Jodi Hills

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

Category Archives: imagination


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Nothing shouted.

The first time I visited New England was with my mother. I was just out of college. Up until then all of my “vacation” time had been used to have surgery. To say we both fell in love immediately would not be an exaggeration. The main street was lined with seemingly freshly painted white houses. Porched and welcoming. A street sweeper (by hand) waved us in. Washed windows revealed the contents. Clothes. Beautiful clothes for sale lived in this house. My mother looked at me and beamed. We walked the white stairs and opened the door. Was that the slight hum of angels singing? Or just my mother’s heart. 

It was all like this – this understated elegance. Lobster on paper plates. Lawns mowed. Cars washed. Nothing gilded. Nothing shouted – it wasn’t necessary, it showed. 

I visited again. Several times. I have never harbored a New England address. And though I may have never actually “there,” I have lived in it, here. 

There are so many gorgeous places around the world. I have been lucky enough to visit so many of them. And as the saying goes, “if you’re lucky enough to be here, you’re lucky enough.” 

I have, in the past, been guilty of waiting — waiting to be happy if I was in the right place. I’m learning, daily, to create those places, those feelings, that joy, that comfort, in the exact place that I am. Making the hotel breakfasts. Dressing up to go to the grocery store. Eating slowly. Seeing the day for the first time, because, aren’t we all? Today is really our vacation from yesterday. Our journey towards tomorrow. I’m going to take those photo opportunities along the way.

The electrician was here the other day. He finished his job. I don’t know his name. But I invited him inside. He vacationed for a few brief moments at our kitchen table. A cup of coffee. A plate of cookies. I smiled, hoping, for these few moments, that maybe I was his New England. He asked where I was from. And, as so many people do, asked which place I liked better, the US or France. How could I explain that I was trying to live in the best of places. That I carried a piece of it all within me. That I was a French breakfast in a New England town. A relic of Rome. Dancing to the joyful music in Spain. Dangling my feet in a summer Minnesota lake. Standing in front of my own painted “Mona Lisa.”  My heart jimbled at the thought. I could hear the angels softly sing, my mother now one of them. “I love it all,” I said. And meant it. 

I’m here. And I am home.

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A passing moo!It was the first language I ever tried to learn — cow. 

Of course the car windows weren’t automatic. We had never even heard of such a thing. You had to turn the handle round and round to make the window go down. (I think I still make the cranking motion to indicate opening a car window.) 

There were lots of fields en route to my grandparent’s farm. Sitting in the back seat of the chevy Impala, I waited to see them — the giant black and white beasts. If I caught a glimpse at 55mph, I cranked the window and urged my mother to slow down. I sucked in a giant breath and mooed out the window. They stopped chewing for one brief moment. Staring at me with such confusion. Almost bewildered by what was coming out of my mouth. 

I stare into that same look quite often here in France. With deep breathed delivery, I converse in what sounds to me like perfect French, but I understand what they are hearing — a passing moo. 

Some days, I really have to crank to return to that childlike confidence. That willingness to open myself to the world around me. To be brave. Vulnerable. Present. 

I suppose we all have to do that for varying reasons. Every day. 

The sun is up. I crank my arm round and round with youthful vigor! I am ready! I am here! Mooooooo!

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The light keeper.

I suppose one could argue that it’s all about the light.

I have no proof. No photographic evidence of the size of the windows at Washington Elementary. But for the gymnasium, every classroom, in my memory, had giant windows. Mrs. Paulson’s 4th grade class overlooked the swings of the playground. The entire back wall of the classroom seemed to be lit up with freedom.

We were just beginning to get duties. Hall, lavatory, and drinking fountain monitors. Those who got to lead the pack to the library. Crosswalk guards. And for most, the highly coveted position of running the movie projector. Don’t get me wrong, I loved movie days, but not for the reason you might think. Sure, the break from the ordinary chalk board lesson was nice. But there was only one duty I wanted. And surprisingly, no one ever challenged me for it. There was no need to squeal, “Oooooh, ooooh, pick me…” under my breath. I was the only one raising my hand when it came to volunteering for shade monitor — the one who got to pull the giant shades before showing the movie. But here’s the most extraordinary part — the one who got to tug those giant sun blocking shades open after the movie, raise them into the sky of the room, hear the flap, flap, flap as they rested at the top, and be first to feel that glorious light streaming in. The glorious flight of swings. Feet racing. Arms swinging. Bodies dangling. Complete freedom. To be the lightkeeper, what an enormous and joyful responsibility. I wanted to be the one to give that to everyone.

I wasn’t wealthy. I couldn’t buy my friends extravagant gifts. Couldn’t invite them to a palatial home. But I could give them this. The light. In my youthful, humble, hopeful mind, the best gift of all.

