Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: butterfly


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Mid-stumble.

For some it’s the cardinal. Others a butterfly. Others still, a hummingbird, a dragonfly, a feather, a stone. All symbols, messages from a loved one who has passed. The beautiful thing is, the list can change and grow, and can never be wrong. 

I suppose it has always been the case, we see what we want to see. And it has me thinking, if I can see the beauty of those in my life who have gone before me, if I can see their goodness still, feel their love still, in a random flutter, or a lifeless object, then certainly, wouldn’t it make sense that I, we, could see the goodness in each other? That we could see, before the flutter, mid-stumble, a beauty still, of all those around us. 

Because certainly the ones we loved were never flawless. Never without mistake. But oh, how we love them still. How we would forgive any flaw to hold them again. I’m not saying it would be all that simple, but I’m thinking, I’m hoping, what if I could get to that point with everyone near and far? Give them the grace I allow my cardinals, my butterflies. Love them with all of my heart. 

As they sing and say, “I suppose I’m a dreamer…” but I’m going to give it my humble attempt. And in my humble failings and flaws, maybe you will see the love in me as well, as I stumble before the flutter. 

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Je m’appelle Emily.

Before I had finished the page in my sketchbook, it had become an Emily Dickinson poem. “In the name of the Bee,” — a poem that had been passed around between my mother, my ninth grade English teacher, my friend David, two books on my shelf, and the path that I walk daily. 

It was another Emily who asked, 

“EMILY: “Does anyone ever realize life while they live it…every, every minute?”
STAGE MANAGER: “No. Saints and poets maybe…they do some.”

– Thornton Wilder, “Our Town”

Wanting to get to “some,” and realizing my limits for sainthood, I try to walk in the poem each day.

I said once, on the days that I can’t create something beautiful, at least give me the wisdom to see it. Yesterday was busied with a trip to Marseille. We had an appointment at the Hopital Conception. We were greeted at the entry with a poster of Rimbaud, the French poet. While others sat in the waiting room. I sat in the poetry. I looked around to see if others were held in the syntax, hoping, wishing, they could feel my Emily within their Rimbaud. That maybe we could all live together in the magic of the word, maybe not “every, every minute,” but for this moment, the magic of this collective poem. 


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A dance to keep.

I saw a fox on the road. He scurried off to the woods, and I back home to tell Dominique. I wonder if he was in a hurry to tell his furry family that he saw me? 

I think about it all. Do the butterflies regard me as a sign from a loved one, as they dance along my shoulders? Do the birds try to recreate my song? Have the flowers been waiting eagerly to bloom? To brush a dewy hello on my spring leg? Do the leaved trees enjoy the glint of my green ring as I swing my arms? 

I don’t mean any of this as vanity. Truly. I don’t assume the world is thinking just about me. I guess what I mean is, we all have an impact. The steps we take each day. The paths we cross. The lives we touch. And if we thought about it in this way, wouldn’t our steps be a little lighter? Wouldn’t we move with a little more grace and a little less trample? If I am love to the butterflies, just as they are to me, now, wouldn’t that be some kind of dance?! And couldn’t it continue from butterfly to neighbor? To persons across the globe? 

I guess the song said it best, “you may say I’m a dreamer…but I’m not the only one.” I see it in you. When you join me in Rueben’s field. In Elsie’s kitchen. In Ivy’s shoes. For aren’t they but the fox, the flower and the butterfly? They are for me. And if you’ll excuse me, I have a dance to keep. 

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Running the Marys.

Through the month of July, I thought the row of flowers that lined our driveway were a group of Marys that all shared the last name Gold. Brightly dressed in oranges, reds, and yellows, these Marys sweetened our driveway like the Halloween candy I had laid out in rows several months before. 

These Marys seemed so hearty. So forgiving. Not like Mrs. Muzik’s flowers a few houses down, that, while beautiful, didn’t want to be touched. I ran the Marys daily. Racing up the row in the driveway, then back the row in our lawn. If I bent over with one arm reaching low, I could run my hands through all the colors, greeting every Mary, my fingertips as new as each petal. I didn’t have the words for it then, but I felt it in my heart, this promise to be delicate, to be strong.

