Jodi Hills

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

Category Archives: evidence


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Find the good.

The first set of paper dolls I received was for my 7th birthday from Wendy Schoeneck. My mother had always taught me to smile when receiving a gift. I didn’t know why she had made such a point of it. I suppose up until then, I had always been thrilled with my presents. Wendy was smiling so intently, watching me tear the wrapping paper. So pleased with what was about to be revealed. I scraped the yellowed Scotch tape from the last reluctant piece, only to reveal, to my horror, Buffy and Jody paper dolls. Not only had they spelled my name wrong, but Jody was the boy. I glanced up at my mother. I knew she knew. I guess her constant reminders paid off, because I forced a smile in Wendy’s direction. She couldn’t seem to tell that it was more pain than gratitude.

We played music. Pinned the tail on the donkey. Dropped the clothespins in the bottle. Passed around the presents. Laughed and held sweaty hands in circles. All had been forgotten and forgiven.

One of my presents was a Winnie the Pooh giant story book. We all started to sing the Pooh song, when one of the girls noticed that Winne the Pooh could quickly and easily be translated to Wendy the Pooh. Others joined in. Some giggled. But not Wendy. I knew she felt bad. I opened the box of paper dolls and my mom got out the scissors. We cut out the clothes and quickly forgot about both Poohs. It was a good gift after all. Wendy was smiling. My mom was smiling. And so was I, for real this time.

Sometimes it’s hard to see life’s gifts. They often come ill-wrapped at unwelcomed times. But even the hardest day is kind enough to pass. Find the good. It’s out there.

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Doing Better.

It’s no secret that I read a lot. Often they make the books into movies. Often I’m disappointed. For me, the words seem to paint a more realistic picture. A vivid representation of the person or people inside the story. Not tainted or swayed by the pressures of Hollywood. I wonder when we were first sold the idea that people, in order to be a hero, or heroine, had to “look the part.” I, I say with great fortune, have lived a life to the contrary. 

I have written about so many that have saved me through the years. Mr. Whitman, the caretaker of the cemetery, dirtied and slumped from the weight of burying the people from town. My grandfather, callused hand reaching behind his stained overalls to bring me along, bring me through. Chubbied Grandmother wiping kitchen hands on apron, just to give us something sweet. Wearied teachers, still finding a way to say the words that just might carry us. Tear-stained mother who laughed with unfaltering grace. 

So it came as a surprise to me, the woman in New York standing in front of my portrait of Maya Angelou — a sage I return to again and again. She read the words and seemed to be moved. She praised them. I thanked her. She wanted to buy copies, but whispering sheepishly now, “maybe without the picture.” Whispering even lower now, “you know, maybe she could be a bit polarizing to my customers.” 

I laughed. How ironically and completely opposite of the words that she claimed to love. 

Kindness. Truth. Beauty. Wisdom. Hope. Leadership. Strength. Love. It comes in all sorts of “packaging.” Each a gift. 

Maya would have forgiven her. As she always said, “When we know better, we do better.” I put the words and paintings before you, before myself, daily, in the hopes of doing just that… better.

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Something beautiful.

Certainly they had more money than we did, the women who owned BonJos — an upscale dress shop for the women of Alexandria, Minnesota. They probably had big houses. Nice cars. But when I saw my mom pull back the curtain and step out of the elevated dressing room at the Viking Plaza mall, I knew what class meant. And it was beautiful. 

This is not to say that others didn’t have it. People all around us did. At all levels. But what my mother taught me, standing tall above her height and pay grade, was that elegance, grace, true beauty, came from within. And she wore it better than anyone. 

And of course she aged. It happens to all of us. But what’s remarkable, I only ever saw that woman — that woman coming out from behind the curtain, daring the town and the mirror to really see her. That woman who never thought she was brave, but dared to extend her height with heels from Herberger’s. I saw her with smiling breath held. And it wasn’t just me, I saw the owners catch themselves in approval. BonJos was lit brighter than the fluorescent of any mall. 

Some will tell you that love is blind. I don’t agree. Maybe love is the only thing that truly sees. Maybe love is the reason even well into her 80’s this beauty remained. 

