Jodi Hills

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

Category Archives: time


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The golden blur.

In the springtime, when Hugo’s field began to turn golden behind our house on Van Dyke Road, and when the sun reflected off my winter white thighs, my eyes could barely adjust to the brightness of it all. For a few brief moments, blinded in the growth, I didn’t know where I was going, but I felt certain that I was on my way. 

He didn’t want us running through his field. To cut across would save only minutes in the short journey to town, and I can’t explain why we were in such a hurry, but it was so tempting. Maybe it was the promise of summer. The grain that brushed against our legs. The windowed storefronts that called to us. Come. Press against. See what’s inside. We’ve been waiting just for you. It was too much to resist, so we ran across his beautiful field toward the neverending promise.

I’d like to think we didn’t do any damage. And I apologize if we did. In this fever to outrun time — this time measured so clearly by the color of the changing field.  

It’s springtime in Provence. Purples and yellows bloom all around us, in a way that quickens the steps. My lavender legs still feel like running. But there is a moment when the morning sun comes through the window with a light that is so bright you can only feel it, and it tells me to stop. Stop chasing. Just be. Maybe it’s  nature Hugo-ing us to take the long way. I smile slowly. I’d like to tell you it lasts. But I cannot stop color, nor time. Or the need to travel through both. But I can tell you this, it’s in these brief moments, that I feel gratitude of peace, and the golden blur rests.

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Seems we just get started.

When the podcaster said he was going to be interviewing Carol Burnett, I could feel an extra step in my stride. I loved her. Hearing her voice, my feet walked faster, but my heart put on the brakes, because it wasn’t just true that “I loved her,” it was that “We loved her” – my mom and I. I wasn’t sure I could keep on listening. The pain was exquisite. It was no longer a Monday morning in France, it was Friday night, in Alexandria, Minnesota. In front of the tv. With my mom. Already prepared to laugh. Re-enacting last week’s episode. Draping ourselves in the curtains like “Went with the wind.” 

Through the years, some would say that my mom looked like Carol Burnett, and she would smile and tug on her earlobe. That was Carol Burnett’s signal to her grandmother, the woman who raised her. Even long after her grandmother had passed, she ended each show with a tug and song, “I’m so glad we had this time together…” 

Without my knowledge or permission, I was long into my walk. Still listening. Smiling. Then laughing. And just like the song stated, “Seems we just get started and before you know it, come’s the time we have to say so long.”  And I was home. 

I will never refuse the feelings. Tears, laughter, love, I carry them all. Even the hardest ones find their way to joy’s newest path. This morning is just getting started. I write the blog, my ear tug to the loves that got me here, and I begin — prepared to laugh. If you’re reading this, I’m so glad we have this time together.

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Pillowed to the new.

Wide awake in the middle of the night, contemplating why jet lag is so very real, it occurred to me that perhaps the real issue is the lie to the body. I had convinced it that the time was real, only to get on a plane and tell it, no, this is the real time now.

And I suppose that’s with any change. The body, mostly the heart, gets used to the routine. And while I would never call love routine, there is a familiarity to it, usually in the form of a response — a return of a call, a hug. An awareness of feeling. 

Traveling often, I have found the best way to combat the time change is not to lie. Resting in the unfamiliar zone, I tell myself, “Yes, it’s different, this time, but not you. Your heart will keep beating. Find its step. Its new pace.” I smile softly, pillowed to the new.

There is another zone I’m living in — this world without the call of my mother. It would be a lie to say that it isn’t different. So I don’t. But the love remains. Beats strongly in this heart of mine. That will never change. So I don’t fight it. I feel it. I feel it all. And pillow to the love.

I mention it only because I’ve seen you out there — between the zones of heart, road and time. And maybe you need to hear it from someone who’s been there, rest assured that nothing will be the same, but everything is going to be ok, more than that even, beautiful. 

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Window dreams.

