Jodi Hills

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

Category Archives: growth


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More ideas.

Sometimes it takes me a while to get there, but I usually do.

I’m no different from the next person when it comes to packing a suitcase, if that next person is slightly neurotic and overly excited. It’s still three weeks away, but the neurons in charge of organization have already begun counting underwear and creating a capsule wardrobe. “Wouldn’t it be great,” they urged, “if we had packing cubes, and other various sorting devices for the suitcases…” I nodded inside my own head and began searching the web. The options, while infinite, didn’t seem exactly right. I searched through sizes and colors and prices. The right price was the wrong country of origin. The right color was the wrong size. The right size was the wrong price. I searched and fumbled. Added some to cart. Backed out. Searched again. After about an hour and forty-five minutes, it became clear that I could use the random tote bags given free from the pharmacy and the stash of bags my mother gave to me from the make-up counter promotions. I take a breath. I take a pause. I have everything I need. What a relief to quit searching…unless that is, I need more clothes… That’s when I play fashion show from my own closet and once again realize, I have more than plenty.

I suppose it’s true with almost everything — we don’t need more things, we need more ideas. Of course there are specific times when you require a precise tool, object, (even scarf or scarves to match your autumn overcoat), but most of the time I find, if I’m creative enough, thoughtful enough, I already have the perfect solution. And it usually feels great! To shop your own closet and create a new look. To sand and sand the abandoned wood and make a new frame. To create a delicious recipe out of the left-overs. To give the neurons a break and let my heart and hands take over.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for commerce. I bought two new books yesterday. (I will use the french bag as backing for a framed picture, but still.) And I want you to buy pictures and books and cards, even from me (insert shameless plug here). So what was my point? I don’t know…maybe Marie Kondo had it right, about all the “sparking joy.” I like that. I think it’s a good idea…I guess that was the point, after all, more ideas — more joyful ideas! Wishing you a day filled with them.

Pause, and spark!

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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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Security and Surprise

I don’t know who it belonged to. It certainly wasn’t my grandma — even though we found it, my cousins and I, in her upstairs closet. Digging beneath the sombrero, the military uniform and the extra bedding, we jumped back, toppling over each other on the hardwood floor. Was it alive? It had eyes! Fur! What was it??? With a pool cue from the corner of the closet, we moved it into view. A dead fox. Long straight, headed and tailed. Did it crawl in from the field for a siesta (under the sombrero on this Minnesota farm)? And then died? We kicked it down the stairs beside my grandma standing in front of the kitchen sink. (She was always in front of the sink, yet the dishes were never done — but that’s another story.) 

“It’s just a stole,” she said, “a fox stole.” Not understanding the word, we assumed the dead fox was now some sort of robber. “No, to wear around your neck,” she said. The explanations kept getting worse. It was unimaginable. We threw it at each other. Maybe she said who it belonged to, but I don’t think so. We soon grew tired of it. We would have left it on the kitchen floor, but she told us to put it back, never asking why she wanted to keep it. We loved her. So we did. 

The only accessory we knew Grandma Elsie to wear was an apron. And that was enough for us. She donned what some called sensible shoes and house dresses, which made it easy, I suppose, for us to forget that she was not just a grandma, but a woman of this world. 

Pardon the reference, but it’s hard to see “everything, everywhere, all at once.” We get bits of people, glimpses really. We grab onto the parts that serve us best, and a lot remains, well, in the closet. This is not to say we need to know everything about everyone. But I think it’s good to realize that we don’t know everything. People have riches and reasons that we will never realize. And instead of being afraid of that, we should respect it, celebrate it even. 

I don’t know if my grandma was ever in Mexico. But in my head she was. Possibly even wearing a fox stole. Or maybe it was just Great Aunt Ellen’s. Maybe she bought it at Tvrdik’s garage sale, just up the road. It doesn’t really matter. What I love is that there was a world to discover in her home. A home where we were allowed to run free. To become exactly who we wanted to be. This beautiful farmhouse, with security and surprise, that grew so much, grew so many.

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At any measure.