Here’s how I see it. I hope we all can see it this way — Youth will fade. Real beauty never does.

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Flowered in the cracks.

I’m not sure it’s statistically possible, but it would seem that 90% of the time I’m at the end of the roll of toilet paper. Perhaps, like all bounty, it is hard to see until it begins to end.

I don’t know how my grandma did it. With eleven people in the house, just to maintain the necessary products must have been a constant challenge. And yet, I never saw it. And, like I’ve said before, I tried to memorize their house. I paid attention. I counted the number of steps. The paintings that hung in each bedroom. What was hidden in the closets. The sewing room. My grandma’s dresser. The damp coats hanging. The shoes leading down the basement stairs. Which cupboard held the candy. The six pack of cereal. I took it all in, so I thought. But it was only today, these many years later, it occurred to me that I don’t remember where she kept the toilet paper. And I don’t remember ever running out. Even on holidays when that house of 11 turned to 50 or more. We always had what we needed.

It may sound silly. I mention it only because what a thing! —  to count on someone like this. And believe me, I did the math. With each grandchild that appeared. Each great grandchild. I wondered would it be possible for her to still love us all, and by that I mean me. Would it be possible for her to still see me among all these arms reaching up to be held. All these toes trampling and racing. Sticky fingers. And one cry louder than the next. Would it be statistically possible to have that much love?

She was almost 90 when we were sitting at her table. Drinking egg coffee made on the stove. Grounds clinging to the bottom of stained cups. My mom and I had just been at one of my gallery shows. We told her about what I had painted. What I had sold. Sitting in this tiny apartment which now contained a mere fraction of what her house had held. (I suppose all lives get reduced down to the necessary.) She made the silent oooooh with her mouth, a sound only hearts can hear. She told me to go to the nightstand beside her bed. It was only a couple feet from the kitchen table. It was there that I saw it. A small easeled piece of tree bark, with dried flowers glued in the cracks, with the words “Love, Jodi, 5th grade,” written in Sharpie on the back. It wasn’t possible, and yet, my heart’s sigh told me that it was — she saw me, she knew me, she loved me. Still. 

It would have been so easy to get lost in the cracks of it all. But there I was. Flowered. 

I had to hold both of her hands to lift her from her chair. Somewhere along the line we had reversed roles, she now cuddled shoulder high in the warmth of my embrace. If I didn’t know it before, I knew it then, love never runs out.

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A love song in silver.

I raced the stairs to his class. He was a stickler for detail. One must be on time, or you will get a “greenie.” A greenie was a small piece of green paper, denoting some poor behavior – like being late, talking out of turn, not doing an assignment. And a certain amount of greenies resulted in detention or grade reduction. Of course this was incentive enough to race the halls of Central Junior High and up the stairs to his classroom, but it was more than that, I was excited for his class, English Literature. I was excited to see him. He postured straight at the front of the class. Suited and bow-tied, a pocket filled with green paper, one finger pressed to lips like a conductor waiting for the orchestra of the English language to begin.

In his fitted plaid lime green jacket he introduced us to T.S. Eliot. He read to us in perfect pitch “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” The boys giggled. Mocked. Rhymed words with “frock” and quieted down after receiving their greenies. “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,” the lyrics danced in my heart. Never to be careful, ordinary, predictable, monotonous — this was the lesson. I put it in my heart and quietly vowed the same.

In my mother’s silverware drawer, there was one spoon different from all the rest. Before I knew of words and poems, or even what was ordinary, I loved this spoon. It was the only one I ever used. My mother made sure that for each meal it was clean. My spoon. My different spoon. Not matching. Not safe. Extraordinary.

When I moved to France, the hardest thing, (the only thing that could have made me stay) was my mother. In the first weeks, my lonesome heart ran through the doubts. Had I done the right thing? No one can give you life’s permission, but I waited for a sign. A letter arrived. Small, but an odd shape. I opened it. My spoon. My different, glorious spoon — a love song in silver.

It sits by my desk. Telling me daily to choose the extraordinary. The sun comes up. I race its stairs to the beautiful unknown.

