. Left. Circle round. Nothing. I spun the dial on the lock round and round as if to break the spell. Just before tears, it opened. I hung up my coat. A coat I would have given up easily to never have to go through this locking again.

But I did it. Day after day. And it became routine. To lock things. Books. Homework. And most regrettably, feelings. I can’t blame all of it on Central Junior High, but somewhere, in this time, in this space, this heart, my heart, that I once dangled from sleeves at high speeds on a banana seat bike, now rested quietly, locked on handwritten poems unseen in a junior high locker. It would be years before I dared show anyone.

But bit by bit, I was given the combination. My mother was always the first number, then a few professors in college, a few friends, turned my number to the right, and I suppose it was that little girl that said enough already — begging to get back on that banana seat bike, and ride freely, feelings whipping through hair and breeze — it was she, me, who turned the final number and released everything. No more locks. Heart, mind, soul — open.

The birds are singing through my open window as I tell you my story. This day and every day. Hoping each letter, each word, gives you a part of the combination to set you free, so you can do the same for another. And one day, maybe we’ll reach that final number — hearts open, wild in the breeze — and we’ll all be free.

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Simply the best.

It’s funny, but I didn’t remember the names of the two women who took me to the concert. We had only just met. I started this job right out of college. I was in gathering mode. There was so much information to take in. I stepped into the business — this wild adult playground. This playground of a school that everyone had attended for years, and I was the new kid. I was employed now – whatever that meant. I navigated through this unfamiliar jungle gym. It was in that first week of chaos that I heard them, these two women, yelling above the crowd, urging me to join them at Double-dutch. “You have to come with us to the Tina Turner concert,” they yelled. I timed the ropes with my hands and I jumped.

I didn’t recognize them at first when they picked me up. No longer in office attire, they seemed younger. More wild. They honked the horn and turned up the radio. I got in the back seat. Is this how adults made friends? Is this how you survived the work? I had no idea. The wheels sped down the freeway to the stadium. In the parking lot, the taller one said she “had to pee.” I turned my head to find a restroom. In the few second it took to turn my head back, she had already squatted with pants around her ankles. I couldn’t breathe. What had I done? I didn’t know these women. Why had I just joined them? So easily I got in their car. It had only been a week. Sure, I liked Tina Turner, but I didn’t own the cds. My feet, without my knowledge or permission, raced with them to the stadium door.

Our seats were actually good. Just left of the stage. Cigarette lighters flickered in the darkness. People squirmed and danced in their seats, eagerly awaiting Ms. Turner. I looked at the two women next to me, trying to remember their names.

I don’t know the song. It all happened so quickly. Suddenly she was there on stage. So close. A force of nature. She was not young, Tina Turner. And she was so petite. Just a tiny woman. But I had never heard, felt, witnessed anyone so powerful. Hair, dress, torso, thighs, heels — all moved in time to this thunderous voice. And it may surprise you to hear, but it was the most elegant thing I had ever seen. She moved like a gazelle to our corner of the stage. We were beyond the zoo now. Animals, all moving on instinct. There was no time. No space. No cages. Primal. Beautiful. Dance. 

It wasn’t my only glimpse of freedom. But it may have been one of my first. And upon it, I would build. Adding enough courage, wisdom, to walk out of this building, to my own humble corner of stage. To dream my own dream. Stand strong on my own two feet. Even dance. 

Our journeys are full of choice. And chance. We wander the strangest paths, to simply find our own best lives. Along the way, we remember the ones who lift us. Hoping one day to do the same for someone else. Today, I remember Tina. Let’s dance.

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Tools.


It isn’t often. It’s only happened a couple of times in 10 years, but it’s been enough to keep me humble. To keep me aware. I respect my electric saw. It cuts the angles to make the frames to enclose the paintings.

The first time it occurred, it terrified me. I can’t say why it happened. Maybe a flaw in the wood, or an extra strength… I don’t know. I always check for nails or screws in my reclaimed wood. I wear goggles. Take the usual precautions. But something snapped. And I mean cracked with the most vengeful noise and a piece of wood shot across the studio. Like a gun or canon went off! It took me several days to go back to it. To be calm enough to try again. But I did. And the fear slipped into knowledge. It became an additional tool. It happened again the other day. Less terrifying, but I knew enough to step away. To think it through, and return with a clear head.

I hope I’m smart enough to do the same in my relationships. I hope we all are. Gathering in the fear, the surprise, the anger even, and turning it into knowledge. To know when it’s time to engage, and when it’s time to step away. We are given all the tools. Right from the start — I guess we just have to keep learning how to use them.

Trust is a big one. I will admit that it has been a hard one for me to re-learn. Taken away with a bang at a young age, it took me a long time to go back to it. But I have been lucky. The door has been opened and opened again with the kindness of others. And I can’t turn away. There is beauty to be made. Joy to be felt. Love to be loved. Life to be lived. The day begins – my heart is a tool – I’m not afraid to use it.

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Passing through.

It’s no surprise really, that when I first started to paint, a lot of the women looked like my mother. Even the greeting cards that were a bit cartoonish, carried her smile, and that unexpected wit. Proof positive, I guess, that what’s inside of you will always find a way out. 

It’s still happening, without my knowledge, or permission, people get in and come out on the canvas. I finished a small painting in my sketchbook the other day. Dominique said, “Oh, that looks like my cousin.” His son agreed. And now when I look at pictures of her, I see it. I see her. People get in.

