Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: connection


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To the mountain.

I see the Sainte Victoire mountain every day. It always catches my breath. On the halfway point of my daily walk I get the best view. I try to drink it in slowly. It is the latte I order extra hot to make it last longer. It is the tentative first sip of familiar and spectacular against my lips. Delicious.

Sometimes I wonder if I would have noticed it. Would I have just gulped it in and moved on? It was Cezanne who led me to it. Painting by painting. Image by image. In books and museums. Telling me again how worthy it was. How beautiful. And I believed it before I stood beneath it. Before I climbed it. Before I painted it. 

That’s what we can do for each other. It’s why I love a latte, I suppose. Because of each one shared with my mother, with my friends. Each sip an experience. Of laughter and tears. An extension of a meal. A way to make the afternoon last longer. A gathering of love, sip by sip. 

And the thing is, we can do it with everything. When we share what we love. The things we find important. When we show each other the view from our hearts, it can be the familiar turned spectacular. I mean it’s just a rock, a giant rock, this Sainte Victoire. So if we can turn that into a “breath-taker” — just imagine what else love can do! 

It’s time to show our hearts. Look at things differently. Open our minds. And just see!!!!

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Not lost on me.

If you need reminding of how differently we are taking in the information of this world, just google a few books and read the reviews. I always sample the books online before buying. Searching for a new read yesterday, I had to laugh because three times in a row the “It was so bad I want a refund” review was right next to the “I can’t stop thinking about this book, it changed my life” comment. Each were given the same words. The same pages. But clearly they didn’t receive the same story. 

So it really shouldn’t be a surprise that we have such vastly polarizing views of the world. The information is processed so differently within each of us. Affected, I suppose, by our own experience. This was proven again as I picked out my book last night. As I began sampling, I wasn’t certain about this book, not sure if it would appeal to me. Did I have anything in common with the main character, a young Japanese girl writing in her notebook? It was when they cut to a woman on a remote Canadian island, who finds this journal that washed up on shore in a bag that I knew. It was one of those moments when you look around to see if you are actually being filmed. Am I part of the simulation? Because surely some magical force directed you here. It was when they cut to the Canadian woman describing the front of the sketchbook that I knew — “À la recherche du temps perdu” (French — in search of lost time). This is the sketchbook I started recently. The sketchbook I show you almost every day with the birds. The sketchbook that I hold daily. The one that is currently resting beneath the tablet that I’m typing on. 

This is the reason why I buy this book. The reason that I am connected to this Japanese girl and this Canadian woman. The reason I still believe we can come together. We can find a way. The very reason I have continued hope. 

There are so many things that can divide up. But I am not that different from you. We can always find a reason to connect. If we keep searching, time is never lost. 

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Hello.

I don’t know them, the people with the US mailbox, but I nod in the direction of their house each day when I walk by — my acknowledgement traveling over the bush that lines the road, the iron gate, up the tree-lined gravel driveway, past the sleeping dog that can’t muster a bark in the heat, and the aloof cat (that won’t admit it is our gate she will be sleeping on later, just because she can), up the three stairs to the screen door, and on a long awaited breeze whispers, “Hello in there.” 

We barely even get mail anymore. I used to see the mail car pass when I was out walking. Now I never do. But the mailbox still connects us — the mailbox that stands hopeful for connection. Ready to give an open mouthed “Ohhhhh” when it does! And I suppose it’s not really the box at all, but the feeling. Perhaps we all know that desire to connect, to gather in, with words and hearts and gesture. Someone is always reaching out, saying, “Does anyone else feel this way?” And it doesn’t take much. We worry about doing the right thing, saying the right words, so we do nothing at all, when all it really takes is just an acknowledgment, a simple heart nod to say, “I’ve been on this road before, hello…”

We are only as strong as our connections.
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Open Line

Three things stopped my grandmother in her aproned tracks — Paul Harvey, Days of Our Lives, and Open Line. No matter what she was doing, cooking, driving, playing dice, all came to a haunt to listen to these programs. 

Open Line was on our local radio station. People were free to call in to say what they had and/or what they had to give. If you needed a lawnmower, you called in. If you had a tractor for sale or some extra Tupperware to give away, you called in. Even if you just wanted to wish a public birthday to your friend Gladys, you called in.  

Perhaps this was our first form of social media. Although we never would have called it that. People seemed to be respectful. Though I can’t be totally sure, Grandma was quick to the volume button with her freshly wiped hands. Perhaps she, we as a community, did our own policing. 

I think of it now because of my friend, Patty. She has been the voice on the radio for as long as I remember. Her niece recently sent her a card that I made long ago. It reads, “Sure it’s a big lake, but you don’t have to sail it alone.”  And we are still connected. Still sailing, this one of 10,000 lakes. And isn’t that what friendship is? The open line that connects us. The open line through which we offer what we have, and ask for what we need. 

I hope it is the case. I have to believe it. So I wipe my hands on my imaginary apron and type. All lines are open. 

Forever connected.
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Area code.

As you might expect, I am not driven numerically. Words and images dance around my head and heart, amid a constant flow of emotions, (and they can add up to a lot), but not much that I can put a number on. So when we travel from hotel to hotel, I have my own system of remembering the room numbers. Sometimes we get lucky and it’s as simple as 123, but that’s not often. Yesterday was a delight, as we made our stay in the area code my mother had for 50 years — 320. 

