Jodi Hills

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

Category Archives: together


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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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Finding Houston.

Sometimes it’s as simple as whether the sun is out or not, but I have fallen in and out of love with cities throughout the United States. And they can change, sure, a little, but mostly I think it’s me.

Cities I thought I loved several years ago, this visit, not so much. And that’s ok, it doesn’t take away from my previous visits. I’ve also been surprised in the reverse — loving those I thought I never could. Taking the extra photos, celebrating, almost apologizing for not seeing it before. I know it’s silly. Laurel, Mississippi doesn’t need me to love it, no more than Houston was waiting for me to change my mind.

I suppose it’s the same with people. We spend so much time and energy wondering what people think. Do they like me when…will they like me if… oof, it can be exhausting. Should I change? Did they? We’re all wandering, wondering. Seeing situations and people again, for the very first time. It’s a journey. We would do well to remember we’re all on one. Knowing this, (I remind myself too), maybe we could all be a little more kind, gentle, joyful, loving, along the way. And maybe when our days and time together don’t always match up, we can smile and wave… and remember how we fell in love with Houston.


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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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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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The get-a-way car.


The common expression was “partners in crime.” While we didn’t commit any crimes together, my mother and I, (unless you consider the time in Las Vegas when we cashed in the abandoned chips we found on a casino floor), together we made it through some laughable and questionable times, during which she drove the get-a-way car.

My apologies to our North Dakota neighbors, but it was in Fargo the first two times we fled the scene. I was maybe 21 at the time, in search of my first real job after college. I had an interview in Fargo. I was suffering from kidney stones at the time. I knew if I had a flare-up, I wouldn’t be able to drive home. Plus, my mom said, “There’s West Acres.” (Malls always factored into our travel plans.)

I only made it through half the interview when my stone decided to make its presence known. I began to sweat. Nearly doubled over. No longer interested in making a good impression, only making it to the car. I stumbled my way into the back seat. She literally squealed the tires of our light blue Chevy Impala wagon, (purely to tell me she knew how badly I felt) , as I threw up in an empty Folgers can in the back seat. “We can do much better than West Acres,” she said. And I was saved.

My second get-a-way, around the same age, was for an interview of another kind — a date. A friend of a friend. “Oh, you’ll love him…” my friend tried to convince me. Unsuccessfully assured, I asked my mother to come with me. Always up for a road trip, she agreed. She dropped me off at the restaurant and went to the mall. My date, to put it mildly, was as uncomfortable as the stone on the last trip. I was standing outside the restaurant as he explained the intricate details of his expensive car. Unimpressed, I searched the parking lot. And then I saw it. That glorious light blue streak of safety. I waved and speed- walked to my mom’s car. She could see the horror on my face. There was no need to explain. She squealed the tires even louder out of the parking lot. “Well, just to make sure he knows…” she said. We laughed. Again, I was saved.

I mention it only because I thought about it all night. I haven’t had a kidney stone in years, but one came for a visit last night. The extraordinary pain kept me awake for the duration. I kept telling myself it won’t last, it won’t last. When we’re in pain, time seems forever. But when I think about how quickly it has all passed, the years between Fargo and France, I can hear the squeal of time. I can count on my “getting through,” my “getting away,” my “getting beyond,” the moment. 

Dominique is here now — my streak of blue — here always to race where needed. I smile. And I am 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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I can help.

I was never afraid of the water. My mother saw to that. Buoyed by baby fat and unweighted from no previous experience, I easily bobbed up and down in the blue. She didn’t buy float rings for my arms, or an inflatable duck to strap around my waist. No lifejackets, or flotation devices of any kind. What she did give me was the confidence to jump in the water and trust my own skills. And what’s most remarkable, she never let me see the fear she carried.

I was in my early twenties, living in my first apartment, deeply secure in my ability to navigate any body of water, when she told me. Just before entering the pool for the complex. I had seen her dip toes in Lake Latoka. Wade in the water thigh high. Even sink to shoulders. But it was here, in this pool of firsts that she told me she had always been a little afraid. We got her a kicker board from Ridgedale mall. She did laps in the pool. I was so proud of her. So very proud. She was worried it would be a burden for me. Nothing could be further from the truth. What a gift. This turning of tables. A gift to carry what she once carried for me. We filled that pool with laughter and joy!

I suppose that’s what true love is — this constant exchange. This lifting. This buoying of hearts. Taking turns in bravery. In strength. Celebrating the victories large and small. Together.