This, I suppose, is why it’s so important to surround yourself with good people. Positive people. Positive information. Books and music that teach us. News that is actually news, and not propaganda. Because it all gets in. And if it gets in, the negativity, it will have to find its way out. And then it just grows and grows. I don’t want that passing through the stream of my heart and mind. So I make choices. Some are easy. Some are not. But all necessary. Leaving space for the joyful surprises of the goodness that travels all around me. All around us. 

The canvas continues to remind me, to “Let someone in. Let someone go. After you’ve seen it all, you won’t remember the windows and doors, but who passed through.”

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Pebbles and paths.

It’s unlikely they are Laura Ingalls Wilder fans, but she is my first thought as I pass the sign each day on my walk. It points and reads, “La Petite Maison” — the little house. Surrounded by trees on the gravel path, I am transported from the south of France to the northwest of Minnesota, crouched in the corner of our living room, reading “Little House in the Big Woods,” by Laura Ingalls Wilder. 

I read all of her books. Each one a safe haven to dream. Moving me forward from place to place. Opening doors. Revealing the possibilities of words, of stories, of living. They were the cars of my underground railroad. 

With each gift comes a responsibility. I, we, were given so much. So easily. And I don’t think it’s enough to just give thanks — thanks for the path. We need to keep digging. Keep paving. Putting up the signs, as small as they may be. Because someone will see them. Will feel them. These small acts of kindness. These words of hope. These gravel roads to possibility. 

I continuously have a rock in my shoe. I think that’s the wink of the universe. A reminder of where I’ve been. A reminder to keep going. That my tiny life, as petite as it may be in this “Big Woods,” has to matter. Has to mean something. So I gather the words and the pebbles and make paths. Walking ahead. Walking behind. Walking beside. Always with you.

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The clinking of spoons.

It wasn’t instant cocoa, but it didn’t take long. My mom heated the milk on the stove and added the Nestle Quick. She poured it into grown-up mugs and handed us spoons. We stirred vigorously, and much longer than necessary, immersing ourselves in the healing. Because it was usually when we were sick, a cold, or touch of the flu, or just a bad day at school — this was when she made the cocoa. And then the bread popped out of the toaster at just the right time. Buttered, we dunked it into the steaming cocoa, because that’s really all it was for, and we were, if not healed, at least saved. 

Two pieces of toast – that was usually enough for me. I was young, and full of feelings. Some might have thought me as weak. Often full of tears and poems, but I knew. I could see it. Some days, it took my brother a full loaf of bread. He was bigger, faster, taller, but even then I was pretty sure it was me – I was stronger. 

You have to get inside to know. Hear the clinking of spoons. The beating of hearts. To be sure. Outer appearances can be so deceiving. I encourage you today to really look. Really listen to those around you. Because it takes more than an instant to know someone. To know what they need. To immerse ourselves in the lives of others. And maybe, just maybe, if we do, take the time, we will all be saved.

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Word by word.

She loved to read by the window, sitting on the deacon’s bench. The sun lit the words, almost in reverence, just, I thought as it should be. 

It was Mrs. Bergstrom who taught me how to read, but it was my mother who taught me how to love it. Reading and rereading each library book. Words that calmed me when I was scared. Words that lifted me when low. Words that paid for the tickets when money was scarce. Filled the car with gas. Lifted the plane. Took us on adventures. Gave us not just happy endings, but happy beginnings. Told us that all things were possible. I know I was just a child, but when I saw my mother with a book in her hand, I knew that I was saved. We all could be.

Mrs. Bergrstrom wrote on the blackboard the word career. She went around the room asking what does your father do? What does your mother do? Maybe it wasn’t surprising, we were only six, but most of the kids didn’t know. Some said they went to a building. Did a job. Left in the morningtime. Set the table. When she pointed to me – asking what my mother did – I knew for certain, and said it clearly – “Well, she’s saving the world.” Some snickered, but I just smiled, because for me, it was true. Word by word.

I began a new book yesterday. These Precious Days by Ann Patchett. I sat at my desk, the sun shining through the window, illuminating each magnificent word, warming my shoulders. I could have vacuumed, or dusted. Washed clothes. But I was doing something more important. I felt the power. From sky to window to shoulders to page to heart. It was all love. And she was with me. All things were possible. Word by word, we were saving the world.

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Carry the impossible.

My cousins Shawn and Kalee first introduced me to Knox Blox. The Jello (gelatin) that you could eat with your hands. What had previously been limited to spoons, bowls and tables, was now portable. You could run with it. Squeeze it through the space your last baby tooth left behind. Take it downstairs. Outside. It was indestructible really. You could stomp on it. Throw it. Take it in the pool if you like. The only problem, it didn’t taste very good. Soon, the remains of abandoned red rubber lined the Tupperware container, and we set off to carry the impossible.

There seems to be a lot of people running around this world with hearts made of Knox Blox. No worries. No consequences. And I have envied them at times. Me, struggling with spoonful after spoonful of fragile feelings. But if given the chance, I wouldn’t change it. I want to feel and taste it all. Even this sweet pain of love and loss.

I suppose we all knew, even then, it wasn’t going to be easy. But we didn’t crave easy. We hungered for the challenges under the summer sun. We craved the skinned knees and knuckles. The sun-burned shoulders. Legs that wobbled weary at the end of the day. We wanted it all. Each morning, the screen door slamming behind us, we dared the day. Dared our hearts. To bring it all. Feel it all.

With eyebrows raised, the sun smiles in my direction. OK, I say. Heart and hands full, I reach for the door.

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