Jodi Hills

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

Category Archives: field


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The tender fields

I only had to hear it once for it to stick. “There are no stupid questions,” Mrs. Strand said, addressing the thirty strained-necked five year olds looking up from their cross legged positions at Washington Elementary. So the questioning began.

Behind our house on VanDyke Road, there was a field of grain. Hugo’s field. Lined from green to gold every summer. My grandpa had the same, but he also had a field for the cows. Unlike the fields of grain, it was fenced and trampled — “But still a field?” I asked my grandpa. “Yes, he said. “But what will grow?” “The cows,” he said. I shook my head in agreement.

I was surprised the first time my mother dropped me off at the field to play softball. This was a field too? This sanded and based lot. The teenage boy who we loosely called coach said he would teach of the basics – hitting and fielding. Fielding? No one else raised their hands. Why wasn’t anyone else questioning all these forms of field. I put down my hand and began to play.

It wasn’t lost on me that when you were asked to choose your line of work, it was your field. And when you became good at your chosen profession, you were “outstanding in your field.” The first time I heard this, probably because of Mrs. Strand, Hugo, because of Grandpa, because of the teenage boy, I heard, “out standing in your field.” I still think of it that way. Because this is where I go to create, to the tender fields that led me here. And they were tender. Even through every cracked bit of earth, with every run and trample, I learned. When yields were low. I learned. Each season, I grew. Never with a guarantee, but always a promise of hope. It is with this welcoming of wonder, I wander today’s field.

Something will grow from all of this, and it will be me.

Something will grow from all of this, and it will be me.


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Coo-coo and hum.

I have know idea how they got them in the house. It never occurred to me to think of those things — the logistics of moving an organ, a clock. And just as I assumed this clock that coo-cooed on the hour was called a Grandfather clock because it was his, I thought it was a Grandma organ, because it was hers. 

But it must have been fairly spectacular – this finding of an organ mover, a clock mover, to a farm house just outside of Alexandria, Minnesota. And they must have come through the front door – a door we never used, never even considered. And even if they came through this front door, there would have been a stoop to be navigated. A tiny hall before reaching the living room. But as I said, I didn’t think of it, how they got there. But I did count on it, them being there. 

And that was the gift, I suppose. It was all an assurance. One I didn’t ask for, or prayed to keep, I just had it. I knew, without a doubt, what would be found in this house. Coats and overalls hanging in the entry. A kitchen table with uneven legs. Candy in the corner cupboard on the lazy-susan. Sugared cereal beneath the silverware drawer beside the kitchen sink, a kitchen sink that was forever filled with dishes. Something on the stove. Publisher’s Clearing house magazines on the dining room table. The hint of pipe tobacco and baked goods. Television on. A ticking clock. The hum of the organ at the ready. And a love, no matter how many doors or windows were left open, would never leave. 

So it continues to be spectacular — this never knowing how it all got in — mostly the love. I just remember always having it. I still have it. And what a thing to move! To carry throughout a lifetime! Enough to make a heart ever coo-coo and hum.

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The wayward pony.

I suppose everything is about context. It’s not like I’d normally be afraid of a pony. (I’ve even painted them.) But yesterday, when I looked up from the path to turn the corner and almost ran into one, I must say it was alarming. And he wasn’t alone. There was a donkey. A llama. Many sheep. Rams. Other ponies. I don’t know who was in charge of this gang by the river. There were no other humans in sight. Neither the sheep, nor the donkey seemed to care that I was there, but what I can only assume as the lead pony, looked at me like I was the suspicious one.

After taking pictures, I kept walking. The whole path seemed different. I felt disoriented. This path, that I could normally navigate in my sleep, suddenly felt completely strange. Had that always been there? What about this? Did I miss my turn?

I started to take inventory. I knew this rock. This tiny bridge. To walk up the slope on the left side. The smell of these trees. The purple flowers growing out of the concrete fence. I knew this path.

Life can throw you the strangest curves. And you can’t prepare for everything. And sometimes each step can become unfamiliar. When it happens, it may sound silly, but I always take my own inventory. Am I safe? Yes. Am I loved? Yes. Do I have to be afraid? No. I step aside from the wayward pony, smile, and keep walking.

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Out wandering.

“If we opened people up, we’d find landscapes.” Agnes Varda

I cannot pass a golden field in any country, without thinking of my grandfather. The breeze that blows through the harvest to come is the breath of hard labor and kindness.

I was 19 when he got pancreatic cancer. They cut him in half to assess the damage. They closed him almost immediately. When I saw the row of staples, I couldn’t imagine they couldn’t see something — something that could be salvaged. Clung to. Some hope. Because that’s what I imagined beneath the scar. This was the landscape I knew lived within him. A field that had turned from brown to green to gold. A yearly harvest to be counted on — this, I knew for certain, was inside my grandfather. A landscape I carry still today.

