Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: dancer


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Stardust.

I don’t suppose the spaces left from loved ones passed can ever be completely filled. But maybe it’s wrong to think they ever were. These relationships weren’t beautiful, memorable, longed for even still, because of their solid perfection. Perhaps they were always stardust, flittering, fluttering, changing shape, with room always left for dancing, beneath the flickering light. 

It’s the way I choose to think of it, my mother’s space, not as a hole left behind, but a dance floor. And all that magic that sprinkles from her still, lights up the people around me, and they step in, tap me on the shoulder, and ask me to dance. They are my new daily connections. My new last calls. My shared laughter and secrets. Hopes and challenges. Not replacements, but keepers of the dance. 

We’re not all good at the same thing. Some are meant to pull you in, and simply sway. Other’s tap their feet and keep the beat alive. Some dizzy you into laughter. Dance you into breathless. And hold out the ladle of punch. I am grateful for them all. All of you, who keep my dance floor filled, my heart in motion, in sway, in the right tempo, under the stardust. 

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But dance.

I met her for the first time yesterday. She asked if I was a dancer. I smiled, not because I am, but because I think she saw my friend Loie. 

Loie was a professional dancer in Chicago. We went to visit her in California this year. And seeing her move with such grace between rooms, or simply standing in front of the garage door, I think, I hope, I took a bit of it on — like a French accent, or the joy of my grandma Elsie. 

People have always asked me how I started as an artist. It may sound unusual, but I can honestly say that the two most important things in my career (probably just life) have been to surround myself with the best people, and to pay attention. And what a pleasure to know, as I’m standing in my ballet flats in the south of France, it’s still working. 

I wrote a poem for my grandma at the end of her life. Telling her how much she meant to my mother, to me. Promising her that when people see me, really see me, on my very best of days, they will see her. I don’t always succeed, but on the days when you say, that this painting brought you joy, or these words touched your heart, I think, I hope, I know, that you saw her too!

And in all this joy, this friendship, this love, there’s nothing to do, I suppose, but dance.

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Another dance.

When I think about it, I’ve never actually seen her dance. But I’ve always known she was a dancer. Sitting on a bench in Chicago, before she even stood, I was immediately attracted to that one thing that may only be referred to as grace. It is this, I suppose that keeps pulling me in. 

My mother was first to do it — to pull me in — stocking footed on the kitchen floor. The Frank Sinatra tape that we had to rewind by pencil because of overuse, played at full volume. She didn’t tell me she was leading (real leaders never have to). She gently slid me across the floor. An urge of a bent elbow. A nod. A lifted eyebrow signaled a turn. Smiles and giggles let me know I was not only doing it right, but soaring. No matter the chaos outside of this kitchen, I was lifted in this grace. I was always saved. 

When we said good-bye to them at their garage door in Palm Springs the other day, my friend from a Chicago bleacher, she turned her hands up just a little by her side. With such timeless elegance. I was no longer in the car, but the kitchen. 

You can ask me about love. You can say, “Do you believe it lasts?” To this I will answer, “I know it for sure.” It may keep changing shape, but it ever pulls me in. And when it does — when it asks me for another dance — I will always answer YES!

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A sliver of light.

I usually had ten to fifteen minutes to spare. I held the back of the green leather seat and jumped up the minute the bus driver braked and pulled out the stop sign along with door. First off of the school bus, I ran around the corner to the back door. I flung my coat into the locker that I never actually locked and ran to the gym. No windows, it was as dark as night. I put a notebook between the doors, cracking a sliver of light that led me to the utility closet. It wasn’t always there, on the doorknob, the plastic jump rope I purposely hung after gym class. Most days, the gym teacher put it away and locked the door, but from time to time, as I felt my way along the wall the next morning, I would feel it before I saw it, and my day began with a heart jump of excitement. 

Of course I had jump ropes at home. I managed to sneak them in our cart quite often at Ben Franklin. They weren’t expensive. But the jump ropes at Washington Elementary were nothing short of gorgeous. Worthy of being locked up. They had a weight to them. The plastic blue and white segments would snap against the gymnasium floor with each turn. Maybe it was the darkness that heightened the sound, but the hard plastic cracking against the floor sounded like power. And I twirled myself into confidence. 

When the bell rang, I hung the rope back on the knob with a silent thank-you. I picked up my notebook and smiled sweatily into my desk for the day. Ready to face the light of day. The light of learning. 

It’s different for everyone. It’s even different for ourselves as we continue to change. But we always need to find a way to begin. To boost our confidence. To give ourselves a head start (a jump start). I know what works for me. My hope today is that these words are the tiny crack in the door, the small sliver of light, that leads you to finding yours. Your confidence. Your power. Your beginning. 

Good morning!

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With all that raggedy trust.

When I was five I began drawing. Six, writing. Every paper in my tiny bedroom was filled. I sat on my twin bed and poured out my heart to the Raggedy Ann and Andy sheets. Emboldened with their always smiling and gentle approval, I held the paper in my plattered, chubby hands, and presented it to my mother. She knew the gift that it was, and welcomed it with a caring so safe, so loving, that I knew I could do it again and again. 

I did it daily. When my mother passed, it was that little girl that looked directly at me, that looks at me every day, hands and heart extended, she asks me where she is to go. And she’s so small. And I don’t want to hurt her. She’s still so filled with ideas and belief, and I can’t turn her away. When she comes to me, with all that raggedy trust, I smile, and do the best that I can with what she is offering. I tell her what she has made, what we have made, is something special, and I clutch it to my beating chest before setting it free. 

If you’re reading this, I, we, stand before you, so small, but still believing it matters. And I will do it, again, and again.

