Jodi Hills

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

Category Archives: self care


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Hand held possibilities.

I don’t know that I was necessarily being so “good,” but that’s how it was interpreted. My grandma used to marvel — “I could just put you down, and that’s where you’d stay until I told you that you could move again — such a good kid!” 

I remember her roll-top desk. She plopped me in the chair. I could just reach the handle. It made a little thwapping sound as I pushed it up and then back down. I thought it was the greatest thing, riding this wave, the greatest thing that is until I caught a glimpse of what was inside. Pens and paper and my favorite, the pencil. I loved pencils from the moment I discovered them. The smell of the lead. The feel between my chubby fingers. The newness. Everything was just waiting to be created. I don’t know how long I held the pencil before she noticed me, rubbing it between my fingers as if to will the genie from the bottle, but she wiped her dish soaked hands against her apron and reached the scrap paper from the top shelf.

Tiny squares of white. Some blank. Some with abandoned grocery lists. I covered them all. Scribbles and drawings and near words. I was in heaven. I could have stayed forever. Was I being good? I was being me. 

It should come as no surprise, whenever visiting a museum or landmark, my go-to souvenir is the pencil. I have a favorite — from the Pierre Soulages museum. The weight. The feel. Perfection. I use it in my sketchbooks. But truth be told, I often just hold it in my hand for a moment. And on those days when the world, the day, decides to plop me in an unfamiliar place, I hold on. I take comfort in all of these hand-held possibilities, and I smile, because I find myself saying, “I’m good.”  

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Tools.

I was always pretty certain that Monday would come. It surprised me, this wild abandonment that some of the other children had on Friday afternoon’s bus. How easily they jumped on the green pleather seats and flung every care out the rectangular windows — betting that Saturday would last forever, or somehow Sunday would come to the rescue. 

I suppose a bit of me envied it. But not enough to not finish my homework on Friday afternoon. And it wasn’t like someone was forcing me. I felt no pressure from my mother or friends. I had found my own way of setting myself free. Once the work was done, I could enjoy my Saturday. Take away Sunday’s panic. I didn’t have the words for it then, but it was definitely self care. 

All of the routines that I had made for myself in Minneapolis flew out the bus window when I moved to France. Practices and solutions all needed to be changed. Modified. Easily sending me into a frenzied Sunday on any day of the week. “But this is how I used to do it… But why can’t I…” It takes me a minute to give up the argument, but when I do, I can usually find a new solution. 

As with most things, I was given the tools long ago. I just have to remember to use them. And I want to keep learning. Changing. Growing. Keep giving to myself, in my own peculiar way, the ability to feel Saturday’s wind in my hair, Sunday’s “there, there…” and all the possibility that Monday can bring. 

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Finding Cottagewood.

I was never one to Thelma and Louise it. Push it way too far. Not with my car. Not with myself. I tried to keep both “tanks” filled. I wasn’t always successful, but my self care was knowing when to pull over.

My friend Deb and I had a favorite place — Cottagewood. When life, love, work, got a bit too much, and meeting for coffee just wasn’t enough, we would take the 10 minute trip from the city, and back in time, to this simple, slow, beautiful place. Only one general store, one gas pump, and a few easy steps to the sandy beach. Nestled in Deephaven, Minnesota, it was indeed just that. Kids played in the street. Birds sang. Squirrels squirreled. We sipped and laughed. Slowly. And time had no choice but to gather in beside us on the wooden bench. 

Perhaps that sounds all too easy, but shouldn’t it be? Shouldn’t we all have a place of rescue — our last chance Texaco to refuel before getting on the road? I think we need it. 

In moving a country away, I knew I wouldn’t be able to visit. So I painted a piece of it. The gas pump now rests in our French home. A haven of sorts. 

I took Dominique to see the real pump. Kids were playing outside. A young girl was twirling round and round in her driveway, explaining to her young brother that before he shot the basketball he need to spin. He was having none of it. A squirrel ran away as the basketball rolled into the streets with no cars. We walked to the sandy beach — the beach slowly waiting for summer’s return. It would come soon enough.