I have never been a go back to bed person. Even waiting for the winter school closings to be announced on the KXRA radio station, while all the neighborhood children were praying for anything — even two hours late — I prayed for fully closed or regular hours. I just didn’t understand the advantage of two hours late, I was already up. 

Full steam into that project, that emotion, even that brick wall. Maybe it’s my sign, my nature, my upbringing… I don’t know, but it is me. And I wouldn’t change it. But I have to keep reminding myself, that it’s not for everyone. And as natural as it is for me to want to get started, it is as natural for others to wish for a 10:00am bus. I smile, because I remember seeing the others, the Norton girls, still running out late with wet hair, even with the extra time. And for brief moments, I envied it, but I didn’t change.

So it comes as no surprise that I school myself each morning. Early. French lessons. Blog. Exercise. My “bus” arrives early. I only mention it because I can see the snow flurries out the window, and children’s prayers floating through the air. For some they will come true. For some they won’t. But one thing is sure, for both, for all, time will move faster than anyone can imagine. But the scent of wet clothes, and chilly toes, and wild hopes will remain. My dreams fog the glass of the window. I draw in a heart. And begin.

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The Friendship Oak

The Friendship Oak.

It is clearly chained off. Marked — Don’t cross the fence. Don’t touch. Don’t walk here. He lifted one young girl over the chain. The other daughter followed. He, on his cell phone, stepped over the chain. Past the warnings. Over roots and survival. Stomping on future growth. We couldn’t believe our eyes. We were getting in our car, just after visiting The Friendship Oak. I started waving at them to get out. Couldn’t they read? Didn’t they care at all? It has survived over 500 years, this tree. Hurricanes at their worst. Katrina even. I’m not so certain it can handle stupidity. He said, “We’re just passing through…” The one and only thing they asked us not to do.

But we do that, don’t we… Not only to nature, but to each other. So oblivious to the signs. How easily we can trample over one another. “It was just a joke.” “I didn’t mean it.” “I was just passing through…”

I know I’m guilty. I want to do better. I don’t want to walk over someone’s hopes. Someone’s dreams. Someone’’s future growth. Please let me be the one to admire. To offer encouragement. Let me see the signs, even when they aren’t so clearly marked. What if we did that for each other? Gave everyone a chance to keep growing. Be a little more friendly. Maybe, we could even gift to ourselves. (My heart smiles of green.)

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Lighter than joy.

It’s ironic, I suppose, that she was singing, “If I could turn back time…” — this Cher hologram or avatar (or holographic avatar, I don’t know…) in my dream early this morning. We were shopping in a large department store. Tired of her following, her singing, or both, Dominique grabbed her imaginary face and kissed it. “That should keep her quiet,” he said. But it only seemed to make her angry. Maybe not so much, Cher, but the Roomba-like machine that was giving her life. It began following us around the store. Sirens blaring. We couldn’t escape. It’s hard to stop the passing of time.

Sometimes I think of how strange it would be to try and explain this all to my grandmother. I don’t mean the dream, but the iPad that I’m typing on. The phones that follow us everywhere. The cameras and clocks attached that are always with us. At the farm, the only thing that told time was the bird that popped out hourly from the coo-coo clock in the living room. And oh how she would have guffawed at the notion of taking her picture while she baked in kitchen. If Paul Harvey was on, it was noon — we didn’t need a clock in her car. She knew everyone in town. This was her social network.

Obviously I love technology. I use it daily. I’m not sure I could find my way without GPS. But I don’t think that in moving forward, we have to leave everything behind. Human contact will forever be the all. The everything.

We are going to go to the mall today. Even the Apple Store. And I’m excited. My grandma never wanted to go to the mall. But oh how my mother did! And OH the times we had. Because times do change. And that can be beautiful! Today, I will go with Dominique. And the experience will be new. We are forever changing. Time, no matter what Cher sings, cannot be turned back. But it can be carried with us. Nothing is lighter than joy. Keep it close beside you. Within you, as we all make our way.

