Jodi Hills

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

Category Archives: neighbor


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On Walking.

I was in the fifth grade when I did my first Walk for Humanity. I’m not certain I knew what it meant, but I took the pledge sheet and walked around our neighborhood to get signatures and promises. Maybe it was a nickel a mile. Ten cents. A quarter. Maybe this was the most “human” part of it all. This neighborhood knew me. Knew the strength of my legs. Had watched me run the field, ride the bike, and so they said things like, “Of course you’ll make it, I know you’re going to do it.” And if I’m honest, it was the only humanity I was thinking of when I walked the miles that Saturday morning. These were my people. They knew my bedtime. The call of my mother. My wave from the bottom of the hill to the top. How my blonde hair whipped in the wind. And I didn’t want to let them down. 

It was a rainy morning. I was fueled with Captain Crunch, and no knowledge of how far ten miles actually was. I had flat bumper tennis shoes and jeans purchased from Herberger’s basement. I was soaked from rain, puddles, and possibly a few tears at about mile eight. I had no idea where we were, but for the marked signs and groups of teenagers that I followed. I had to go to the bathroom so badly, but I was too shy to enter any house that offered those services for the day. I didn’t know them. This wasn’t Van Dyke Road. I had no idea how to even get back to Van Dyke Road. All I wanted was an open screen door that I recognized — like our resident neighborhood Grandma Dynda — a grandma that no one was related to, but who’s door was always open to kitchen and bathroom. What would she think of me if I quit? I couldn’t quit. I kept walking. Even Mrs. Muzik pledged for me. We couldn’t walk on her lawn, but she was paying me to walk across this new humanity. I kept walking. 

I wet my pants around mile nine. But no one noticed because I was already soaked. I never told anyone. People were so proud of me when I went to collect the money on Sunday that I forgot about it. They tousled my hair and filled my pockets with change and a few dollar bills. I don’t know if the tiny bit of money I raised made any difference at all to the cause, but for me, it was a fortune. I was rich in my neighborhood. This sea of humanity. 

My pledges are different now. Along with my neighborhood. But I keep walking. Hopes remaining ever high. 

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Answering Frank.

It still surprises me the amount of candy one could receive just by donning an old pair of sweatpants and a paper sack from Olson’s Supermarket over your head. Even if we would have had the money, I’m not sure it would have occurred to us to buy a costume. Surely better results could not have been achieved with a store-bought mask. Nor could it have been used as a backup sack when your premier trick or treating bag, also a sack from Olson’s, became filled, or the handles ripped off. Because the women of VanDyke road, and just beyond by the cemetery, would indeed fill your bag. Homemade popcorn balls. Carmeled apples. Full-size Hershey bars. Cookies. We said “Trick or Treat” with full confidence. We were only “treated.” 

It would be hard to imagine now, I suppose. But it was real. Mrs.Vacek, beyond grandma old, opened her door, and walked us past the linoleum porch to sit at the kitchen table. Frank, her husband, perhaps only feigning affection, still managed to sit at the table, head in hand, and asked us one by one, not the standard question of “who are you supposed to be,” but he asked, “Who do you belong to?” “Oh, Frank,” Mrs. Vacek would say, knowing full well who we were. “The green house, on Van Dyke road,” I would reply. (Not completely comprehending, although we had walked far in the early setting sun, we were still on Van Dyke road.) Each of us responded with the like — the yellow house, the white house… Because we belonged here – in this neighborhood, in these houses, on this road. A real community, that was the real treat, I guess. We belonged.

It’s what I wish for you. For all. On this, and every day, that you have an easy answer to Frank’s question. Happy Halloween!

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Waiting for Phyllis Norton.

It wasn’t surprising that my mother had to drive Phyllis Norton at full speed down Van Dyke road to Douglas County hospital to have her baby. The surprising part was that she only had to do it once. Mrs. Norton did have five girls after all.

I’m not sure if they were rules of law, or just the rules of the neighborhood, but people respected them either way, and drove slowly on the gravel. On the rare occassion that you saw the billowing of dust behind a vehicle, you knew something had to be wrong. It was this sort of knowledge that was the firm structure on which we based our youth. We knew our neighbors. And for better, or worse, we counted on them. And not just to do the heavy lifting, or make the hospital run, but to be who they were. Each of us had our roles. The Norton girls could fill out any team — softball, kickball, kick the can — they had the numbers, and the ever willingness to play. The Schulz boys guarded our behavior. In hindsight, they weren’t bad, but probably just a little wild, and served as a threat if we did something wrong — “Do you want to go live with the Schulz’s?” We didn’t. So we behaved. Our stunt grandparents, both Dynda and Mullen, served as stability. Open screen doors and plates of cookies. Clothes hanging on the line. Constants. The Lees provided our future — our last pick-up on the school bus, they were young and sparkling clean as their mother, Yvonne, with her movie star looks and shift dresses waved us all goodbye. The Spodens came to fill in our missing pieces and hold together the movement that kicked up the gravel one last time.

Does it matter? I can answer this by a dream I had the other night. It was really in the early stages of the morning. The kind of dream that comes after a rough night. The kind of dream that stays with you. In my dream, we lived in a replica of my grandparents’ house here in France. Our house was filled with unknown tourists, struggling with their cellphones. Looking out the kitchen window, I saw someone familiar. I flung open the door and raced toward her yelling in delight for all of France to hear — “Phyllis Norton is here!!!!! Phyllis Norton is here!!!!” I screamed it through our yard. Through our house! And woke up with such joy. Such comfort.

