Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: coming of age


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Tight against my smile.


I never saw my grandma holding a camera. The thought of her turning down the flame beneath the gravy so she could take a photo of the meal to come would have seemed ludicrous. The kitchen stove was in constant rotation, as was the table. If she did have a matching set of dishes, I never saw them. And the thing is, we never wanted to match. We sought out our favorite color from the aluminum juice cups, or one of the coveted A & W Rootbeer bear glasses. And maybe the images that roll through my head are more vivid than any photo could ever be. Heart captured, heart carried. Ever.

Yesterday I made bread and raspberry jam. The scent of bread baking that wafts through walls and stairs is only visible from the back part of my brain, the part with strings that pull at the corners of my mouth. My fingers have grown accustomed to the heat, just like grandma’s, as I lightly grab the bread just out of the oven. I laugh as I place it on the cooling rack because we won’t wait. We never let it cool. I make the too-soon cuts and add the French butter that melts in cracks and nooks. Then the jam. A sweet river of rouge. When the taste hits my tongue and my eyes roll back, it is then I can see the strings that are pulled tight against my smile — a smile that struggles to keep it all in. This is the photo I didn’t take. Nor did I shoot the one where Dominique got up in the middle of the night for one more slice.  But these are the images I share with you, and will carry with me forever, right beside my grandma’s stove, my grandma’s table, my grandma’s hands. 

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As I come clean.

I suppose it was at my grandparent’s house that I first learned to come in clean. Winter snow or summer dirt was wiped from shoes in the entryway before climbing the couple of steps into the kitchen where grandma wiped her floured hands inside of her apron pockets and brought you in for a loving belly hug. After the apron imprinted your cheek, there was nothing to do but come directly with the truth. The truth of what you had been doing outside. What you touched that maybe you were told not to touch, like the electric fence, or a baby bird from a fallen nest. Maybe it felt safe, because it had been proven safe, time and time again, with wiped shoes and warmed cheeks…so we told all, and she loved us still. 

If I come to you with that same truth today, I will tell you that I have battled it throughout the years — love and trust. Maybe we all do. But it has yet to change. The only way any of it seems to work is when I come in clean. When I come clean. When I tell you my truth, and accept the same from you. It’s not as complicated as I, we, often like to make it. 

I grab the straw broom from the corner and smile. It has never needed instructions. Nor does my heart — its screen door swings open, and I dare it all again. Safe. Welcomed in the loving arms of home. 

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Coo-coo and hum.

I have know idea how they got them in the house. It never occurred to me to think of those things — the logistics of moving an organ, a clock. And just as I assumed this clock that coo-cooed on the hour was called a Grandfather clock because it was his, I thought it was a Grandma organ, because it was hers. 

But it must have been fairly spectacular – this finding of an organ mover, a clock mover, to a farm house just outside of Alexandria, Minnesota. And they must have come through the front door – a door we never used, never even considered. And even if they came through this front door, there would have been a stoop to be navigated. A tiny hall before reaching the living room. But as I said, I didn’t think of it, how they got there. But I did count on it, them being there. 

And that was the gift, I suppose. It was all an assurance. One I didn’t ask for, or prayed to keep, I just had it. I knew, without a doubt, what would be found in this house. Coats and overalls hanging in the entry. A kitchen table with uneven legs. Candy in the corner cupboard on the lazy-susan. Sugared cereal beneath the silverware drawer beside the kitchen sink, a kitchen sink that was forever filled with dishes. Something on the stove. Publisher’s Clearing house magazines on the dining room table. The hint of pipe tobacco and baked goods. Television on. A ticking clock. The hum of the organ at the ready. And a love, no matter how many doors or windows were left open, would never leave. 

So it continues to be spectacular — this never knowing how it all got in — mostly the love. I just remember always having it. I still have it. And what a thing to move! To carry throughout a lifetime! Enough to make a heart ever coo-coo and hum.

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While the purse swells with youth.