I have a memory of a cartoon. Black and white. Two little girls on the front stoop of a house. One day the little girl is crying. The other girl reaches out her hand and says, “I’ll help you.” The next day laughing, with the same response. This is the world I lived in. The world my mother gave to me. The world I want to share with you.

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Loving through.

When I told her I was never going back to school, I meant it. It was in the first week of my first grade at Washington Elementary and the first time I had ever been called a bad name. It being my first time, I didn’t remember the name, but I remembered the venom that spewed from Steve Brolin’s mouth and landed directly on my heart of firsts. 

Of course it happened the first thing that morning on the playground, so I had to hold it in all day. By the time my feet jumped from the last step of the bus, the tears began to flow. Big, bulbous bubbles that caught for several seconds in my eyelashes. Tears that puddled in the fold of my new dress as I sat on the cement floor of the garage, willing my mom to come home early from work and receive the news.

She knew something was wrong immediately, seeing me sprawled on the cement, with my backpack laying atop the garbage can. “I’m never going back,” I said. “Ok,” she said calmly. She didn’t argue with me. Just took my hand. Washed my face. Kissed my eyelashes. 

It being autumn, the nights had just begun to get cooler. “Would you like to put on your winter pajamas?” she asked. The feel of the soft plaid down my arms. Down my legs. Wrapped early for Christmas, she tucked me under the crisp white sheet. “I don’t think I want my books in the garbage anymore.” “I’ll get them,” she said. “But just for me,” I said, “I’m not going back.” “OK,” she said. 

I could hear her getting ready for work. Smell the coffee. My chubby feet wiggled beneath the plaid and hit the carpet. I brushed my teeth. My hair. My brown sack lunch was ready at the end of the table, right beside my backpack – it along with my heart – rescued. I guess we both knew I was going back. “I don’t like Steve Brolin,” I said. “That’s OK. Do you remember what he said,” she asked me for the first time. “Not really,” I said. “Do you remember I love you?” she smiled. “Yes!” I smiled. She got in her car and waved to me as I stood by the mailboxes waiting for the bus. It was the first time I got over something. It wouldn’t be the last. My mother showed me how to love my way through. I walk by her photo and wave, smiling, and knowing, everything is OK.

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Plentiful.

My first Thanksgiving in France, I wanted to create a traditional American meal. There were no turkeys available – that’s a Christmas thing for French. Even if we would have found a turkey, it wouldn’t have fit in our small European oven. There are no stuffing mixes. No cranberries. I stood in front of our empty cart in the grocery store and cried. 

Dominique, forever my cheerleader, said we (I) could still do this. We got turkey parts. Some berries that were bright red. I made stuffing from scratch. Cornbread from scratch. Potatoes. Vegetables. We had more than plenty for our Saturday Thanksgiving (no one gets that Thursday off).  And it was beautiful. Delicious. We gave thanks for this new family – this freshly carved tradition.

It all comes down to thanks. Thanks, not for what you think you need, but for what you have. I guess what I’m saying is don’t laminate your gratitude list. It should have pencil marks, pen crossings, exclamation points added, edit after edit, thanks after thanks.

Let’s all be grateful for the ever changing journey. For those who walk beside us. For those carried within. Happy Thanksgiving.


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Behind you.


From 3:30am to 6:00am, I spent the time looking for my painting of Georgia O’Keeffe. In the end, I did find it. It was at another store, (in a chain of stores that I sold it to.) Sure it was only a dream, but it felt good to find it. We take our victories where we can.

And maybe it felt so good because before I had gone to sleep I was trying to fix something on my iPad. I didn’t. I even shed a couple of tears. I can see that it’s no big deal this morning, but in my defense, it was nighttime, when things always seem to be at their largest, and I was, in fact, just ready to be small.

In the book I’m reading now, Lucy by the Sea, by Elizabeth Strout, Lucy sits on her husband’s lap — she’s having a difficult time and needs a hug. Closer, she says. He hugs her tighter. Closer, she says again. He tells her the old Groucho Marx joke, “If I were any closer, I’d be behind you.”

And maybe that’s what we want. Someone “behind” us. Behind us. Beside us. The world is big, with big problems. And sometimes I think I need to be the biggest. And I wear myself out. But I had a thought — when we hug someone, we become twice our size. And if at twice our size, we helped someone else, at twice their size… well, you know what I mean, I don’t want to get into the math of it all.

I can’t fix everything. Sometimes nothing. But I’m a good hugger. And so easily, I can get behind you. Help you carry it, all of those big girl problems. I am here. With. Beside. Behind. Xoxo

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