While she was out watering her lawn bouquet one evening, I told Mrs. Muzik about our Marys. She looked confused at first, then shook her head, “They’re marigolds,” she said. Isn’t that what I said, only faster? I know I said, each one is named Mary Gold. “No,” she said, and said it again — “marigolds.” I walked back up the gravel hill to our house. My mom was standing by the garage door, where our flowers began. “She’s trying to kill my Marys,” I said, bottom lip out. “Who did? What?” “Mrs. Muzik, she says they aren’t Marys at all, they are marigolds.” My mom smiled. “But ours are Marys, right?” “Yes,” she said, “Of course they are.” She locked my hand in hers and we ran down the row.

We were sitting at our local seafood restaurant, Touinou. The outdoor deck was lined in oranges, yellows and reds. A butterfly floated above them. I knew it was my mother. You can’t tell me differently. I was raised never to allow anyone to kill my Marys. We sat together, delicate and strong, in the glow of a French summer sun.

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As I flutter by.

I was more following it, than chasing it. Fluttering really. Doing my best to keep up. My grandfather didn’t really imagine that I could catch this butterfly, so his warning was light, but effective. “Don’t touch the wings,” he said. Me, still imagining my chubby legs were a match for these wings, questioned, “But why? They’re so pretty!’ He explained something about the powder rubbing off…they could lose their ability to fly. “You don’t want that to happen,” he said. Of course not. But just a bit of that desire remained. A bit of that doubt.

I didn’t have google at the time. Nothing to fact check. He had never lied to me. So I just kept fluttering. 

When I reached school age, I learned more. The challenge of the caterpillar to “become.”  It seemed unimaginable. Unbelievable! How did it survive — and not just survive, but turn into something so incredibly beautiful? I read it in books. Saw the images. But really?  How could this be?

I counted the sleeping pills on my mother’s nightstand. She was so sad. I didn’t know how long a human could cocoon. Nobody taught me that. 

But somehow, there would be proof in her wings. And I got to flutter beside her. And she beside me. Nothing more magical than that.

The fragile colors came to life in my sketchbook yesterday. Each with a hope and prayer that we could all be that gentle with one another. We could flutter, and flatter, and lift, and love. We could give each other the time needed to change. To grow. To become. We could give each other the chance to fly — just a smiling thought this morning, as I flutter by.

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Saving butterflies

I saw him fluttering there, in the pool. Wings wet, almost unflappable. Butterflies weren’t meant to swim I guess. 

I have loved them since kindergarten — since Mrs. Strand told us how they got their name. She helped us cut wings out of construction paper. Fold the edges. Glue them onto sticks. And when you rolled the stick between your sweaty, glue-stained fingers, the flaps fluttered. We laughed and marched around the classroom, wings almost lifting us off the ground. “That’s how they got their name, you see…doing just what you did.” We stopped and looked at her. “You fluttered by.” She continued, “Somewhere along the way, someone decided it was easier to say butterfly — easier than flutterby — and the name stuck.”

I have no idea if this is true. And I will not google it, because I like it being true, in my memory, and in my heart. So I will save this story. It will forever live with me. 

So yesterday, when I saw him just barely fluttering, and not fluttering by, I tried to help. I got the net and lifted him out of the pool, onto the grass.  He continued to flutter, but still not by. I began swimming laps, soon to find my little friend once again in the pool. I repeated the rescue. When I finished swimming, I checked and he was gone. I don’t know that it’s true, but in my heart he is now somewhere, fluttering by.

It’s the stories we tell ourselves that save us. Some created, slightly adapted, molded with time, and experience, but they are forever real. And that’s the beauty, I suppose, this deciding which ones to carry, which ones to let go. Some will try to form you – in the worst ways – and they can be hard to abandon. But when you do, if you can, make room for the kind memories, the loving ones, oh, how light your heart can be, so light, it may even lift you. Choose these. Carry these. Forever, together, let’s flutter by.