Jodi Hills

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

Category Archives: path


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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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Daring greatly.

It seemed easy to make friends in school. They sat you next to about 30 options. Gave you subjects to talk about. Offered common enemies like rules and detention. Supplied the games and gyms. Put you in pools and on buses, all together.

And that was enough for most. But it seemed like there should be more. “Wasn’t there more to it? Wasn’t it all supposed to mean something?” I asked my best friend in my yellow bedroom on Van Dyke Road. Cindy thought about it. I mean, she didn’t laugh, but really thought about it, and I suppose that’s why we were friends. We understood each other. Even in our preteens, we sought more than they could possibly offer at Washington Elementary, or even Central Junior High.

We both agreed that there had to be more. But how did you get it? That was the bigger question. I searched for years. I can’t tell you the exact moment. They came in whispers. Small bits. I wrote words for my mother. And we connected deeply. A poem for my grandfather’s funeral. And I was a part of a family. I began to expose my heart. I suppose I stopped looking for what could be offered to me, and began to offer what I had. And it was bigger! Better! It meant something! It meant all and more than I had dreamed of in shades of yellow. This is how I would connect. How I still connect.

He said I could pick out anything from his wood pile. Maybe that doesn’t sound like much, but for me it was priceless. A way for us to connect. And I had a long way to travel to catch up to this life-long friend of my husband. He helped me load the back of our car.

I cut the first strips of wood to stretch the canvas. No plans yet of what to paint, that would come. It always does if I just give it a path. I gessoed the canvas. And began in blue. The sea and sky and sand opened before me. The boats and nets and the fishermen — all daring greatly.

I searched my newly attained wood pile for the longest, straightest pieces. Sanded each length. And sanded again. And again. I cut them to length. Nailed them with the rusted hammer — once belonging to my husband’s father. Squared. Stained. Sanded again. Cut the strips for the backing. Placed the painting inside. It should also be mentioned that Michel, the man who let me pick freely from his pile of wood, was, for the majority of his life, a fisherman. A fisherman, I pause and smile. The blank canvas knew, perhaps even before I did. And this is how we connect. Connect our hearts. Our stories. By doing the work.

There is more. There is always more. But it won’t be given. We will have to search and throw our nets out to sea, continuously doing the work, ever daring greatly.

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The path.

I guess it’s the whole “if a tree falls in the forest…” thing, but I was thinking, does anything really happen if it’s not shared?

I began writing and painting at 5 years old. I would go into my room, and come out and present it to my mother — each chubby hand gripping the sides of the paper — as if I were offering the precious cargo of my heart, and I suppose I was. Because that’s the way she treated it, the way she treated me. And then it became real. Whatever I made was validated, and in a way, I became real too. No gift has stayed with me as long as this.

We drove to the Alps yesterday to see friends. They do not live in a palace, but for me, it seemed as such — because he built most of his home with his hands. And he was proud of it. And it was real. There was a pile of wood next to his garage, and for me, that seemed like a pile of gold. (Wood is scarce and expensive here, and I need it to stretch canvases and make frames.) He said I could take whatever I wanted. And I did. We filled the car with wood and possibility and I’m still smiling.

On the road I took a video of the mountains and countryside. I sent it to my mom. She said she felt like she was with us in the car, and of course she was.

I called my friend Sheila when we got home. I showed her the bag of treasures we purchased at the L’Occitane factory, (half way stop on the trip). I showed her the haul, and she gushed as only a true friend can, and when I lit the first candle and applied the hand cream, it was all real, so very real.

I write each day, still with the chubby little hands of youth, and offer my heart. Life is so much better when it is shared.

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