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Seeing it!

“What a horrible looking snack,” I thought as they handed me the cone. I was raised to be polite, so I didn’t say anything. I looked at the other 6 year olds in line. Were they horrified? They didn’t seem to be. I held the cone filled with… with what? What was this? Were they nuts? Maybe. Or dogfood? They wouldn’t feed us dog food? Would they? Not on a school field trip. No one else was eating it, thank goodness, as we walked single file into the Deer Park. The Deer Park. Before Funland. Before Valley Fair. Before Six Flags. This is what we had. No rides. No lights. No games. But still, we were excited. Excited because it meant leaving the classroom. Getting on a bus. Singing. Tickling. Pushing. Anticipating. We got out into the gravel parking lot. Went beyond the fence. Got our cone filled “snack” and proceeded to the deer. What a relief it was to see the first boy in line hold his cone out to feed the ever-so-tame baby deer. It was for the deer! “Ohhhhhhh!” I exclaimed, my audible realization. All the other kids turned to look at me, and so I covered with — “Oh, look, at the pretty deer!” We all smiled and wriggled in our single-file.

“Did you touch their noses? They were wet!” “I did! I touched a nose!” “Well, I was licked!” “You were licked?!” “Well,” not to be outdone, one boy professed, “I was bit!” “Bit????” we screamed in unison. Mrs. Bergstrom smoothed her stern face down to her stern skirt. “Maybe just a nibble.” he said. She continued to stare him down. “No,” he said, “I guess just licked.” She winked. Mrs. Bergstrom winked. We sang out the open windows, wishing the day would never end.

Back at Washington Elementary, our legs bounced beneath our desks. She told us to put our heads down. “Relax,’ she said. Relax? How could we relax? What we had experienced! It was so joyfully overwhelming. Heads down, we danced in the memory.

We had no cameras. We had each other. We saw and felt everything. I have no proof but for the space that remains filled in my heart. A tiny space where deer may nibble at the truth, and children may wriggle in the dream. I raise my head and see out the morning window. “OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH, Look!!!!”

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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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Filled with evidence.

We went to Cocoa Beach, Florida in the winter of my Seventh Grade. It was my first, I guess only, school vacation. We went to see my grandparents. I looked out the airplane window into the blue sky and wondered what they would be wearing, these Minnesota farmers. I had never seen either of my grandparents in shorts. Not to mention on vacation.

They picked us up at the airport. He in pants. She in a dress. I hugged them so hard, these new people that we had all to ourselves for the very first time. The same sun that lit them in this new color, jumped into my heart and filled it.

I heard it before I saw it, the ocean. My grandpa stood near the deck of the condo and waved me out to the beach. He was in shadow then as I looked back. But still so tall. So recognizable. And I was old enough to know it wasn’t true, but it felt like this was his, and he was giving it all to me.

I stayed out too long in my newly found gift. My lavender/white skin burned to a crisp and bubbling red. My grandma rubbed me in vinegar and slept on the floor beside me.

Creamed and covered for the next 6 days, they took me to Disney World. Cape Canaveral. The dog track. The outlet mall. This was a once in a lifetime, I thought. Not because of the sites, but because of them. The time. Oh, what a time!

Returning to Central Junior High after the break. Everyone was exchanging vacation stories. Most were fascinated with Janie, the surgeon’s daughter. They had gone skiing. She had the deep dark face tan, but for the goggled area around the eyes. Everyone oooed and aaaaahed. Someone looked at me and said, “I thought you went to Florida.” “I did! I did!” I said in delight. “But you’re not even tan.” No, my burn had peeled away and slipped down the shower drain the night before our return. “It was wonderful!” I continued. But they wanted proof. Evidence. I couldn’t believe they couldn’t see it. My full heart.

Maybe they were ahead of their time. Wanting to see the selfie of the moment. But I knew I had it. I carry the evidence with me daily. Maybe these words are my proof. Maybe not. It doesn’t really matter. Because I know. I know what I had. What I will always have. I look back, and I see him standing there. Smiling. So recognizable, even today. He, they, gave it all.

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