I know it’s a Monday, but maybe as you rush head first into the week, you can take a minute. Find your Cottagewood. Pull over and just listen. 

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Still. And again.

In Mrs. Strand’s kindergarten class at Washington Elementary, there wasn’t a problem that sitting still couldn’t solve. If we were too hot, “Sit still,” she would say softly. Too excited. Too nervous. Too tired. Too anything. We solved it all by sitting quietly at our desks. In the saving grace of her whisper, we knew everything would be ok.

I listen for her voice, still, and still. Those calming words that told us not to run away from it, but just be in it. I think we often get afraid to feel. We want to fight it. Push it away. Outrun it on the playground. It’s a lesson I’m still learning. Even knowing it. Living it. Creating it on the canvas, I still have to keep learning. But she was right, Mrs. Strand. And when I allow myself to just feel it, calmly, trusting the words that my five year old self found to be true, it is then that I can breathe, recover and become. I can love, still, and again.

I sit in this morning whisper, and know everything will be ok.

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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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Barefoot and pajamaed.

“When the barn catches fire, I am wearing the wrong negligee…” Maxine Kumin (from her poem The Longing to be saved.)

My mother’s first fire was not on the farm where she was growing up, but the dorm of her school. She didn’t want to go away to this school, but her parents were sending her older brother Ron because it was an Ag School (meaning it finished the courses early in the year so the students could go back to work on their family farms.) It was less than an hour away by car, but with no phones, no form of communication whatsoever, the distance felt unbearable. 

Of course the fire started at the beginning of the week, not long after she was dropped off. There would be no contact with her parents until the end of the week when they came to pick her up. Forced to run from the burning dormitory, to save herself, she had to leave everything behind. She stood outside in her pajamas as the flames lit the northern sky. The neighboring dorm was saved. She was able to borrow clothes during the week from another reluctant farm girl. Returning them to her lender Friday afternoon, she stood at the school’s entrance in her pajamas, waiting for her mother.

Not many words were exchanged in that long car ride home. But she was allowed to go back to her high school in town the next year.

It wasn’t her last fire. Literally or figuratively. Through the years she would be asked to run from life’s flames and save herself. To save me. And she did it, never out of fashion.

She loved poetry. She would have loved this poem. I wish I could have found it sooner. We would have read it together. Word by word. Over and over. Laughing. Crying. Saving each other. Again and again. 

I miss her. So much. Some days the embers feel too close as I stand “barefoot and pajamaed.” But then a sweet memory appears, of joy, of laughter, of love, and I feel her car pull up into heart’s view. And I am saved.

Let’s get dressed for the day!

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Where bluebirds fly.

For me it’s like meditation. To focus on just the canvas. The paint. My hand. Put down what I need to see. What I need to feel. And let it come to life.

The bluebird has long been seen as the harbinger of happiness. Its origins may date back thousands of years. In Chinese mythology. Native American folklore. European fairy tales. The bluebird is everywhere. I suppose we all want to be happy. We would do well to remember this.

It wasn’t until recently that I noticed it. I’ve sung it a thousand times, “Somewhere over the rainbow.” But it became so clear when I was painting. Humming along. “…where bluebirds fly.” Maybe it’s because I was a child when I watched The Wizard of Oz. Maybe it was because it was in my grandparents’ living room. But with this childlike brain, I thought, if the bluebirds were always spreading this happiness, they had to fill themselves with it, go somewhere to gather it in — over the rainbow, for example. And if they did, allow themselves this time, then they would have something to give. 

I want to be that bluebird. I hope it is in us all to want to spread this joy. But to do that, we need to allow ourselves the time to gather it in. For me that is painting. For you, it might be baking, or gardening. Reading. Or actual meditation. Wherever your “over the rainbow” is, you need to allow yourself the time to visit. Gather all the happiness in your beautiful wings. Then, only then, I think, can you truly fly.

So if they ask you today, “Where are you going?” Smile, and reply, “Where bluebirds fly.”

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Something cracked, something broken.