I would have never dreamed of rummaging through my grandma’s purse. But I did admire it, sitting between us on the front bench seat of the car. It weighed nearly as much as I did. We never used our seatbelts then. The two safety measures were the outstretched straight arm of my grandma, (which could surprisingly secure me, along with the purse) and the rule that I wasn’t allowed to stick my body out of the window beyond my shoulders. I had the idea that if I wrapped my foot in the purse handles it would hold me as the wind blew open my pinkening cheeks. 

The AM radio, permanently tuned into the farm report, was also blocked by her massive purse. There was a station I had heard of, out of the Twin Cities, KDWB 63. “It won’t come in,” she said, cruising down the country road. “Maybe if I held the antenna,” I pleaded. “I could just bend it through the window.” I knocked off the orange styrofoam ball that was attached to the antenna top before she pulled at my leg and secured my sweaty thighs against the leather seat. “Paul Harvey’s coming on..listen.” 

Calmed by his melodic voice and the feel of the golden metal clasp of her purse beneath my fingers, I imagined a day when I would carry the weight of the world beneath white leather straps. I would have make-up and breath mints, I thought, and quarters for the parking meters. And candy and pencils and paper. And perfume and underpants. Yes, and Kleenex. And a checkbook with pictures. The tv guide for planning, of course. And grocery lists and photographs of everyone I loved. A book for reading. Rubber bands for my hair. Band-aids, because something would always happen. And Bazooka Joe gum, for the cartoons. Before I filled my imaginary purse, Paul Harvey was saying, “Good day!” “Wasn’t that good!” my grandma said, not asking. I smiled and shook my head. It was good. I had an open window. My grandma’s attention. An endless summer ahead. Youth’s purse was filled. I had everything I needed, and just enough to wish for. I slipped my hand through the loops and touched her floral dress. It was a good day indeed. 

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Almost seamless.

A butt joint is the simplest one to make. It’s also the weakest.

You can buy premade panels — completely prepared for painting — and it occurs to me that one might call this “cutting corners,” when actually you are doing nothing of the sort. 

It was only through trial and error that I learned how to make panels for painting. It was tempting to just butt the two pieces of wood up against each other. Making the 45 degree angles took time. Patience. Sanding. Sometimes filling the cracks. But I found even with slight errors, these joints were so much stronger. And when I finished the process, the seam almost disappeared — the wood one fluid piece. Painting is then the reward. 

We all have acquaintances — these butt joint relationships. And they’re fine… But to have real friends, friends with whom you’ve taken the time…this is something spectacular! The intimacy of error cannot be replaced. It makes us stronger. This melding of corners, sometimes so rough, can be so beautiful. To know someone, really know them, and come together, so close you can barely see the seam —  this is true friendship. And the rewards – living color!

Whatever I decide to paint on this panel, I know the corners will hold. May we all have such a friend. 

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What we call home.

We took it on good faith that these were actual words, what Grandma Elsie named her desserts and baked and fried treats. Through the years, I suppose, I brushed them off as perhaps Bohemian. Maybe they came from the “old country,” as some called it. Maybe I’d just been saying it wrong — after all, I was in my pre-teens before I realized that Aunt Mavis was not in fact Aunt Navis as I had been mumbling. In my defense, there were just so many of us, and when the treats were being made, even more gathered around, claiming relations that no more existed than the names we had apparently made up for the passing of said treats. 

After moving to France, I had both the time and inclination to bake. I became curious about some of these desserts of our youth. Google seemed just as baffled as I was. I asked a few relatives. All remembered eating, but the names varied, each still ungoogleable.  

I hadn’t realized it until I looked at yesterday’s painting for the blog and compared it with today’s image. I have been thinking that I’m painting in the colors of Provence, while it looks exactly like the colors of Hugo’s field next to my childhood home. 

Memories are malleable. They appear at our table without knowledge or invite, like a farm neighbor riding the scent of misnamed desserts — welcomed, and finding comfort in the ever changing knowledge of what we call home. 

Come in, you and heart sit down. 

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Tucked in familiar.

The only possible way for me to let go was to connect to something. I still can’t go to sleep without reading.

