Jodi Hills

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

Category Archives: Easter


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Each rising.

She’s held this pose for over a week, my lovely tulip. Just like me, no one ever told her she wasn’t a dancer, and most likely (just like me) she wouldn’t have believed them if they had. And who could blame her? Donned in that lovely yellow. Gathered in and matched by the strength of the sun. How could she not keep reaching, moving, believing in all things morning as she opened each day. She did feel it! With each rising. From her very stem. And so she would dance.

A writer writes. A painter paints. A baker bakes. Not because someone pays them. Tells them that’s what they are. We decide. For ourselves. The same is true for happy. For love. You get to decide. You get to feel what you feel. No restrictions or limits. If the yellow calls to you, wakes you with a joy that not only can be, but must be, released back to the blue of the sky, then, dance, I say, simply, joyfully, rise up and dance.

Happy Easter! There’s nothing here we can’t rise above.

And so she would dance.
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When angels come.

I was just a handful, a chubby handful of years older than the bunny that I found in the overgrown field next to our green house. I thought it was an ocean, these waves of green. I asked my mom if that was what colored our house. Yes, she said, always willing to fuel my imagination.  I didn’t touch it.  My grandfather had taught me that. Tell an adult, I heard in my head. I looked up and down the gravel road. Then across. Patsy was there on the stoop. Telephone in hand, stretched and tethered to the kitchen wall and pulled out the screen door. I wasn’t sure if she was an adult, but she rode the late bus, so it seemed ok. I found your bunny, I told her. She shook her head without putting the phone down. I pulled at her jeans. I pointed to the field. She wasn’t feeling my same sense of urgency. This had to be important. And it was all alone. She kept talking. I looked both ways for a traffic that was never there, and crossed back into the grass that reached my waist. Nothing looked the same. It all looked the same. Where was it? I couldn’t find it. Panic rolled from my eyes. I rode the waves. 

Why wasn’t it there? It had to be there!  I pleaded with my mom to help me find the bunny when she returned home from work. She walked with me for awhile. When it was clear that we weren’t going to find it, l could see it on her face. We never know when angels will come, or how long they are going to stay, she explained. In one swoop she took away my tears and gave me an angel — an angel bunny. It has stayed with me, all these years, through seas of green, over seas of blue, and I am never alone.

I had one of those dreams this morning, the kind so close to the light of day that it stays through breakfast. It was more of a visit really. I was here in France and saw him walking towards me — Bob Jones — a wonderful man, friend and once co-worker of my mother. He was all smiles and arms that reached out. He hugged me and told me everything is ok. She’s ok, he smiled. And I believed him — that’s what you do when angels come.

Happy Easter. 


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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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In full Selma.

I don’t know where I heard the name before, but when I saw her — this little stuffed duck that my mother gave to me for Easter — I knew her name was Selma. She was the brightest yellow I had ever held in the palm of my hand. In the palm of my heart.

It was years later, perhaps well beyond what some might call my “stuffed animal” years, (but maybe with your own mother, you never outgrow them), that she gave me a squishily wrapped Easter present. It was Selma. And not just Selma for me, my mom called her by name as well. The original duck? No. The original love? Indeed. I guess that never changes. 

I name the trees in our yard now. The plants in our house. I have always thought when love blooms so beautifully, it deserves a name. I’d like to think that they are all in on it — as nature blossoms in bright Selma all around me. Maybe that’s what Easter is — at least it is for me — a love that continues to bloom and bloom, forever in the palm of my heart.

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