Jodi Hills

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

Category Archives: youth


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Out of the fog.

We never had a big rainy season in autumn. We often moved from summer to a short, but spectacular wave of reds, oranges and yellows in the trees. Sometimes it seemed that the anxious snow was daring the leaves to fall so it could follow suit. So a foggy, rainy day seemed rather special to me. 

I stood by the mailboxes across from the end of our driveway, just at the top of the hill. Blanketed in white. Not warm. Not cold. Just hovering. First I saw the lights. Then the golden yellow of the school bus as it released its air brakes. Although the bus driver/law enforcement tech school student didn’t seem surprised that I stepped out of the low hanging cloud, I still felt dreamy. I plopped down immediately in the front seat by the door so I could get the best view. I knew it would be the most foggy at the bottom of the hill. At Norton’s. I wanted to be the first to see which one of the five girls would appear like magic out of the white. I guessed by height, as I could only make out a silhouette.  Was it Shari? Or Lynn? I could see the movement of long hair. I went with Shari. The brakes gasped. The door opened. And she stepped out of the dream. Wet hair flinging. It was Shari. I refrained from clapping, but I smiled out loud. 

When I stepped outside to open the morning shutters, I could feel the air around me. It took me a minute. My first thought was I hope it doesn’t rain. I made my way around the house. By the time I reached the front door I could feel it. “It was dreamy, wasn’t it?” my heart asked my brain. “Yes,” I said, stepping out of the fog, and into my smile.

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If wishes were fishes…

He was probably just big for his age. I could see him by the side of the pool while I was running on the treadmill. When he turned around I could see the soft timidity of his face. He was still young. He looked at his father sitting in a chair beside the pool. Maybe for assurance before he entered the pool. He lowered himself into the water. His father lowered his face to his cellphone. He hopped around at first. The initial excitement of the water itself. But then it became clear. He was alone. It’s hard to splash yourself. Flip yourself. I kept running. I was smiling. I didn’t want to make him more self conscious if he looked up, but I wanted him to know it was ok. That he was ok. He was free to make his own splash!  

I did. I had for years. I threw the softball against the garage door. I hit the tennis ball against the brick wall. Rode my bike alone. Walked to town alone. Made parades with only stuffed animals. Picnicked with dolls. Splashed in Lake Latoka, then set out to make bigger splashes in bigger ponds. Even across one of the biggest.

I saw two in the pool the next day. Probably a brother and a sister. They had such fun together. But they too, will one day have to make their own way. We all do. Some just start earlier. 

I’m sending out my smile today. You are not alone. Someone has felt it, survived it, struggled through it, even splashed beyond it. Maybe we can all just offer that smile today, to each other, as a reminder. My grandma used to say, “If wishes were fishes, we’d all be in the pool!” We can make that happen you know…that’s my wish, that we can all be there for each other.

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Fortune.

In grade school we made simple origami “fortune tellers.” Parts of the “fortune teller” were labeled with numbers that served as options for a player to choose from, and on the inside were eight flaps, each concealing a message. The person operating the fortune teller manipulated the device with their fingers, based on the choices made by the player, and finally one of the hidden messages was revealed.


Oh, how everyone loved this game! And I did too! But I think what I loved most of all was the paper itself. Folded, manipulated, decorated. While everyone waited for their fortune to be told, I think I knew then that my fortune was actually in the paper itself. In the creating.


Yesterday, my publisher and I were making plans for new prints to be made on new paper. We were exchanging emails with different paper samples. And my heart ran with the wobbly legs of youth, chasing my fortune across the schoolyard playground.
Isn’t it wonderful to still be chasing! Trying new things. Learning new things. Being alive.


I hold the corners of the paper in my hand. We all do. And we choose. We choose hearts racing, and we live this glorious day!

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Vision of youth.

We were visiting them in the US. She was maybe 5 or 6. We were playing a game at the table, and I told her (Layne), that I had to go pee-pee. Without pause she said, “Well, we use the toilet.”
I’m still laughing. It was so delightfully simple. So easy. So direct. But I guess, things don’t always have to be so difficult. Layne saw a need and filled it — that simple.


Maybe if we all kept that perspective, we could live a little easier. A little lighter. It was Picasso who said, “All children are born artists, the problem is to remain an artist as we grow up.”


To be an artist is all about seeing. Whether you are a painter, a photographer, a dancer (any human really)… you have to see it, very clearly see yourself doing it, creating it. Being it. Living it with the pure vision of youth.


I painted Layne, when she was an artist – a beautiful girl, with the clearest of vision. I hope she hangs on to it, sees the world in this way — easily, clearly, with all the color and laughter it can bring!

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Summer of ‘63

I was given a small photo of three boys fishing at the lake. He was commissioning me to create a large painting of the image. First I made the lake. The shoreline. The dock. Then each brother, in order of their age. Just as they would have entered this life, they appeared on the canvas. I don’t paint anything I can’t feel, but honestly, I wasn’t expecting to feel this much. Perhaps it was so emotional because this is where I, too, began. Near this lake. In this small town. Perhaps because I knew what their futures held. Part of me wanted to tell each one what was to come…but that wouldn’t be right, even if possible. For they, all three were safe in this moment. Pure. And this is where I would capture them. Forever innocent, in the summer sun of 1963. Full of hope.


I didn’t notice until I was finished the date on the side of the photograph – it was January, 1964. Clearly this picture wasn’t taken in January in Minnesota. But I imagine the photographer, the boys’ mother or father, must have been waiting to finish the roll of film. We used film back then. And if you bought a roll, of say 36, then you waited patiently, or not patiently, until you finished the roll, and then brought it to the film corner in the drug store to be developed. I imagine they finished the roll at Christmas time, and then had it developed.


Maybe time moved slower then. Summers lasted longer. Still, they, we, couldn’t stop it. Probably the best we can do is capture the moments. On film. On canvas. In our hearts. And feel everything. Feel the heat of the sun. The possibility rolling in with each gentle wave. The time when the common goals of youth kept us together. Easily. Slowly.


Today, these three young boys are fishing together in the south of France. Hopeful, excited, ready to go home.

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No slip of beauty


I don’t know if she was born with it. Maybe all kids have it, if given the freedom. But she has something – some may call it confidence, or a lack of shame. Maybe it’s a mixture of both, combined with the essence of youth.


She isn’t afraid to try anything. And she isn’t afraid to fail. In fact, she doesn’t see it as failure. She can finish a painting that some may see as juvenile, or crude, but she thinks, “Voila!” – and couldn’t be more proud. She can put on a swimsuit, never giving a thought to her baby fat that still clings around the middle. Not a worry. She’ll even run in her swimsuit – (a nightmare for most of us.). She’ll sing songs with no idea of the lyrics. OUTLOUD! She attempts a new language with no fear of mispronouncing the words – in fact it’s your fault if you don’t understand. She dances. She laughs. She is a super hero!


I don’t what the years will bring. I don’t know what she’ll become. Who she’ll become. I only pray she keeps the tightest hold on this – whatever this is – this confidence, this youth, THIS!


I see it in her, and I can still feel my own. Feel myself flying on my banana seat bike, without boundaries or limitations. Believing! I am so grateful for the reminder she brings. And if she’ll let me, I will help her hold on, hold on with the might of youth, so she’ll never feel the fear that living can bring, the shame in any attempt, the slip of beauty. We need to protect her. Protect THIS! Celebrate THIS! We ARE her, we are THIS!

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