In the seventh grade at Central Junior High School, for approximately one week, it was decided that all students would learn the metric system. This foreign secret of measure, based in 10s and 100s, was brought out like a dirty, family secret on a Monday afternoon, and by bus time on Friday, we never spoke of it again. 

I’m not sure why we gave up, but as I struggle to convert grams to cups and kilos to pounds, I think it may have been useful. I never imagined that I would take pride in being able to weigh myself in another country, but here I am.

Through the years, the metric system became very low on the scale of “I wonder why we never talked about it.” There are so many things that got brushed under the rug. So many hurts. So many feelings. Confusions. As I stand here smiling before the scale, I imagine how many other things could have been so much easier had we only talked about them. I don’t say this in regret, but as a prompt, to keep things out in the open. Feel them as I feel them. A reminder to wear my heart on my sleeve and my face, giving it away at any measure.

Adding the flour to the bread dough this morning, I don’t use cups, nor grams. I have done it so often, I go by feel. A mixture of farine complète and farine de blé, my own special recipe. And it feels right. It feels like me. Heart wide open — this is where life becomes delicious!

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The Cardinal beat.

We were never asked the question when we were young — “How do you identify?” I smile now, thinking about it, because I probably would have answered — “A cardinal.”

I didn’t see it for the blessing that it was at the time — maybe that’s the way with all blessings — but despite time and distance, it has stayed with me, this feeling of belonging, being, and I remain a cardinal.

Even on the teams we didn’t play for, we still came together in our red and black. Sometimes on the field. Sometimes in the band. Sometimes in the bleachers. Forever donned in our mascot, the Alexandria Cardinals. Because no matter what we were, hoods, geeks, nerds, jocks, preppies, we were always cardinals. We stomped and clapped to the Cardinal beat. Competed. Learned. Fought. Made up. Grew. Fell. Got up. Together.

I put on my second-hand Cardinal T-shirt yesterday. Wondering why it couldn’t all be this simple. Weren’t we, aren’t we, all a part of something bigger? I’d like to think so. Maybe the red and black is never all that black and white. But it is something to be connected. To be a part of the bigger picture. I want that. For all of us. For this world. We could come together. And identify as one.

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A light to stay connected.

I was watching a German creator who recently moved to Los Angeles, California. She was lonesome. Missing her friends. She walked around the streets and picked up odd objects. From the ground. Abandoned buildings. Seemingly useless stuff, but she could see something beautiful. She made a light that turned on by an automatic switch, notifying her of the German time between 9am and  9pm — the time she could safely call up a friend in Germany. Her best friend. To hear the sound of her voice. I love this idea. This simple reminder. A light to stay connected.  

Because that’s everything, isn’t it? Just to be connected to the ones you love. 

I search the house. Photographs and spare parts. Metal. Wood. Scraps. I know I can make anything. My heart smiles and tells my brain, “I’ve got this.” The flame that lights my mother’s memory is shining brightly. There’s only one thing I need to know — what time is it in heaven?

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Now.

I suppose it was at the beginning of each school year that I began waiting for Christmas. Ticking off the markers. The autumn sports on fields or in bleachers. The Halloween candy counted, saved, stretched until Thanksgiving. The first snowfall. Cars and snowballs pushed through the white, making tracks to Christmas. The forever that it seemed to take, now looks like a blur. Maybe my head rested in waitful agony during the math class that explained “time plus time equals speed” — but it’s oh, so clear now. 

It seems too many of us have missed the lessons. 

Today, all I want is candy corn, and for time to slow down. If I found such a sack of delicious treats, I would pull them out kernel by kernel. I would eat the white tip. Then the orange, then the sweet yellow. The yellow is my favorite of all. You will never be able to convince me that each color tastes the same. Not for me. But if I found this sweet candy, I wouldn’t rush the yellow. I would give thanks for the white. Praise the vibrant orange. And pause, twirling the golden tip in my fingers. Sweet yellow. As sweet as Christmas morning. Time held in my hand.

I’m learning the lessons. Still and again. Trying to enjoy the minutes. The hours. The day. Not waiting for “someday”. Our “someday” is now.

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A place at the table.

