Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: apron


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Tugged.

We could have been aproned from her apron, but still we dove right in. I imagine the brunt of what she wiped from bowl to hand to apron ended up on the front of my shirt and the side of my face. This tug to be near defied all things sticky. I just wanted to be a part of it. Of what she was doing. Baking. Creating. Becoming. And she allowed it, because wouldn’t it all get washed, not in the laundry, but in my attempt to help with the dishes. 

With the scent wafting through the oven’s heat, she filled the double sink. Extra bubbles. She asked if I wanted a stool. I shook my head no. The cupboard below was already scuffed from my tennis shoes as I placed my hands on the side of the cupboard and hoisted myself up on the edge of the sink. Belly balanced. Feet dangling. Completely wet. I danced my hands through the water. A temperature far less than what she could handle, I crawl stroked my way through the pile. Did she rewash them? I don’t think so, at least never in front of me. 

When I could no longer breathe from the weight of balancing, I jumped down. Wiped my hands, my face, my neck and belly, all on her apron. And we were connected. A tug that still calls to me. 

When I need the strength of “it’s good enough for joy,” I wrap myself in my Minnesota apron, bake the bread and wash the dishes in a temperature I never imagined I could handle, and I am home. 


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Apron strings.

I suppose we were all, at some point, tied to her apron strings. And if not tied, we loosely wandered through the flowered fabric that smelled of sugar and dough — this apron draped across the welcoming belly (also filled with sugar and dough) of grandma Elsie.

Both my grandmother and mother did the kitchen dance. My grandma, mostly around us. And it was my mother who pulled me in, doing the steps backwards, so I wouldn’t have to. From farmhouse to apartment, I didn’t have the words for it then, but I suppose it was never about the floor, always about the dance. The steps each of them took, to make our lives better, my life better, I will ever be grateful. The only real way to give thanks, I guess, is to keep dancing, to keep you dancing.

I got the wink from heaven’s kitchen yesterday, when I received the five-star review on the apron. A woman purchased one of my dance aprons from a store in Florida and then went to the website to get more for her friends. Filling the dance floor. And I can’t stop smiling, twirling, because I know the connection doesn’t end, it keeps growing. Sometimes a word at a time, sometimes even an apron string.

Maybe we never know what it will be that is going to connect us — keep us connected. So we have to stay in motion. Continue reaching out. The floor will keep changing. Sometimes pulled right up from underneath us. But we are stronger than that. We keep dancing.

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From bowl to oven.

I can no longer say that I always make a test cookie. I did, until yesterday.

It still makes sense. And I will, when I can, test out the dough with one cookie before baking the whole batch. But yesterday’s recipe required a little faith, and a little Elsieing. I googled the French delicacies. There were so many variations to these crackling little almond cookies, both in French and in English, so I Elsied my best guess, and made a little combination.

One thing they all agreed upon was the speed that the dough must go from creation to oven. Containing no flour, the few ingredients, like the egg-whites and sugar, would separate if you hesitated. Having to bake for 20 minutes, there was no time for a test cookie. Having thrown myself into stronger French winds than this and survived, I plopped the wet dough onto the baking sheets and believed, or at least hoped.

We ate them nearly as fast as it took to get from bowl to oven. Delicious. I knew if they turned out that Dominique would like them, but I was surprised at how much that I did! I loved them. It turns out, faith is a tremendous ingredient!

I mention it only because when I recall my greatest pleasures, they have all been accompanied with risk. Becoming an artist. Sharing my stories. Daring the markets of New York. Falling in love, big love. Moving to France. Creating a family. None of these allowed for a test cookie — straight from bowl to oven!

Are there trips and failures along the way – of course, but they aren’t the taste that lingers — that, my friends, is nothing but sweet.

Fill your heart. Feed your soul. Taste this life.

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Spinning into stove.

Rita will turn 98 on the fourth of July. I only know this because of an apron.

It was her niece who bought it for her — this apron of mine. She had been a ballroom dancer with her husband. Still dancing in her nineties. And wasn’t that the whole point of what I wrote on that apron — “and then one day you realize, every floor is actually a dance floor…” Life is something! We are pushed and pulled, sometimes knocked over, knocked flat, by the pulsing beat..but the wisest, the strongest of us all, keep dancing.

It was my mother who taught me to dance in our kitchen. Nothing stopped her. In the green house on Van Dyke Road, in her lengthy arm exuberance, she knocked the light fixture from the ceiling. It fell like a disco ball, just missing both of our heads and crashed to the floor. A broom, a paper sack, and the record kept playing. When we moved to the brown house, she turned up the stereo in the dining room, and we danced within the frame of the orange countertops until we lost the house, and began apartmenting. Each floor became smaller, but never the dance. Still she pushed her hand into mine to signal the turn, and I would – sometimes spinning into stove, sink or fridge, but the dance continued.

So it seems no accident after all that I was invited into Rita’s kitchen. Aproned and joyful, she led me onto her dance floor. Watching the video she shared, I wanted to capture everything. I knew I would paint her. Every dish in the cupboard, plaque on the wall, it all felt so important. And it is!

I finished this painting yesterday in France. This image of her in California. Beginning from the lessons I had learned in Minnesota. We are all connected by this joyful beating of hearts. This music that never ends. This rocket’s red glare!

I often use the word “she.” Today I mean Rita. I mean my mother. Myself. (And hopefully you!) When I write the words, “…and so she would dance.”

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