Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: clothesline


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Ballooned.

If I were to play the percentages, the chances of me having a good dream are few and far between. And I remember all of them. The details especially clear in the early morning ones. Yet, 4:30am is too early for me to get up, so this morning, I dared the clarity and went back to sleep. This morning’s reward was worth beyond the years of risk. 

In my dream —-

Dominique and I were visiting the Chicago Art Institute — one of my favorite places on this planet. The security was extra vigilant. Dominique was less patient than usual. He got through before me and was out of sight as I continued the struggle with my passport and the guard. Annoyed and alone, I climbed the large staircase to get a better view. Surely he hadn’t gotten far. I scanned the crowd. Nothing. No one. I turned to the sound of the elevator doors opening beside me. Every breath, every worry, every “every” left my body as I saw my mother standing there with Dominique. She wouldn’t have needed the balloons in her hand to complete the surprise, and she must have thought so too, because she released them instantly and grabbed me in her arms. I can feel her still. The same hug with skinned knees at five. The same hug on a Tuesday morning before a test at school. The same hug as boyfriends disappointed. As on weekend visits. As birthdays passed. As Christmases held. As springs promised. As love continued. Continues. I was held in the folds of her ruffled white blouse. And I was saved. The balloons kept rising.   —-

Would I chance every bad dream for another moment. Of course. I do. I will. Because the love never dies. It lifts. It carries. And leads me. To books. To the page. To the canvas. To the path. To the living. To all the love around me, ballooned, and ever rising. 

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Heart on the line.

She’ll be surprised when she sees her portrait. She’s doesn’t know it, but she’s wearing one of my mom’s blouses. I think she looks pretty in it — though she would back up a little, shrug her shoulders and shake her head at such a compliment. I remember the first time I told her she looked beautiful in her ensemble and she nearly backed herself into the garage door. It’s not really the culture here, to be so fast and loose with the compliments. And I don’t want to make people uncomfortable, but I do want them to know how good it feels, these words of admiration. My mother gave them to me, and they carry me still. How could I not pass them along? So I put her in my mom’s blouse on this canvas, hoping maybe she could feel it, maybe the words would gather in the slight ruffles around her face and heart. Surely the flow of such gentle fabric would cotton to her being, and she would know that it wasn’t just a compliment, it was the gift I have of greatest value — a welcome into my family, my heart. And if she felt that, my sister-in-law, within all of my ruffled and flawed attempts, she would have to feel good, and possibly even pretty, and the discomfort would fade the next time I saw her wearing a dress fresh from the line, and I told her “You look so lovely in that color.” And maybe we’ll all be smiling, just like my mother wanted.

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Keep playing.

The clothes pins we used were wooden. I wasn’t tall enough to hang anything on the line, nor old enough to wash clothes, but I did use them for a birthday party game. 

My mom said I could use the whole basement for my party. I taped the donkey on the side of the wall. Put dice on the table. And placed the glass jar beneath the chair, beside the bucket of clothes pins. I was kneeling on the chair with pin in hand when she walked in. She paused with a look that said I thought we talked about this. And we had. I wasn’t going to play in any of the games. Or if I played, I wasn’t going to win, because the winner got a prize — their own present. And it being my birthday, I was guaranteed to get enough. “I’m not practicing,” I assured her, “I’m happy to let someone else win.”  And I was. Truly. “I just like the sound it makes, when the wooden pin falls inside the glass.” She smiled at me. “The little clink, clunk…it’s like the glass is happy. It’s not empty anymore.” I didn’t really have to plead my case, my mother knew me. “Keep playing, forever,” she said. 

It’s funny how long I thought forever would be back then. 

I never had a clothesline until I moved to France. Our clothes dry in the breezes of Provence. Our clothes pins are plastic, and not really even pins anymore, but I still can hear the sound. Each memory of my mom bounces against the glass of my heart, clink, clank…and my heart is never empty.

Today is my birthday. I mention it only because I know that I have already won — so much. So I stand beside the chair and offer you to play. I want you to win on my birthday. I want you to hear the sounds of joy. The only way we outrun forever is to keep playing.  

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Hearts on the line.

I guess they could be in almost anything — these signs of hope — if that’s what we want to see. And I do.

I pass by this particular house on my twice daily walks, a total of four times. Coming and going, I see the clothes hanging on the line. And it’s not like they forget them, or abandoned them. No, they are different each day. Even as our weather begins to change to the cool humidity of autumn, the clothes are pinned  to the line. Ever hopeful. On the days that the wind blows against my face and I tuck my chin to heart, I think, well, their clothes should dry today. When the sun hides behind the mountain and the clouds, I see her arms raised to the line and think, just as she must, the sun could come out today. 

I have never met her, or them. But it’s not essential to our connection. I’d like to think the hope that bounces back and forth is our daily conversation, and we are united. I also humbly hope the same is true, when someone up the hill, from their unshuttered window, sees me passing by daily, in summer’s heat, or autumn’s damp, that perhaps they smile and think, “maybe I could do the same.”

We never really know what connects us. But make no mistake, I believe we all are connected. If you could see the hope in me, my daily actions, and I could see that in you… Maybe with our hearts on the line, we could do anything.

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