We went to visit Dominique’s mother at the cemetery. She rests between two vineyards. We stopped at each one. Tasting the white. The rosé. The red. Delicious. What a fitting landscape for her. The vine that doesn’t end. From the work of the fields. To the joy of the table. The French landscape I will carry too, within.

We’re not always given the answers. But we’re always shown a way. If you look for me today, be patient. My heart is wandering landscapes.

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Of all things important.

Until yesterday, I had only ever heard my grandfather use the term “…and stuff.” I was listening to a podcast and this man was explaining how he got his job distributing vacation brochures at the rest stop. “Well,” he said, “the guy who had the job before me got sick and stuff…” He continued, “He got the diabetes and stuff… and then he passed away and stuff…”

As I mentioned, my grandfather used the term quite frequently, but certainly not for the important things. He would have never “and stuff”-ed someone’s death.

He was a man of few words. He didn’t suffer fools. He said the things that needed to be said, and that was it. I think he used the term “and stuff,” not to be rude, but just to end the conversation already and get back to the things he deemed truly important.

I stood by the kitchen window, looking out at the barn. I couldn’t hear the exact words my mother was telling my grandfather. I was breathing so heavily, the wind that traveled from heart to nose to ears made a deafening sound. Of course I knew. We were going to be alone, my mother and I. She was scared. Hurt. Embarrassed even. So many feelings. So many words. He listened. Patiently. He was still overalled from the field, but I could see that he had washed his hands (and I could smell Grandma’s perfumed soap). His nails were scrubbed. I suppose he already knew. Knew that he would be holding my mother’s hand. Telling her, without words, that he would be there. For her.

He pulled me away from the window. Bent down. Looked me in the eyes. “You can turn in, or you can turn out…it’s all up to you.” There was no “and stuff.” No walking away from the conversation. He would be there. That was the promise we sat in. Silently.

I learned early on that you can walk away from the unnecessary, but not the uncomfortable. The real trick, I guess, is in knowing the difference. I’m still learning, but as I look out my kitchen window at the morning, I know days can be difficult, times even, but I am secure in the gift that of all things important, I am one.

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Up and farther.

I’m not sure I thought it was so beautiful, when I walked alongside Hugo’s field behind our house. But the song Mr. Iverson taught us at Washington Elementary said so, “Oh beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain…” Neither had lied to me before, so I Iooked long and hopeful, as my sunburned legs brushed against the amber.

I was yet to see the ocean, but for in books. And in those books they spoke of the tide. The magical way it rolled out, rolled back in…and some said, within this magic, you could let go of all your worries, your problems, and the waves would take them out to sea, and return to you, free from them all, freeing you as well.

I was in need of some of that freedom. I walked as closely to the field as I could. Hugo didn’t want us inside. I imagined it was so we didn’t trample on the magic. That made sense. I only let it brush against me. Praying it was enough to latch on. Praying the wind could make the grain actually wave. Praying it could take away the noise of our house. The argument shook walls that creaked late into the night. The noises that worked themselves into fear and then, as if to taunt, lay deep inside my muscles.

I didn’t know how big an ocean was. Was it bigger than Hugo’s field? I could see across it. Maybe it wasn’t big enough. Maybe it wasn’t even real, but I kept walking. I continued my solo prayer. To say the words out loud seemed too dangerous. As if these words might be the final noise to break the last board holding our fragile house together. I walked and whispered.

We moved from VanDyke Road. I like to believe it was the wave that carried us. Again. And again. From the gravel to the tar. The field to the city. From the noise of fear to the sound of possibility. To Lake Michigan. Then the oceans, Atlantic and Pacific. Then across the sea.

Yesterday, I was readying for my afternoon walk, in France. Ear buds. iPhone. Tennis shoes. I am not proud to say that my thighs were heavy with something that was best let go. It can still happen. Then it nudged me – a tiny wave perhaps – and I reached for the book of poetry next to my phone. I read the lines in French. Could that be right? Did I have the French words right in my head?

“Où même les roseaux répétaient leurs prières
Que reprenaient de plus plus fort et plus loin les oiseaux”

I went to the translation poem.

“Where even the reeds repeated their prayers
Which the birds took up louder and farther on”

I smiled. The magic was real. Had been real all along. I walked lighter in the afternoon wave.

When I got back home, I decided to paint this little bird. A little bird that carried my prayer of only this — thank you.

“Thank you.” Up it went, and farther on, into the oh, so beautiful, spacious skies.

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