Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: delicious


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Silently full.

When you love something, you want to share it. In my youth, I used to think that meant that the other person not only had to love it, but love it for the same reasons. Childish, I know, but I’d like to think I’ve gotten better, more secure. It is more than enough to simply love.

I enjoy making Christmas cookies. Thanks to a childhood friend, I have one cutter in the shape of Minnesota. Of course no one here in France knows what it is, but the shape of my home state is just as delicious as the Christmas tree, or the star, and they enjoy it. Sometimes I watch. I smile when I think, oh, my husband just took a bite of Duluth, and that same shape that rests in my heart, without his knowledge or permission, is colored in the morning blue of a fresh snow, and is silently full. 

Is that what love has always been? If so, what a relief to know it is in the giving that we become filled. Oh, the stress of waiting and wanting to receive… So I offer my love, in all the shapes and colors I know, and find myself with more than I ever could have asked for. And I am saved. 

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Every penny.

What we used to call the “penny candy” is now fifteen cents each, but that seemed like a very small price to pay for the additional time travel. Placing the Razzles in the bag, I was in the first grade, next to Gerald Reed, accepting his tokens of affection behind pink cheeks. Each Bazooka Joe plopped me onto gravel in front of our mailbox on Van Dyke Road, patiently waiting for the mailman to bring the gift I ordered from the cartoon wrappers. Zots and licorice, right back to Ben Franklin, frantically filling the sack before the cartoon previews began at the Alexandria Theatre next door. Each trip worth every penny!

I gave the candy to my friends in their early Easter Basket. They wanted to share, but I had already been filled with the travel, the love and the joy. It all comes down to experience. Connections. Time spent with the ones we love — those sitting beside us unwrapping the candy, and those we carry in our hearts, deliciously ever! 

No love left unspent.

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Hotel breakfast.

Just because we didn’t leave the house doesn’t mean we didn’t go anywhere. 

It’s no secret that comfort can pack its bags and take off at any given moment. Knowing this to be true, I decided a long time ago that maybe I could open the suitcase for fear and anxiety — you know, nudge them off a little. 

So I invent things, like hotel breakfast. 

The night before last, I had terrible dreams. I don’t know that they were spurred on by the news, but I’m certain it didn’t help. So last night, getting ready for bed, I was determined not to watch anything political. The first video that came up in the rotation said “you can make bread at 8pm tonight.” I looked at the clock. 8:05. So I watched. And then mixed up the dough for the baguettes. I slept while the dough began to rise. I got up at 6am and finished the work. The house began to smell fantastic. I have made all kinds of bread, but never straight out of the oven for petit déjeuner. Topped with butter and honey — what a trip!!!! I’m still smiling from our mini vacation.

There are so many things we have to carry. We’re not given the option. But a lot of things we can let go. Even if just for the morning. And we can open our doors and windows to make room for the other things, like love, and fresh bread. We can open our hearts and tell joy, “Come in, you and your heart sit down.” 

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At any measure.

In the seventh grade at Central Junior High School, for approximately one week, it was decided that all students would learn the metric system. This foreign secret of measure, based in 10s and 100s, was brought out like a dirty, family secret on a Monday afternoon, and by bus time on Friday, we never spoke of it again. 

I’m not sure why we gave up, but as I struggle to convert grams to cups and kilos to pounds, I think it may have been useful. I never imagined that I would take pride in being able to weigh myself in another country, but here I am.

Through the years, the metric system became very low on the scale of “I wonder why we never talked about it.” There are so many things that got brushed under the rug. So many hurts. So many feelings. Confusions. As I stand here smiling before the scale, I imagine how many other things could have been so much easier had we only talked about them. I don’t say this in regret, but as a prompt, to keep things out in the open. Feel them as I feel them. A reminder to wear my heart on my sleeve and my face, giving it away at any measure.

Adding the flour to the bread dough this morning, I don’t use cups, nor grams. I have done it so often, I go by feel. A mixture of farine complète and farine de blé, my own special recipe. And it feels right. It feels like me. Heart wide open — this is where life becomes delicious!

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A taste of honey.

I can’t say that I ever really liked honey. Well, to be fair, I’m not certain that I had ever really tasted it. Sure, I had the occasional squeeze from a plastic bear, but I understand now that that was probably just manufactured liquid sugar. 

I liked the sound of it – Le miel de lavande, and then I had a taste of it. Lavender honey. My shoes still covered in the lavender field’s morning dew, we purchased a jar from the local vendor. At home, I put a little (let’s not kid ourselves, a lot) on my homemade toasted bread. OH, so this is honey!  Yes. Yes! I DO love honey. I guess you know when it is real. 

I guess it’s the same with everything, not the least of which — love. We’re quick to label so many emotions, connections with the word love. I know I did. Because we don’t know – certainly I didn’t. A taste of this, that, even the other… maybe this was it? Could this be it? And squeezing from the “honey bear” I tried to convince myself that it was good. But was it? Not really. Not for me. 

I suppose one could have stop searching, but my feet answered only to my heart, and it said “keep walking.” So I made my way, slowly, stumbling to the lavender fields. So this is it! This is love. Oui!

I don’t know all the answers, how the magic works, how our heart creates the most unlikely maps, but I do know this, if you can’t taste the honey, really taste it…keep walking. Love should be delicious!

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