Jodi Hills

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


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Leaned in.

I don’t know if they know — that they live in Paris — these birds flitting about the Eiffel Tower. How special it is. But then does anyone? I hope so. Mostly because I’m hoping it for myself — this magical recognition of time and place. 

The first time I visited the Loring Cafe in downtown Minneapolis, I was amazed that I didn’t need a passport. Was I in another country? Inside a novel? The floor creaked beneath as I meandered through the scents of coffee, bread baking and old furniture. People hovered behind books, leaning back into cushions, further than I had seen anyone relax in public, as if the words were blankets. Between the clank of dish and the changing of the record, the thought occurred to me, for perhaps the first time, the life I wanted could be anywhere, if I only paid attention.

You’d think something as important as all that could never be forgotten, but I have to work at it. I have to give myself the reminders. Like displaying my bathroom cabinet as if it were a counter in the Galeries Lafayette. Plating cookies in front of art. Using my favorite pencil (having a favorite pencil for that matter!). Telling myself, as I busily flutter and flap through this life, to smile, and really look — to take the time to say, “Hey, that’s the Eiffel Tower, isn’t it!”  

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Friend.

I can’t say it’s the table. Nor the cupboards. I do like my kitchen, but it’s more correct to say I like who I am in my kitchen. Be it bread or cookies, I like that I’m creating something that wasn’t there before. I like that my Elsie confidence allows me to add flour without measuring, and grin as if I’ve always known. And certainly that’s not the case. I never baked before coming to France. And now my house shoes have a permanent ring of flour in the cracks.

And isn’t it the way with friends:

“I really like who I am with you…
I hope that doesn’t sound bad to say…
I mean it more as a compliment to you, more of a “thank you” really.
You free me to be this person who laughs and
cries and feels and enjoys and loves.
What a relief to be myself,
without performing, or worrying…
just being and becoming who I am…
That’s some gift…
I hope I’m returning it…
because you know what,
I really like who you are with me.”*

Welcome to the kitchen.

*from the book, “friend,” by Jodi Hills

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Magpie to the morning.

I only saw it last night. Could it have come sooner, or was it right on time? Awakening in the thick sky of wee hours, I had left the shutter open, and saw how it wasn’t simply dark, but so black it was blue, like a Magpie. And if it were a bird, this absence of light, couldn’t it just as easily gather those night weary worries under wing? Couldn’t it say, this is not for you to carry? Not now. Not in this light. This is the color of letting go. This is the color of release. 

Some say a Magpie will steal anything. I don’t know if that’s true, but if they did, if they do, I decide to leave my concerns above cover, and let them take it. And I give thanks for the thief of worry. No longer bruised, but released by the black and blue of it all. And I am saved.

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Flipping the canvas.

Sometimes, when painting a portrait, you can get stuck. The image isn’t exactly right, but you can’t see why. A trick that many artists use is to simply flip the canvas. It breaks the autopilot of the brain and you can actually see the shapes more clearly. You can get the chin just right, or the angle of that brow. It slows you down and you can see everything in a new light. 

How I try to remember that lesson for real life — when the universe kicks my feet from underneath and I tumble topsy turvy. It’s hard to see the benefits immediately, but once I gather myself, I have to think, oh, perhaps it was time for a new perspective. I, we, can get so accustomed to “how things are.” To shake us out of the “well, that’s how we do things…” and the “well, that’s how I feel,” and into a new vision, a better way of seeing, living, sometimes it takes our world turning upside down. 

I guess it’s all part of this delightful journey. This jungle gym.  So if you see me, feet in the air, don’t worry, I’m just getting a better view. 

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Jonquil.

I was a teenager having surgery in Minneapolis. It was not yet spring, but for my mother. She was dressed in yellow, head to toe.  From my wheelchair, I could see her slacks, not break at the knee, but simply curve like a note in a Harry Belafonte song. The elevator door opened and the doctor smiled at her — said she looked as “beautiful as a jonquil.” I didn’t even know what that meant, but it was the most elegant compliment I had ever heard. Back at my room, no iPad or telephone, certainly no dictionary, we could only imagine how beautiful that flower looked.

It has been decades, and I’m still lifted by yellow. I’m still lifted that my mother dressed to lift, herself and me. I’m still lifted by jonquils standing tall in a breeze that they shouldn’t survive, as my mother bent, but never broke. 

As the elevator door opened to 2026, I gave the woman in my sketchbook a yellow sweater. That’s what we do, isn’t it? Lift each other. 

Welcome to the garden. 