So it did matter. It matters still. We built something. Together. And it remains. Even a lifetime and country away, it supplies a structure of support. A stability of goodness. I carry it with me daily. Count on it. Guard it with my heart. And go to sleep each night, waiting for Phyllis Norton.

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Green-footed

I received a pair of green rain boots for my 7th birthday. We lived in green house on Van Dyke road. It being spring, I vowed to wear them, rain or shine, every day until the grass was the same color. I didn’t know the word palette then, but I knew what I felt, and “how glorious,” I thought, if I could run green-footed in the green grass in front of our green house. 

Spring came as promised, and I, feet blistered, and perhaps a little smelly, was a part of it all. I belonged.

I suppose that’s what we all want — to be a natural part of things. Without the need for invitation, to just belong. And it was, glorious! Glorious to find out that this wasn’t a place at all, but a feeling. A feeling I could not only create, but carry with me, anywhere. 

You can wait your whole life and not receive an invitation. You have to give that to yourself. Step into your own palette. Wake up and say, “I’m here.” Wake up and know that it all matters. That you matter!  

My husband asked me yesterday why I was bringing in his old green rain boots from the garage. “Because you’re part of my palette,” I said. He smiled. We are home. Glorious!

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From rack to mirror.

I often tell the story of the first time Dominique went with my mom and I to Herberger’s. Upon entering the back door, it started — the meet and greet. There’s Jessica from shoes. Hi Jessica! Sue in bras. “The last one fits great!” Oh there’s Carol. “Thanks for the boxes!” “This is the manager,” my mom pointed out. “Oh, hi Claudia — we’ll need to pre-order the Clinique.” Dominique seemed dazed and confused. He whispered in my ear, “I don’t understand?” What? I said – it all seeming so normal. “Is your mom the mayor?” He asked. “Of Herberger’s,” I said, “Yes!”

Some of my best memories are in dressing rooms. Whether it was me, or a complete stranger (of course only upon their urging), my mother was there to help. She would stand just behind your shoulder. Look with you in the three way mirror. And with your very best interests at heart, she would say, “I think we can do better.” And then she was with you – to the very end – from rack to mirror and back again. Until it was just right. No abandonings. Only truth. Only support. Until it was completely beautiful.

I have been told that these sweet memories will someday turn from pain to comfort, and then to complete joy. And I believe it. I have to believe it because I’ve seen it from every angle. This three-way reflection of truth, support and beauty.

I look in this morning’s mirror and smile because I can hear it…I can hear her… “We can do better. We will do better.” She is with me. And it is beautiful!


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Just breathe.

There seemed to be holes everywhere in our neighborhood. Someone was digging a well. Planting a tree. Burying something you preferred not to know about. And as kids, in this neighborhood full of holes, we seemed to be constantly running. Chasing the sun, knowing it would set long before we were ready, and we would be called home.

It was behind our green house that I fell into my first hole. Maybe it was for the sewer pipe, I don’t know, but we were running. I was just a little ahead of Cathy. I turned the corner at full speed, laughing, not looking for danger (I had not yet been exposed). And then, from her perspective, I dropped out of sight. Literally. Flat on my back. I’m not sure who was more surprised. I couldn’t breathe. The wind was knocked out of me. I signaled with my shifting eyes, and head, and somehow she knew, like in every Lassie conversation, to go get a ladder. I say “a ladder,” because in this neighborhood full of holes, there would always be a ladder leaning against someone’s garage door.  By the time she returned, my lungs were once again filled with summer air and I climbed up the wooden rungs. 

Because that’s what we did, you see. We saved each other. And most importantly, I suppose, we offered up the reason to believe that someone would be there for us. And this is what kept us running. For me, it still does. It gives me the strength to keep going, even with the knowledge that life’s path is full of them – these holes that will try to swallow us. I still believe in the kindness of those around me. The ladders that will be offered. The strength to get myself higher. Forever chasing the sun.

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Lucky.

Most of the houses on VanDyke road had screen doors for the summer. There is a freedom in the sound of that screen door gently banging itself shut, because no matter who’s door you were racing through, who’s house you were leaving, you simply ran fearless out into the wild, the wild of a gravel road and more time than our school free minds could imagine… still, we ran, with newly tanned legs, in and out of neighbors’ houses, never looking for cars, or danger of any kind. 

It is something to grow up in a neighborhood. Not just a place where people lived near one another, but a true neighborhood, where you were part of something bigger than yourself. You were part of every home behind each swinging door. You were cared for, and watched over. You were free to roam under every sun, and gathered home each night with your mother’s call from the front stoop. To look, wander, and explore, unafraid, that made us not only rich, but the luckiest kids alive. 

They say if you see a bird looking away from itself, it is a sign of good luck because it means that bird doesn’t feel like it has to protect itself from danger. I suppose that’s what we were — young birds – flitting and flying about Van Dyke Road, never worried, free to look in any direction. 

And then one day, we all flew away, with all of our wildly different high hopes.  

What a gift we were given. These open skies over Van Dyke Road. Sometimes, even now, if the summer breeze gently blows my cares away, I look around without worry, and think, how lucky I was, to learn to fly.

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