My mother read to me. Tucked and nestled. Arms by my side. Hair still a little damp. I was ready for my word bath. Maybe it was because I had just gotten out of the tub, but I think probably more so because the words washed me clean of the day. Released from the worries that can plague a heart and mind in the shade of night. But not left adrift. No. Each word was like a buoy I clung to — a buoy that separated the shallow from the deep, roped off, letter by letter. And I was saved. 

Looking back, it was more than just the story. It was time with my mom. She gave to me, not only the gift of reading, the joy of reading, but something to hang on to when she left my bedside curb. Secure in her love, I braved the night.

I suppose I’m still doing that. Each night before letting go, I gather in the words. I gather in the love. Tucked in familiar and new, I let go. Forever connected. 

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Unobvious bird.

My husband saw a bright yellow parakeet in our yard. I was out walking and I missed it. I wonder what our gaggle of regulars thought. They had to have seen it — the pigeons who waddle in the driveway, almost too heavy for flight; the magpies in constant search of the “other”; the doves in between cooing… Surely the woodpeckers perked their heads with the flash of yellow. Even the little bush hoppers that flit in and out so quickly must have caught a glimpse. Because a yellow would pop! In these spring greens and pinks that cover our yard, yellow will always shine. And if they did see it, this bright yellow bird, it hasn’t stopped them from singing. From flying. From hopping around our driveway. From dancing in the water that collects on the freshly sprinkled grass. They seem just fine. Joyful even. 

As humans, it can be hard to follow “the nature of things…”  I’m trying to get better. To celebrate those around me. To know their yellow doesn’t take anything away from my beige. To understand there is room for all, hopping, flying, stumbling even. 

People often ask, “Do you paint self-portraits?” Daily, I think. Never parakeet- pronounced, but I’m there, in each painting. In each tiny, joyful, unobvious bird, I’m there — waiting, grateful for every glimpse of color that hovers by.

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Heart’s yellow.

It’s no secret that I love yellow. It is my color of joy. It was my first lesson in brightening up my basement room. And not for the reason you may think. Yes it added more light. But it was more when I had to give up that room. That room that I chose for the first time. Picked the color of carpeting and bedspread. It held my dreams and secrets and heart promises made just before sleep, confirmed at dawn. All in yellow. It wasn’t the bedspread that I worried about losing. What if everything I had dreamed of in that space would also be taken away? I didn’t know. 

When my mom and I moved from apartment to apartment, the layouts and colors changed, but to my joyful surprise my heart’s yellow remained. What a comfort it was, is, to know it. 

People can take from you a lot of things. But not your heart. Oh, they can bruise it, almost break it at times, dull it, but you get to decide what remains. What is the color of your joy. Your soul. 

It has only been a week since my hand surgery. Only, I laugh. I want to paint. Standing in front of my joy in the studio, I know that I will. Soon. My fingers twitch in yellow heart promises, and dream of strokes to come. 

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Between bus and bell.

We knew nothing of love or roses, but that didn’t stop us from singing along with Donny Osmond on the counter of our fifth grade classroom. It was Miss Green who provided us with the 45 and the record player, solidifying that she was indeed not one of the elderly teachers that came before us, but she was one of us, still tethered to the longings of youth…and so she hummed along to Paper Roses. We moved the needle back again and again, allowing our hearts to spin as many times as they could before the first bell brought it all to a stop. 

It always came as a surprise — that morning bell. It seemed as if we had just stepped from the bus into the school, and it was over. Maybe we should have taken it as a warning, this fleeting time…and I didn’t. Not for years. Maybe no one does. But I’m trying to now. Not out of fear or desperation, but gratitude and respect. These gifts that we are given from moment to moment. Spectacular! 

Yesterday on my morning walk — the place where I hover between bus and bell — I saw this pink flower. I took a photo. I got down to really look at it. The pink petals were so lovely. “They look like paper, silk paper,” I thought. It’s funny how something so weightless can lift you. Transport you. I hummed the notes that formed a youthful string, a string that tethers me still. My heart sings as if no lessons have been learned. And I give thanks for the time. 

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