Maybe that’s what I’m still trying to do. In my writing. My painting. Just for a brief shining moment, be the one who gets to fling open the dark shades, and let you into the light. “OOOOOh, ooooooh! Here it comes! Can you feel it?”

Nighttime makes it final flaps. The light shines through. Good morning!

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Further.

As the extreme heat continues in southern France, I can hear her voice. “Just sit quietly,” Mrs. Erickson said, pulling down the long black shades of our third grade classroom windows. Returning from the heat of recess under a sun that grew stronger bouncing off the black paved playground. A sun that said, “Come on, it’s almost summer, just stay, play a little longer!” But she rang the bell and we dragged our feet inside Washington Elementary. Sticky thighs against the wood seats, we wriggled and squirmed. We could barely sit, and quietly seemed impossible. “Just relax,” she urged. “Lay your heads down on your desk.” We placed our sweat-slicked hair on arms folded across desktops. The whispering began. Heads bobbing with playground secrets that needed to be released.

“Shhhhhhhh…” she said from the front of the class. “Think of the water,” she said. Living in the land of 10,000 lakes, it was fairly easy to bring to mind your favorite lake. Our heart rates slowed as she described the waveless water. The calm of the blue. The coolness, first on tippy toes. Then ankles and shins. Cooler still on thighs. We smiled flat cheeked on our desks. “Will you go further?” she asked. We shook our faces. “Whoop!” she exclaimed, “Up to your waist!”

Completely distracted now from the heat, as our ever-coiffed, nyloned and dressed teacher had “whooped” just for us. “Go all the way under,” she said. For me it was Lake Latoka. I held my breath and went down, down, down. It was so cool. “Look at everything,” she said. “The fish, the rocks…” And we did. For ten minutes we swam from the calmness of our desks.

She led us slowly back to shore. Lifted our heads. And then, no pun intended, dove into the math lesson of the day.

Whenever I think of my favorite teachers, I think of the question, “Will you go further?” Because that’s what they did for us. Daily. Took us beyond the lessons, into the living. It’s a question I continue to ask. In love, and trust, and hope, and forgiveness, in curiousity, creativity and knowledge — I want to go further! I want us all to go further.

If you want it too — maybe you can join me — all together now — Whoop!

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Phone!!!!!!!!

It’s not true to say we didn’t play with our grandma’s phone. Not the way children do now. We weren’t prompted with apps, or videos, but we did have fun!

There was only one telephone in this house that raised nine children. And it was a party line (meaning the neighbors also used it.) The chord for the receiver rested in a heap on the kitchen floor. It had to be long. It had to stretch through the kitchen to the stairs. I suppose we could have set the receiver down and then walked up the stairs to yell at grandma in the sewing room, but instead, when getting a call, we clutched the phone to our chest and walked it and the cord as far as it would go, disappearing all the coils to a flat line. Grandma would then waddle the call. Pull the receiver from our sweaty hands and “talk on swede” so we couldn’t understand. It was so exotic. It was all my cousins and I could do to not to crawl through the line and enter this magical world. Instead, when grandma was off the phone, we would sneak back and hope to listen in on the neighbor’s conversation. I don’t know how she knew, but she always did — yelling at us from the sewing machine, “Hang up the phone.” We hung it up, but did the next best thing, taking turns wrapping ourselves up like mummies in the coil of the cord. Standing on the “lazy susan” we could spin ourselves free, until someone threw up from the dizzy.  We didn’t have the internet, but oh, the places we went on that single landline.

I was listening to a podcast the other day while going for a walk. It would have been hard to imagine that one day my phone could be with me, miles from home. The magic is still dizzying. The podcast expert was comparing the progression of our times. Unfortunately we have not made the advances proportionate to our advantages. And it got me thinking, questioning, am I? Am I doing the best with what I have? I hope so. I want to! I want to be as curious as I was when the coil of the phone wrapped around my face. When I could travel in time and space with only my imagination. There is so much still for all of us to learn. To experience. We just can’t lose sight of the magic. 

The morning sun is ringing off the hook!  I race to the day, yelling “Phone!!!!!!!!” 

Answer the call.

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A part of it all.

It’s one of the first lessons they taught us at Washington Elementary. One that I keep having to learn.

Mrs. Strand told us to sit in a circle. We wriggled our way next to our best friend of the day. Up and down. Crawling on hands and knees. Maneuvering. Pushing. Wedging our way into position. Mrs. Strand had the patience of a saint. Finally, when we shaped ourselves into something nearing a circle, Mrs. Strand told us the game — “Whisper around the World.” What did she say? (Because in fact, she did whisper it.) She said it softly again. “Whisper around the World.” And because our world was contained within these four walls, we thought for sure we would excel at it.