I asked him if he wanted to draw with me. He was still in his overalls, tired, needing to wash up before dinner. I open my Big Chief notebook wide. Folded the crease of the binding so it lay flat and spread before the two of us on the card table my grandma had set up for me. “I don’t know how to draw,” he said. “Yes, you do,” I said. “I couldn’t even draw a straight line,” he said. “But I don’t need a straight line,” I said, holding up my ruler. He laughed and picked up one of my crayons. I knew he was tired from a day of farming under the sun. I just needed to know he wasn’t too tired. For me. He wasn’t. Soon I told him it was ok, that he didn’t have to draw anymore. I would finish the picture. He smiled and went to wash for dinner.

I drew a picture of him on his tractor. I had watched him earlier in the day. Moving with precision up and down the seeded field. The rows were perfect. Straight. Beautiful. I replicated them with my ruler. 

When he returned to the table I handed him the picture. “It’s you,” I said proudly. He smiled. “See,” I said, “you CAN draw a straight line, only you use a tractor.” He gently held the proof in his hand. 

There is always a way to connect. A way to find a place at the table.

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The view.

Didn’t we say forever? And believed it at the time. Best friends we promised in the middle of the Washington School playground, underneath the monkey bars. And then beside the swings. But forever came before we moved on to Central Junior High, and we promised again. And meant it. We raced to Social Studies and English literature, and around the block for gym, and then changed again. At Jefferson Senior High School, so close to the imagined adulthood, we vowed again. Threw our graduation caps in the air, along with our forevers. 

Yesterday we went to a small village here in France. Driving the narrow streets, built long before they made cars, we winded and turned, and backed up, squeezed and turned some more. With no “rights” or “lefts,” we could only look up for direction. “Somebody’s on top of that hill,” I said. “I think it’s the Virgin Mary,” Dominique said, “a statue…”  I wasn’t sure I needed that clarification, but I smiled. We parked, or probably closer to the truth is we abandoned the car. 

We started climbing the cobblestone paths. Higher. Higher still. Surely we would see her soon. Above the village now. Gazing over the houses. “Where is she?”  Confused, I stood beside the ancient obelisque. Then I saw her. Proudly she stood atop the hill on the opposite side of the village. Oh, she moved, I thought. Because surely it wasn’t me. I hadn’t changed direction…

We’re changing all the time. All of us. And that’s a good thing. It’s the only way we grow. The only way we gain a new perspective. Our forevers get nipped and tucked, and some even abandoned. But it doesn’t make any of them less important, less meaningful. Everything has a time. A season. And each day we have a choice of whether or not to enjoy the moment, to enjoy the view. 

Take a look around today. It may not be what you thought, but it might just be amazing.

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Come-with gal.

She would go to almost anything. See almost anyone. One ring of the party-line telephone and she’d be getting in the car. With me hesitating on the steps of her farmhouse, she’d look back and say, “Be a come-with gal.” And even though it sounded like a horrible thing to do — this garage sale, this coffee in the church basement, this visitation at the funeral home– she would continue to smile at me, and the curl of her upper lip cartoon-pulled at my t-shirt, and soon I’d be getting in the car. 

“Oh, it’s gonna be great,” she said, talking over the farm report on the radio. I loved her and I wanted to be convinced. Only Paul Harvey could stop the sell. We rolled up the windows and listened. 

Each event itself would have been, well, uneventful, but it was the time with my grandma that made it so special. Everyone knew her. From the moment she entered a room, or a lawn, the words, “Oh, Elsie…” rang through the crowd. All I could do was watch the show. I marveled at the fun she was having. More than anyone else it seemed. I guess it was because she had already decided while opening the car door, that she was going to have a good time. All worries and expectations flew out the window. Her extra wide house shoes turned into ruby slippers and she was determined to have some fun. 

It’s easy to forget. The mundane tasks of grocery and hardware can seem like a drudgery at times. Dominique will ask if I want to go to Leroy Merlin (our version of Home Depot) and it feels like it would be so easy to turn away. But then I see her. Hear her smiling. “I’m a come-with gal,” I say, and get in the car.

If she missed a day, I didn’t see it. I think she heard the voice that called daily, to come along for the ride. I wake up to the morning, smile, and listen.

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