Jodi Hills

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

Category Archives: strength


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Without fuss or fury.

If the truth has to come at you like a ton of bricks, maybe it really isn’t the truth at all.

Grandpa Rueben didn’t say a lot, but when he did, we believed him. He was one of the hardest working people I ever knew, (other than Grandma Elsie), yet I never saw him labor with the facts. There was a quiet certainty that rose from his overalls. His right elbow raised from the table. His open hand began with the slightest of beats. Like a conductor, his rhythm held our eyes. Chosen carefully, the words, without fuss or fury, slipped into our hearts and minds and filled them.

I suppose that’s why today, if it comes at me too hard, I can’t let it in. It’s only noise. There are some who think if you say it loud enough, repeat it again and again, then it must be true. I still am of the belief that the real work has to remain in the fields. The truth, when balanced on the uneven legs of the kitchen table at day’s end, should come lightly, easily, ever without harm.

It only just occurred to me — they often say before you speak, take a beat. I smile. I see Grandpa’s hand gently keeping time, and my heart knows what’s real.

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Vikings in Wyoming.



I heard her before I saw her. The greeting came from the back of the store. I scanned through the Wyoming t-shirts and could see nothing but cowboys. “Here I am,” she said. I followed the voice below the racks this time, and I saw her — the tiniest woman, her smile actually bigger than her shoulders. I could see she was still tethered to the oxygen tank at the back of the store, but that was not going to stop her. She seemed genuinely delighted that we were there. She started with the usual questions, what brings you to town, where are you from… After we said France, the gates were opened! She had been to France, even to our area. She and her husband had taken their children. She was so proud that – as it should be! Before she told us she was 90, she made sure of the important things — like she was educated, she loved learning, she was still curious, and she loved to read. I said I loved to read as well, and she was off to the back room again to get her latest book — a hard cover, at least three pounds, about Vikings. She handed it to me, and told me I just had to read it! After taking a picture for a reminder, I asked if I should bring the book back to her office. “Oh no, she said, I may be 90, but I’m healthy — we were all looking at the green tube that connected her to the back room… “Oh, I shrunk so much that my esophagus and stomach are in my lungs, but I’m still strong. I love life.” She told us how she follows the news. Follows politics. Wants to know what is happening in the world. I couldn’t stop smiling at her — this 4’ 10” Viking amid the cowboy t-shirts.

It’s funny what we romanticize. Who we call our heroes. Who we think of as strong and brave. It is so easy to get lost in the cowboys of it all, when the real people worthy of our admiration our walking right beside us, in the racks. I mention it only so you will look around. Or maybe so you will brave the tether and let others see you.

She marveled at how tall I was, but I knew that she was the real Viking. I told her what a pleasure it had been to speak with her. Her story may not make the brochures. Maybe there is more to see in Cheyenne, but certainly there is nothing better! She will not be tethered. I carry her story with me.

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Social studies.

We never had a lack of things to judge each other by, and Central Junior High made sure that we never ran out. Of course there was the usual hierarchy of those in advanced courses. The grading system. The hands raised in class. The sulking heads in the back of the room. But then they sent us to gym class. They timed us around tracks and arm-flexed hangs. They measured and weighed us. Tested us through units of gymnastics and every ball game. With no self-esteem to spare, they sent us to the pool once a week. It would have been enough to be on display in our one piece suits and skin-capped heads in front of the other 20 or so girls, but the pool was adjacent to the lunch room, separated only by glass windows. Like the theatre view in an operating room, the 9th grade boys eating cafeteria pizza had a thirty minute view. We longed for the “eyes on your own paper” rule of law.

I suppose the greatest gift was the lack of time. The allotted 5 minutes to shower, dress, and speed walk (no running allowed) with wet hair flinging down the halls, to math, or English, or Social studies, didn’t allow much time for scrutiny. It’s only as I’m typing this that I realize there was really no need for the social studies class, we were living it, from beginning to ending bell.

I only mention it, because I use the skill they gave us, almost daily. I can get trapped in the moment of self-awareness. How do I look? How do I appear? Am I being judged? But really, nothing has changed since junior high. I don’t have the time to worry about what everyone else is doing…so certainly others don’t either. (And if you do have the time for judgement, maybe it’s time to switch course. Quickly. Down another hallway.)

There is so much to learn. I hope I continue. I’m sure I stumble on my way to daily social studies. But then I see you, my friends, my fellows, my human contacts, all trying to make our way, and I smile.