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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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Amtrak pace.

I came across an old journal. I was eighteen years old. Just graduated from high school. My mother and I were traveling from Minnesota to Washington State…by train. For my European audience, this might seem like nothing, a day trip on a fast train, a couple of journal entries at best. For my Americans, you know that I easily filled this book. It was not a fast train. 

We boarded the train at night, still filled with the hopeful romance of it all. I went to sleep. Deep sleep. Deep dreams. Awakened six hours later. With no curve in her lips, the romance seemingly gone, my mother said, “We’re almost to Fargo.” (That’s a two hour trip by car.)  Oof.

We started to look around. Not outside – we had seen this outside countless times. Inside. Now this was something. Those two men were sitting awfully close to each other. For a long time. Were they… I think they might be… yes, another trip to the bathroom confirmed it, yes, they were handcuffed, to each other. Transporting a prisoner. Were we in a movie? I wrote it down.

We went to the dining car. It was several away from our seats. Navigating between cars was tricky – not Indiana Jones tricky, but close.  In the rattling we saw a man, well, “ratting” a woman. Maybe it was romantic after all. Returning to our seats later, we saw him sitting with his wife and child. Not the same woman. I wrote it down.

We had stops in unsavory depots. Mace was suggested. We didn’t have any. We only had each other. And the handwritten evidence that I was compiling in my journal.

A train derailed in front of us near the grand canyon. 6 hours later, watching only the motionless front of the train and the motionless back of the train out our window, we began the chug again. 

I don’t remember if it was two days, or more, but oh, how we laughed. We found the story, wrote it down. Reread it. And laughed again. This inefficient, bumbling Amtrak gave us the greatest gift of all — time. I picked up my journal and held it in my hand. My heart rattled with joy, along with the prayers that time would actually, once again, slow to Amtrak pace.

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Be it ever so humble…

When I moved to France I gave up so many of my things. No, that’s not right – “gave up” sounds like a sacrifice. And it wasn’t. It was a choice. What I did really, was release a lot of my belongings, and made a choice. A choice to trade these things in exchange for experience, for feelings, for life, for love. The best choice I ever made. I will never regret it.

It’s easy to cling to items. And when those items don’t fill us up, we buy more items, different items. Items on sale. And when those items break, we search for more. But they will never fill us. Make us whole.

We are all guilty of it. Myself included. Each trip I make back to the US, I am limited by the weight of one allowed suitcase. And there is only so much I can bring, and so much I can bring back. Sometimes, it feels hard – (hard – insert laugh here) – to pass something by, not bring it with me, or bring it back. Just things, I tell myself. Only things.

What I want now, more than ever, is love and time. I choose love and time. I fill up my heart’s valise, no limits there, and I am whole.

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The sweet spot.

I have always been drawn to the still life. And not just in painting. The living as well. That doesn’t mean not doing anything. Quite the opposite. I like doing something all the time. My morning schedule is filled with breakfast, Duolingo, blogging, yoga and swimming. Which connects me to an afternoon of painting, discovering, filling, learning. But nothing is done in a frenzy, or a fever. All work to keep my spinning brain and feeling heart at a manageable pace. If my home is in chaos, it rattles my soul, so I work very hard to keep it calm. Things in place, keep my focus in place. My focus in place, I can find the most real part of me. And this is the sweet spot I suppose. The spot that I want to share. That’s the spot where I want to find people. This, I think is where we can make the true connections. It’s hard to connect to a spinning top.

Somewhere along the way, busy became a symbol of status. I’m not even really sure what the word means. We all have things to do. We all live under the same time, the same sun and moon. It seems like busy means “I’m so important,” or “what I’m doing is my important than you,” or “I have worth.” But how can we see the value in each other if we race around in circles? I want to see your worth, but I’m going to need you to slow down and actually show me who you are. Slow down and let me show you who I am. And here, we won’t be busy, but oh, it will true, still, and forever sweet!

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