The first time I wore plaster was in the fifth grade. I broke my arm ice skating during the Valentine’s Day party. I waited patiently in the nurse’s office of Washington Elementary. My mom came from work and drove us to the clinic. The sleeve of my winter coat dangled from the left side as I breathed in the antiseptic smell. My mother touched my knee so I would stop kicking the bed as we waited for the doctor to return with the xrays. He clicked the black sheets into the light that hung on the wall and said, “See right here… that’s where it’s broken.” We both agreed, but I’m not sure either one of us saw it. He dipped the strips of plaster and wrapped it warmly around my arm. It was as white as his coat. “Tomorrow all your friends can sign it,” he said. Oh, he didn’t have to tell me. That was the only thing I was looking forward to. I barely slept through the night.

Maybe the teachers gave them the permanent markers. They must have. Soon I was encircled with eager fifth graders, armed with all colors of opened Sharpies. Almost high from the smell and the attention, I presented my open canvas and each kid fought for the prime real estate of my cast. 

I don’t know how we knew. But we all did. Maybe it was a right of passage. This ritual. This coming together over something cracked, something broken. It was so beautiful. It would have felt no different had they lifted me above their heads and passed me around the classroom. 

It happens less frequently now. And maybe with less fanfare. Maybe it’s because the wounds get less visible when we’re older. Maybe our collective groups get smaller. But I consider myself lucky. Blessed. I still have those people in my life who surround me with support. Sometimes with just a few words, but they fit into the prime real estate of my heart and fill it. And I am lifted, with a permanent high. 

All we have to do is be good to each other. Be there, for something cracked. Something broken.

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All overmixed paint turns to brown.

You can see it in a painting. In a poem. When it’s just trying too hard. Overworked. Exhausted. It sucks the beauty right out of it.

I called her Grandma Lois. We weren’t related, but for the love of painting. She was hovering in her eighties. Still brush in hand. I offered my youth. She offered her experience. Our palettes combined. She told me the hardest thing for her had always been learning when to stop. To look at what she had painted and say, this is good – what I’ve created – it’s enough. To learn, and create again — that was the real beauty, she said. We smiled. Painted. Connected.

On canvas, I have learned this. It’s harder in real life. There are some people with whom you think, if I just tried a little harder, maybe if I was just a little brighter, better — if I was just more beautiful, inside and out, maybe they would see me. All overmixed paint turns to brown. Some people just won’t see you. And you have to walk away. Step aside and say, what I offered, it was enough.

Surround yourself with those who can see it. Can see you. In the purest, most simple strokes. Wow – to sit in that beauty – that beauty of being. Knowing your all, their all, is more than enough. Not gasping, just breathing. This, I think, is the art of loving, of living. This is good. This is beautiful.

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A soft touch.

The dentist told me that I’m brushing my teeth too hard. That was humbling. You’d think after brushing my teeth this long, I would know how to do it. “Doucement,” she said. (Meaning gently.)

When they say it never rains here, it’s not like the song…we live in one of the sunniest parts of the world. It’s in my nature not to waste it. While the sun is shining I think, “I can do this, and this, and don’t forget… keep going…” And I like it. I enjoy it. I need it. But once in a while, it’s in my best interest to just slow down a little. The universe, being much more wise, saw that maybe it was time for me to be calm. But it took a darkening of the skies, and a few loud rumbles to make it happen.

I turned on my desk lamp. Opened my sketchbook. Took out the colored pencils. Rolled them through my fingers. I like the sound of the wood clinking with possibility. I sketched out a bird. Slowly. Colored in it’s wings. Feathers. Found a pastel stick to create the white areas. Pastels require the softest of touch. Doucement. And there was my bird. My gentle, little, rainy day bird.

Sometimes we are hardest on ourselves. Impatient. Unforgiving. And we need a little reminder to be gentle. Take this bird to be just that. And be kind today — to yourself. Hold the pastel of your heart softly, without judgement, and know that it’s not wasteful to be still. It’s healthy, necessary. Doucement, my friends…Doucement.

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