Jodi Hills

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

Category Archives: on her way


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Newsprint and Windex.

.

It was only an hour each weekday. After school. I’d get off the bus at around 3:30pm and wait. Two picture windows faced our driveway. Some days, I could be distracted by The Brady Bunch, but the majority of those 60 minutes before my mom came home from work was spent waiting against those windows.

They taught us at Washington Elementary not to touch the glass windows that lined our classroom, because it was the janitor who would have to clean the windows dailly. And we didn’t want to make his job harder, did we? But seeing how it was my job to clean the windows at home each Thursday afternoon with newspaper and Windex, I wasn’t that concerned. I fogged the glass with my breath. Drew smiley faces. Smeared them away. Blew again. Then sad faces. Erased and blew. Challenged myself to tic-tac-toe. Continuously smearing cheek and fingers across the glass. Waiting. And waiting.

The gravel road always gave sufficient warning. The sound of the tires popping at 4:37pm would tell me that my mom was about to arrive. I’d hoist my top above my waist and wipe the window. Race to the garage entry. Fling the door. And I was saved.

She never mentioned it — the streaked glass. But of course she must have known. It wasn’t like my t-shirt wipe gave a proper cleaning. But that’s who she was — the person who allowed me to be me. Never made fun of my silly antics. She saw me. And loved me.

I smiled each Thursday afternoon as I took last week’s Echo and wiped it across the pane. It sparkled clean along with my heart. A fresh start. All waiting’s worries were washed away.

I see it now. So clearly. I thought she was saving me, daily, and she did, but even more importantly, she gave me the ability to save myself. A gift I continue to use. I smile out my morning window, and I am saved.

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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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Field trip.

It wasn’t my usual kind of podcast, but it came on as I was walking. I half listened as I searched for asparagus. It was something about bats. Rabies. Shots. The woman said she had to get the shots just because a bat was in her house. The doctor said the teeth of the bats are so small you won’t even wake up if they bite you in your sleep. I searched the ground for green stems. And then they said something about rabies in your system. That it could last for a year? Or did they say years? How long? Like decades, or a couple years? I was really worried now. Really listening. Because surely we were all exposed, if not bitten, in the complete darkness of Crystal Cave on our fifth grade field trip.

The teachers were so excited as they passed out the permission slips. My first thoughts were, “Here we go again…” I can’t say there was actually one paper I ever wanted my mother to sign. Each one sent us off to the deep woods. A cave. A bog. Stomping. Roaming. Through fields covered in snow. In darkness. Sometimes both. 

I brought the paper home reluctantly. Dangling it out the bus window, hoping… Crumpling it in my pocket. My mother pulled it out in the laundry. “Oh, you forgot this…” she said. “Forgot…” I thought. “So you’re going to Crystal Cave?” she asked. “I don’t have to,” I thought. “Well, that sounds like, you know, fun…” she tried to convince both of us. (Knowing full well it was something she would never enjoy.) “Or a nightmare,” I said under my breath. “What’s that?” she asked. “Nothing,” I said. “Fun, I guess.” She took that awful pen and signed it, almost apologetically. “We’ll go to the mall this weekend,” she said, touching my face.

I laid awake the night before the field trip. Still trying to think of ways to get out of it. What were my symptoms for strep throat? Mono. People got mono all the time. I was a terrible liar. I kissed my mother goodbye, as if going off to war, and got on the bus.

As far as I know, we all survived. But there were bats. Lined up on the side of the cave. I know I saw them. We could have all been bitten by those silent killers. I googled Crystal Cave after coming home from my walk. They are still open. Still in business. If lots of fifth graders had died, surely they would have shut the place down. Maybe we were safe after all. Still…

I hear dogs howling this morning. They are hunting wild boar. In the woods, on the side of the small mountain (large hill) I walk each day. Apparently we have a surplus. I saw the signs posted yesterday. It sounds exactly like something we would have ridden to see in a big yellow school bus. I smile. And give myself permission to find my own path. My own way. 

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