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The dream continues.

I’ve never been someone who thinks things will last forever. I know there are no guarantees. I have moved out of enough homes and apartments to understand the impermanence of it all. I’ve owned blowdryers for heaven’s sake — one of the best examples of obsolescence.

I know we have to let go.

Yesterday we had to throw away a perfectly good printer, only a little over a year old. The toner cartridges are no longer made — not even in the vastness of the World Wide Web. I suppose it should be nothing. But should it? It’s not about this plastic box. I guess it’s the simple act of disposal. This is necessary, I know. And I’m not talking about letting go here. I have no personal relationship with this printer. I just don’t want become accustomed to the ease of throwing things away. I worry that if it all gets too simple, we begin to value nothing. A garbage full of electronics is one thing, but how do we keep the bin free of people’s hearts and dreams, ideas and growth, visions and hopes — I, we, must not be so quick to dispose. And it can be easy. With just a click of a button we can unfriend. A few more clicks and we can hurt. Destroy even. Complete disposal.

And this is not to be stagnant. Real change, real growth, I believe comes in the nuturing of ideas. In discussions. Sometimes even hard ones. But just because they can be difficult, we don’t throw them away. We learn from them. We grow. I heard once, when you stop dreaming, you die. When you stop learning, you stop living. So I put together the new printer. I download the manual. I struggle through the “keep it simple” directions on the box. I connect to my phone and iPad. I print out the labels to ship my sold painting to the US from France. And my dream continues. The world can take away your Wi-Fi, your printer, but not your dream. Not your heart. That is for you and you alone to decide.

“After all the tears and questions, she realized that only she could decide if her heart was disposable or not…and it wasn’t.”

**The dance woman pictured is on her way to the US!

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Pinky swear.

It took so little to show that we really meant it when we were young. Just a simple reaching out of a pinky finger to wrap around another’s. We swore it to be true, and our curled pinkies confirmed it. 

I suppose it was fitting that our weakest of links, these tiny little fingers exposed like this, showed our biggest strength — a vulnerability, a trust. It was never with clenched fists or raised arms. Just our hearts exchanging beats. Pinky to Pinky.

I don’t know when we stopped doing it. Who was it that suggested a shaking fist deserved more attention? When did we start exchanging “vulnerable” for “sure”? Why did we think all that certainty would connect us? 

The truth is, I’m rarely sure. I think I lean more on curious. To what if. To what could be. I have garnered more there — not necessarily the answers, but I have found challenge and creativity, fulfillment and reward, friendship, even love.   

So take these daily words as my pinky promise, my reaching out, my hope for connection. I will give to you, not always “the best,” but it will ever be “my best.” This, I swear. 

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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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Like a floating Ginger.

She certainly wouldn’t have been considered a dancer, my grandma, but one could make the Ginger Rogers comparison quite easily. It is often said that Ms. Rogers not only did everything that Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels. Yes, my grandpa worked hard, and he had the crops to prove it, but my aproned grandma kept longer hours, with nine children and 27 grandchildren pulling from behind. 

The thing is though, as it is with most who are excellent at their craft, the work is hidden. Like a floating Ginger, she moved from stove to sink to table to garden to clothesline to town. And I never caught a glimpse of the struggle. Of course it had to be there, but I never saw her rub her aching toes. I never heard her catch her breath while offering the love and attention we all demanded. 

There were no words like self-care then. But she was smart enough to take her personal time. And we were smart enough to know that it was at noon each weekday in front of the tv set to watch NBC’s Days of our Lives. Just as some of the Bohemians on neighboring farms were thought to be relatives, my cousins and I thought the same of the Hortons from Salem. I suppose I loved this time the most because I saw Grandma Elsie from the front. Her welcoming belly was not hidden by a steaming pot or bubbling kitchen sink. No, it was there to climb on, to hug, to rest against. We took our turns dancing with Ginger as Ma and Pa Horton looked on.

Working in my sketchbook, alone in the studio, I know these small paintings won’t sell, or even be seen, but as my hand stumbles through the pages, I know, without pressure, or even promise, it is my time to dance.  

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…and so she would dance.

I suppose we all have different destinations. I used to walk down Hopkins Crossroad and take a left onto Minnetonka Blvd. The obvious attraction to many was the bright red roof of the Dairy Queen. But not for me.

It was no accident, I suppose, that there was usually a Dairy Queen next to the softball fields of my youth. In dusted and grass stained uniforms, with skinned knees and sweat matted hair, all the young girls gathered behind cones, and cups. Celebrated or commisserated with frozen cream. Intolerant, being a word well above my reading level, I just knew I would get sick. (After two very unsuccessful attempts.) Sometimes I opted for the Mister Misty – the DQ’s version of shaved ice – but mostly I just went without.

I could have felt sorry for myself. My mother didn’t allow that. “Look around,” she said, on her way back to work, “You have a banana seat bike and a beautiful summer day, figure it out…” So I rode. I rode that bike to lakes. To swingsets. To ballfields. And neighbors. The North End. Parks. On gravel and hills. In cemeteries. Empty school yards. To the public library. Ben Franklin. Hugo’s field. I saw everything. I pedaled the paths and when the paths got too thick, I dropped my bike and walked. And walked some more. As I wore the flowers from my banana seat, and the soles from my bumper tennis shoes, without my knowledge or permission, I was indeed figuring it out.

I still think of it as my superpower — seeing beyond the obvious red roof. During my Minnetonka stay, I saw it almost every day, the weeping willow just before the DQ. One autumn, after dancing with it for an entire summer, I came home and gave thanks on the canvas. For the willow. The road. My mother. The love of the dance.

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