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They do some.

The French have a saying, “entre chien et loup” — between dog and wolf. Most poetically it describes the transitional light of dusk, the time of day when you’re not certain of what you see. Is it a dog or a wolf? A friend or foe? Safe or threatened? Caught somewhere between comfort and fear.

I suppose within all transitions, a choice has to be made. In this, a big one, our first of the year, I’d like to set the tone and choose dog. Choose that this is going to be a great year! We’re all given the same light. We just have to decide how we see it.

You may say that’s Pollyanna, but I say poetic. And wasn’t it in Our Town, when Emily Asked, “Does anyone ever realize life while they live it…every, every minute?” — she was answered, “No. Saints and poets maybe…they do some.” So I will take that unsure light, that “some”, and try to see it. Minute by minute. How magical this world is. How beautiful. And if I, we see it, really see it, then won’t we be a little more precious with it, with each other, a little less careless? Yes, joyfully, yes, some.

Happy New Year!

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Autopilot to calm.

My car knew the way. Before all of my creative work began, my morning routine was coffee, bank, post office, UPS. I barely remember turning the wheel before arriving at each place. And it wasn’t from not paying attention. It was the softness of simply knowing. 

I know the value. The importance of reaching this state of being. But sometimes I forget. In the traffic of chaos. I forget that my heart is the car. My hands are the wheel. And I know how to get there. I’ve always known. The key is just not to fight it. 

She arrived so gently yesterday on the page. As if she knew. No hard lines or edges. And I could feel my shoulders drop. A loose grip on the brush. And that calm that was called for, settled, pillowed, and I was home.

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Becoming bird.

“Women in pain become birds.” I just read that. I often find myself looking around for the cameras that are surely filming me in this episode. And as I flutter through the inexplicable planned randomness of the page, I think, yes, but not in the way the author meant — small. No, I think women do become birds, but there is beautiful strength in that. A grandness of sky. Adapting in mid flight. Hovering. Not avoiding the breeze, but feeling it. Using it. All while dressed and feathered. 

I say this, not in praise of my own wings, but marveling at those before me. I have been nested and pushed by the best. Elsied and Ivyed into the blue. Words like small were replaced with capable, and I learned to fly. 

It’s not to say that days won’t be fragile. That we won’t be fragile. But we have been given everything we need. Mostly love.

I wrote it long ago. The truth of it still lifts me.  “She believed in the pure randomness of it all. It could happen to anyone at any time, pain, happiness, confusion, even love.” 

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No hurry.

It was my mother who listened to me with the patience of paper. I could tell her anything. No dream was too big. No concern too frivolous. No wonder dismissed. I could cursive my feelings throughout the house, and she would gather them in softly, gently, filling heart reams daily. 

I didn’t read Anne Frank until junior high. I had already been writing for years. On scraps of paper. Wood-burning notes into panels. Poems on birthday cards. Hopes onto sticky pads. But I didn’t have a diary. And it wasn’t until reading Anne Frank’s that I knew why. It was because I had my mother. Anne wrote in her diary, thinking she had “no such real friend” to confide in. My mother was that “friend.”

Through the years, as I made my living selling the words and images, I was constantly approached by my sales reps and store owners with “What’s new?” A feverish flurry to get to the next thing. An urgency to keep the writing short – “no one will take the time to read all that.” I would smile and think that Anne Frank was right, “Paper is more patient than people.” 

I’ve tried to stay true to my slow and looping cursive heart. Giving it the space and time it needs. Giving it the care my mother showed me it was worth.

I hope you have that friend. That confidante. If not, let it be me. Take your time. I’m in no hurry.

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Elsie’s kitchen.

The Christmas carcass became yesterday’s soup. Aproned and worry-free, I Grandma Elsied my way through the process. Adding everything. Measuring nothing. And it was delicious. Steeped with holiday and attention, it tasted rich and full, but for me, the added pleasure, satisfaction, joy, came with nothing being wasted. 

I try to practice it — this making use. A scrap of metal turned into a frame. Discarded wood into panels. Yesterday’s still fresh oil paint into tomorrow’s tableau. And to me it’s all important, but I hope I pay the same attention to living. Using everything I have. Every speck of courage, because we’ll get more tomorrow. Loving with every piece of my heart, knowing it means nothing left inside. And perhaps it’s not as easy as pot to stove, but I was taught to attempt in Elsie’s kitchen. To abandon worry and just create. 

She’s smiling over my soup bowls, but more over, my heart. Telling me daily to give it all, and just become. 

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