Jodi Hills

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


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The light between rooms.

I’ve yet to capture it on film. (But certainly in the shutter of my heart.) Some call it golden hour. And I suppose, as glorious as it is, it’s not that uncommon, but in this house I live, at this one certain time, I have witnessed this light between rooms, not only shine and illuminate, but bend. 

It’s just a small window in the sewing room, Grandma Elsie’s sewing room, but when the hour is golden, the light thrusts through every pane. And you may think thrust is too strong, but wouldn’t it have to in order to bounce off of two doors, across the hallway and land beautifully upon the painting of the children at the beach? It’s almost as if it knows the destination, knows how deserving they are of the light. 

It doesn’t last long, but spectacular rarely needs a lot of time to make its point. It’s in these tiny, well lit moments that I remember how lucky we are. How we are given everything we need, and more! How even in our struggles of darkness, in our failed attempts to reach all that shines…with obstacles lining the way — magically, joyfully, light bends. Golden. 


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Knee deep enthusiasm.

For my thirteenth birthday my mother gifted me a set of starter golf clubs purchased from the Sears catalog. No one in our family golfed, that I knew of…but that never stopped me before. Neither had they painted a picture, nor written a poem, so the ship that housed the fear of the unknown had already sailed, and I made my way to the golf course. 

She could afford the junior summer membership at Arrowwood. Not a second of which could be wasted, she picked me up on her 30 minute lunch break and drove me to the course, slowing down the light blue Chevy Malibu station wagon just long enough for me to drag the emerald green cotton golf bag from the rear, loaded with six catalog clubs. 

I knocked my way solo from tee to woods to pond to green. Smiling with each stroke under the summer sun. On the weekends, if she wasn’t too tired, or mostly I suppose, even if she was, she walked the nine holes with me. And even when my ball ended with a splash or a ricochet, she marveled and said, “I can’t believe you hit it that far!” And she was the first in pond or forest to retrieve my short supply of balls. 

I think of it, her, as I struggle with my morning French lesson. If today were a golf course, I would be momentarily demoralized by my working class swing, that is, until I see her, and I do see her, her knee deep enthusiasm from the pond, hand raised overhead with ball, yelling, “I’ve got this! You’ve got this!” What can I do but keep trying! I, we, in everything we do, owe it to those who came before us, who walked beside us — we have to keep trying!