She would begin by whispering a sentence into a student’s ear. That student would then repeat it into the ear of the next student in the circle, and so on, until it reached the last person, and then that last person would say it out loud. Words were passed, between snorts and giggles. Laughter and spit. And more words. Other words. We leaned in close. Leaned over in delight. The last person said the sentence out loud. Then Mrs. Strand said the actual sentence. Not even close. Not one word was the same. At first it was hysterical. Then we did it again. “This time we were really going to try,” we thought. We never got it right.

I suppose the lessons were multiple. And because we hadn’t yet developed the cynicism that age can bring, we still believed it was possible. If we really tried. If we paid attention. If we asked questions. If we went to the source. Our source was a tall, soon to be pregnant with twins, woman at the front of the class. When she told us something. We heard it. We believed it. “The truth can always be found,” she told us, “if you go to the source.”

I understand today, that even hearing the words is sometimes not enough. I’ve learned to stop and ask the questions. Not just “what did you say,” but “what did you mean when you said…”

Now being actually “around the world,” it’s even more important. Distance. Time. Texting. Emailing. They can all be as easily misconstrued as a passing snort. Maybe it’s naive, but I still believe. I still believe we can get there. We can see the humor in our mistakes. And come together, with all of our ill-shaped good intentions, we can whisper our way to the truth, and be a part of it all.

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Jelly Beans.

We often met in St. Cloud. It was half way for both of us. Just an hour for each. We tried on clothes. Praised our figures. Three-way laughed in mirrors. Had lunch slowly. Splurging with a glass of wine, while going over what we did or didn’t buy. Then lattes at Caribou or Barnes and Noble. And if the season provided, off we went to Walgreens to get the candy of choice, like Jelly Bird Eggs this time of year. 

Loosened, comforted, caffeinated, she headed north and I headed south. It was less than half an hour before I called her at the designated mark on the freeway. Pleasureland. I think they sold motorhomes. I just liked the name. When she picked up her cell phone, I got to say, “I’ve reached Pleasureland.” “I’m still lonesome,” she said. “Me too.” Then I could hear her reach inside the sack of candy. It was glorious how love made sweet and sad the same. 

We lived through it all on that route. I wrote my first book in that car, on that journey. We lived through breakups and family members passing. Weddings. Events to plan for. Outfits to buy for them. We laughed and cried on that freeway. Gathering all of our experiences. And it all got simply blended into love.

I navigate through the laughter and tears now. But daily I hear the call. She’s telling me, “I’ve reached Pleasureland.” My heart, all glorious with love, I reply, “I’m still lonesome.” She replies, “Have a jelly bean.”

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You don’t have to blend to belong.

Our jeans were impossible to get off. We cinched the cuff. Rolled it a little. Then took safety pins to secure our coolness. Problems soon arose. Gym class. To change your clothes in the allotted five minutes was nearly impossible. This, combined with the fact that everyone was doing it — and how were we really “cool,” or different if the whole school waddled in the safety of being pinned? — made me quit the fad rather quickly.

I suppose I’ve never been one to blend. Maybe we think there is security in numbers. But to be lost in a crowd, is still being lost. And I’m not saying it’s easy, but it’s oh so necessary. Oh so rewarding. To make your own way. Your own path. To follow it. And to allow yourself to veer. And those that are meant to walk with you will find their way. Without pulling or prodding. And that journey will be more than cool – it will be magical. Every step of the way.

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At play.

I’m not sure we ever finished a game. There was softball. And kickball. And kick the can. And freeze tag. Regular Tag. One game morphed into the next in the empty field between our house and Dynda’s. With five girls, the Norton’s made it possible to do almost anything. If they showed up, teams were easily made. And that’s really all any of us had to do — just show up. Balls. Bats. Even bikes waited patiently in the grass, or the curb of the gravel road.

If we did keep some kind of score, it was forgotten. Erased by front stoop calls to dinner, or the dark of night. When I think back, it may be one of the greatest lessons I received in humanity. In love.

As we get older, we think we have to do something – and even worse – do the “right thing.” When someone is going through a difficult period, we struggle. “I don’t know what to say.” “I don’t know what to do.” We search for answers or solutions. But as with most things, we were given the tools from the start. We knew what to do. It turns out, it still holds true. All we have to do is show up. Be there for each other. Forgetting all the scores, remembering only to reach out an imperfect, sweaty, grass stained hand, and just be… together.

My lot is trampled. Sure. Worn even. For this I am blessed. My heart is at play. And I will never finish loving you.

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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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