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A stroke of Mrs. Bergstrom.

There is a reason we call it spelling. The magic of the letters, when put together to form words, can indeed cast a magical spell within and around us. 

She stood in front of the class of first graders. Mrs. Bergstrom. Tall and straight. Not with a robe, nor a hat, but she did have a wand. Some might remember it as just a teaching pointer. But not me. As she tapped it against each letter chalked perfectly on the blackboard, white dust — fairy dust I was sure — sprung into the air. We were spelling. And it was magic. 

That magic moved from the blackboard to our Big Chief notebooks. Then marched with us single file to the library down the terrazzo halls of Washington Elementary. With each book we moved into neighborhoods. Made friends with dogs. Rode horses with cowboys and bloomed into teenage girls, and boys with paper routes. Everything was possible in the words. 

I’d like to think it still is. As I type each morning, I take that magical journey. With each letter I make a path. Sprinkling it with a stroke of Mrs. Bergstrom. Because it’s all beautiful, even the hardest of days — when wanded into the words of “look what we survived,” and “look what we’ve become” — are nothing short of magical! I still believe it. I have to believe it. I hope we all can.

Because she didn’t just give us the happy words. She taught us how to spell. How to make our way through it all. Today, I too will stand straight and tall. And I promise, I will not waste the magic.

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Shoulder pads.

While searching for our voices in the 80’s, we began at shoulder level. As Krystle and Alexis fought for their Dynasty, we too, built up our shoulders to face the future.

It didn’t come as a complete surprise. I had been hearing about my shoulders since I started grade school. At the breakfast table, my mom would smooth out my hair, check my outfit, and tell me, each and every morning, “put your shoulders back,” strengthening me long before I knew how much I would need it.

We embraced the shoulder pads. Stood even taller, claiming the space our hearts and minds so desired. Maybe it was just the boost we needed. It wasn’t wrong to find it wherever you could, my mother explained. And so we did. In lipstick. Positive thinking. Poetry. Music. Collective laughter. And yes, even the shoulder pad.

By the time the trend faded, we were strong in our strides. Building our own dynasty.

Grief can be powerful. The weight pulling you down. I’ll admit to times when I have grabbed my knees in battle.

In full gravity of missing her, I opened the drawer. Took out my mother’s blouse. Pulled it over my head. And I felt it. Them. Tiny little shoulder pads, hand sewn. I smiled. She always found a way. And so will I.

Even at its hardest moments, this life is so very beautiful. I stand proudly, tall, shoulders back, ever strong in my dynasty.

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Grounded.

In Greek mythology, Antaeus had super strength whenever he was grounded. Touching the Earth (his mother), his strength was always renewed. In combat, even if thrown to the ground, he was invincible. It was Heracles who discovered the source of his strength and, lifting him up from Earth, crushed him to death.

I always wanted to do the sleepover. But when the sun began to set, when it was time to go to bed, the battle began. It didn’t matter if it was a best friend’s house, or even in the beginning at my grandma’s house, I just wanted to go home. And home was with my mother, the source of my power. 763-5809 was the life line that grounded me. Making the call, without question, she dropped what she was doing and came to pick me up.

I suppose some would call that spoiled. I call it loved. You might think, oh she’ll never learn if she isn’t forced to do it. On the contrary. I would come to learn because of it. Secure in this love, I was able to go beyond my wild imagination. And not just physically. But emotionally. Artistically. I had the strength to dare in it all. To brave my heart and soul. To live. To love.

There are a million things, people, that try to pull us away from what we know. What we believe in. Sometimes it can even be our own silly worries that try to rip us away from the very thing that gives us strength. And I can see it. Feel it. When my feet begin to lift off the ground. When defeat feels imminent… I return to the story. I write it again and again. The love is always there. Will always be there. Invincible. And I am forever strong. 


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Collect.

It was our only safety net. We didn’t have the security of a cell phone. We memorized our home phone numbers, and carried with us the knowledge that in the unlikely event we missed the team bus on an away game for example, we could dial zero for the operator and she would place the call to our home, announce the collect call, asking our mothers “will you accept the charges?” The real security, I suppose, was knowing she always would.

Somehow I made it through my school days without making that call. Sure, there was the occasional mix-up. I sat alone in each of the school parking lots, waiting for the light blue Chevy Impala. And if she couldn’t come, there would be a sticky note on the main door of the school with instructions, like, — “Call Andria for a ride home.” I knew it was for me. We relied on our connections. Our human connections.

