Jodi Hills

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


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A peach!

Our peach tree, Officer Bob, (I named him Officer Bob because I always imagined him in an old time movie, cigar tucked in the side of his mouth, looking at something beautiful and saying, “It’s a peach, see….”) — anyway, yesterday Office Bob broke a major limb. We have been worried about him all spring — carrying more fruit that ever before. Each branch loaded beyond capacity. Dropping unripe fruit daily to get some relief. (When I mowed the lawn it smelled like jam.) But yesterday I guess it all became too much. One of his branches, and it was a thick one, snapped beneath the weight.

The things we carry.

It’s too self-important to imagine that this was a lesson just for me. But, none the less, it is definitely something I need to keep learning.

By nature, I suppose, I have always been one to add the weight of worry. I have improved, but I can certainly still overload my branches. I don’t think we’re built to carry. Even the good things can become too much. Maybe we’re meant to feel and release. Letting go of the bad things. And letting loose all the good – sending it out for all the world to see.

A bird rests on one of his limbs this morning. So light. Singing a song of hope. Maybe we can do the same for each other. Be there for each other. No weight added. Only song.

Worry dropped, love released, the morning winks and says, “It’s going to be a peach, see!”


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Willow.

There is an old Native American proverb that states, “No tree has branches so foolish as to fight amongst themselves.”

I was talking with my mom yesterday. She had just gone for a treatment in the hospital. She gets one every four weeks. She told the nurses about her new dress from Sundance. Showed them pictures. They shared laughs and compliments. “It’s my family,” she told me. Now I don’t take offense to this – I know I am my mother’s family – always will be, but I am forever joyed when she can find peace and laughter and support – and isn’t that what family is? – or should be.

I have always found my branches in the art communities. We have often referred to ourselves as the “land of misfit toys” – but a family just the same. Similar interests, goals, longings, aspirations — support, no judgements.

Outside of a gallery in Minnetonka, Minnesota, I used to watch a weeping willow tree. How it moved. As a whole unit. Such grace. At first sight, I was a little sad, our family had never moved like that. Oh, some branches coupled together from time to time, which was nice, but never like this. Never the whole, gathering strength in the wind. Never the whole, bracing against the storm. But then it occurred to me. I had found that flow in another place. Another family. And I was complete.

Family doesn’t need to be blood. How limiting is that? Family is family. You just have to find it. And when you do, you know it. And oh, how comforting. How beautiful. How fresh and green. What a flow. What a dance!

Yesterday, my husband and I (my newest family) visited a beautiful horse park. It was gorgeous. Barns of champion racers. Stunning animals. A strong, elegant, willow tree greeted us at the gate. Gathered in this new place, this place I would not stay, I was home. In this ever changing world, this not so ever green world, joyfully, I join in the family dance.