I don’t suppose I’ll ever forget that number. 320-763-5809. I remember it was a big deal when we had to add the 76 when we dialed. As a little girl, it was simply 3-5809. Eventually, as the town grew, we even had to add the 320. It was quite an uproar at first, but I rather liked it — having our own area code. A claim to this connection. And I suppose, that’s all anything is about. Having these connections. 

We are fortunate enough to be staying with good friends in Palm Springs. We have remained connected through these France years by phone. I laugh each time I see her number come up on my iPad — it’s still the area code from Chicago – 773. This is where we first met. Of course I could change it on my screen, but I like seeing it. It places us together, right on the park bench, and no time has passed, and we are sisters, girlfriends, ever connected, under a Chicago sun. There is no number large enough for the value of this kind of connection. 

You can call it girl-math. Or no math at all. I don’t really care. Are they prime numbers? For me, YES! And at this very moment, they are two of the largest sums I know.

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Scattered “w”s

I don’t know her name, the woman at the bookstore — the one I told you about the other day. The one who followed Frances McDormand around and out the store last summer. But I know her face. And she knows mine. When we returned a few days ago, I placed my book on the counter to purchase, and held my phone up to show her the photo. I started with “Remember when…” and she looked terrified — the store is filled with international customers daily, so I’m sure she was not prepared for a test. But I continued quickly…”we talked about Frances McDormand?” And she broke into a huge smile. Yes, yes, she remembered this. I told her that I was so inspired that I went home and painted her. I held out my phone displaying the portrait. “Wow!” She claimed, “You are soooo good, wow!”  I beamed. I thanked her in two languages, both of us still grinning. “Because of our conversation…” she repeated, recognizing the part she had played. “Yes!” I said. And we knew we were connected. We spoke a little of paint, and words, and she placed my new book in a sack. I turned around to join Dominque and she said, this time to herself, perhaps to the store, the books that connected us, “Woah! Magnifique!” 

There are no price tags for each day that we live, but we do get paid, in the most glorious of ways. Sometimes it is with a passing smile. A lingered hug that says, “I know,” without words. A wave from an open window. Two wows and a woah! — I have them pocketed still, not to hoard them, but to have them at the ready, to give them freely when the moment arrives. When looked at with the hope of connection, I can scatter my “w”s and form a bond. Wow!

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On fishing.

When he commissioned me to do the portrait, he was explaining how we were connected. The wife of his deceased brother ended up marrying my divorced cousin and living in my grandparent’s house. Did that make us related? Probably not, but somehow there were strands. Strands enough to fill a brush, to collect the paint, to make the portrait of three brothers, fishing at a lake, a lake that I would swim in a few years to come. None of us knowing in the time that this painting captures, all that we would survive. All of the living. All of the love. Never expecting that heartache and difference would be washed clean in the common waters of Lake L’homme Dieu. 

Barefooted and fishing — maybe it’s the metaphor for how we all begin. Innocent and looking. Docked, but never tied down. Hopeful. Curious. Maybe in returning here we can find the hope we so desperately need. The simplicity. The beauty of what really connects us. 

I suppose the words I type are merely a strand on a pole, flung out to open waters, but maybe it’s enough. I pray it’s enough. So I keep writing. I keep painting. I keep hoping. I keep living. I keep loving.

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My place.

It was only the most trusted friends who held your place. They lined us up for everything at Washington Elementary. The lavatory. The drinking fountain. The library. And it continued onto the playground, at the monkey bars and swings. At the Dairy Queen. The movie theatre. But urgencies arose, and we asked our closest friends to hold our place as we navigated from the middle of the ticket line into the back of the bathroom one. Darting back without missing a step. 

We had special languages then. Phrases and words. Tattoos from Cracker Jack boxes. We wrote on each other’s hands. Pricked our fingers. Braided our hair. Anything to connect. To hold our place. 

I suppose we’re still doing that. I know that I am. I can leave the country for six months, and before I’ve changed my internal and external clock, I am mid conversation with the ones who pinky-sweared to be there upon my return. Always making room for me. 

It’s not lost on me that I gave her my hand painted bookmark. We Wordle daily, long distance. Share silly thoughts and emails. And we are tassled together. Even as life throws us from line to line, beyond the grumbles of those waiting, those checking their watches and throwing hands in air, we smile, knowing, repeating, “Oh, but it is my place!”

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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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Exposed wire.

When our house was built, long before I arrived, it was still legal to burn things in the backyard — hence the firepit that rests next to my studio. I use it for display. It has a glorious texture that no doubt came from use. Cracked. Wired. But still strong. Still beautiful. Maybe I’m only able to see it because of my own exposed wires, those holding together all of the cracks that make me, well, me.

I was listening to a psychiatrist explain this so elegantly on a podcast yesterday. Human need is what really holds us all together. We so often confuse these needs as weakness. But in reality, these needs bring us closer. Crossing our experiences like a trellis, thus connecting, strengthening all of us.

The first painting I hung on our pit and then photographed for my website sold almost immediately. The fire never died.

I hang each new creation on the challenged wire that holds together the pit, that holds together my heart. In fact, nothing rests cold. And we are connected. We are stronger. Together.

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