It’s hard to imagine now. We never leave home without our cell phones. How would we get anywhere? How would we get back? There is definitely an unmatched safety with the cell phone. But I may never feel as secure as I did back then. To count on someone like this is really pure magic. And it wasn’t just for rides. It was for everything. Secrets held. Emotions shared. Dreams dared. Confessions bared. Everything accepted without question — that was my mother.

The memories are sweet, but not without their own kind of pain. I will walk by a photograph and feel the squeezing of my heart. A glorious ache that I never want to end. “The charges of love,” I think, and smile. I take the bus, the plane, and travel this life. Secure in the knowledge that love will always come for me. And I may not be safe, but I will be saved.

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Exposed wire.

When our house was built, long before I arrived, it was still legal to burn things in the backyard — hence the firepit that rests next to my studio. I use it for display. It has a glorious texture that no doubt came from use. Cracked. Wired. But still strong. Still beautiful. Maybe I’m only able to see it because of my own exposed wires, those holding together all of the cracks that make me, well, me.

I was listening to a psychiatrist explain this so elegantly on a podcast yesterday. Human need is what really holds us all together. We so often confuse these needs as weakness. But in reality, these needs bring us closer. Crossing our experiences like a trellis, thus connecting, strengthening all of us.

The first painting I hung on our pit and then photographed for my website sold almost immediately. The fire never died.

I hang each new creation on the challenged wire that holds together the pit, that holds together my heart. In fact, nothing rests cold. And we are connected. We are stronger. Together.

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But the trail.

I don’t suppose I had yet thought of myself as a woman — 18 years old — my freshman year in college.  It was something I knew I would have to earn. (In typing this, I only just realized the nearness of the words earn and learn. Maybe a part of me knew this all along — the importance of learning.) So I signed up for my first course in Women’s Studies. 

As we began navigating through the required reading, it turned out that the history of women was really just “history.” We were there from the beginning. We weren’t just on the trail, we packed the wagon. 

One story got in deep. I think about it often — her often. They began, as most of the stories did, on the east coast. They were about to travel west. All the way west. In a covered wagon. She was already lonesome. Leaving behind her mother and father. Just a young married woman, she loaded the wooden wheels with the comforts of home. Her clothing. A little furniture. Keepsakes. Her mother’s dishes. The trail was brutal. Unforgiving. The animals suffered to drag their belongings. The wheels broke away. Mile by mile she let things go. The furniture. The keepsakes — (she cried at the irony of the name.) Dress by dress, dropped along the hidden trail. She couldn’t look as her husband coaxed the horse. The wheels clunked. The dishes remained in the dirt. 

We often measure our relationships by what is given. Perhaps we need to look closer at, not the wagon, but the trail. I am grateful for the professor who pointed this out, reminded me, but truth be told, I already had the best examples. I had my grandmother. My mother. I still do. They gave their time. Their hearts. They made each wheel-worn step with grace. Clearing a path.

I pray that’s what I’m doing with these stories of them. Of us. Learning. Earning. Making a path. Making it a little easier for someone else to travel. Hoping we can all, one day, find our way.

@jodihillsart

♬ Golden Hour: Piano Version – Andy Morris
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Du jour.

I never considered our family broken. What a crazy word to call a family. Was it a big fat mess at times? Sure. Of course. But none of us really wanted to be fixed. Only loved.

It was like my grandma’s kitchen. Dirty dishes in the sink. Ingredients never measured, simply added. Meals made out of seemingly nothing at all. Plates cracked and clinking. Forever a table full. A pot boiling. A dishrag dirty. In a constant state of preparation, but rarely prepared.

My grandfather soaked the last bit of sauce from his plate with a piece of bread and went back to work in the field. Guided by a belly full and ever changing weather, he too, created, farmed, something out of nothing.

We had a smaller table than the one at the farm. And quieter. Only 5 of us. And we weren’t prepared when our family of five suddenly became two. Of course my mom was hurt. I was scared. And the table changed. But we weren’t broken. We found a new way to love. To live. Our place at the table.

If you’re reading this, there is nothing that you haven’t survived. All those things, those changes, those unbearable times…you have gotten through. I write it to remind myself as I foolishly order up the “worry du jour.” As I try to “fix” it all. It’s not broken, I repeat and repeat. It’s only life. It’s only love. Take a seat at this beautiful new table.

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