Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: faith


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Someone was.

I was thirty-something when my bike was stolen. I ran up to my apartment for just a few minutes. Left the garage door open. How quickly things slip away. When I returned, it was gone. I called the police to report it. I remember thinking how casually he walked, this police officer, to my garage door. Like he saw it every day. Well… He asked for the brand and style of bike. I asked if they ever found them. “No,” he said. And then he proceeded to talk about how the drainage system in our garages wasn’t correct. So that was it? My beautiful bike was gone and we were talking drainage. He put the report in his pocket and left.

I stood alone in front of my open, improperly drained garage, and thought about my first bike. My beautiful banana seat bike that I pedaled into the ground. That I abandoned in ditches on VanDyke road. In the Olson’s Supermarket parking lot while I ran in to cool off in the refrigerated section. In the front lawn of the public library while I read for hours. On the beaches of Lake Latoka while I splashed until summer’s end. I stood in the gaping mouth of my open garage, missing much more than my bike, wanting so desperately to feel surprised. Wanting to be that banana seat bike riding girl, that girl who trusted everything and everyone.

I wrote about it — that beautiful feeling of trust — in my book, Leap of Faith:

“It was the greatest. All my friends loved it. (my banana seat bike)
But Ididn’t even need a lock for it. Nobody ever stole
bikes from the beach. It was kind of like our sacred
ground. . . and we knew that in order to get to our
sacred ground, you had to have a bike, and to take
that away from someone, to take away their chance
to fly on the way to that glorious one of 10,000
lakes, well that would just be a terrible crime, so
we didn’t do it. I don’t think I realized how beautiful life without
mistrust really was. . .How could I know?
You can’t. . .until it is taken away —
and only in those rare moments,
when you let yourself remember innocence,
can you feel the slip of beauty.”

I reread that passage often, and I think, as Joan Didion wrote in her book, Slouching towards Bethlehem, “Was anyone ever so young? I am here to tell you that someone was.”

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Last chance Texaco.


When my legs were short, and perhaps my faith in them as well, my brother put me on scooter, one he had made in the shed behind our house. A junkyard production, it was thick and heavy, but it ran, ran strong. There was an empty field beside our house on VanDyke road. Full of weeds and a possibility yet unseen.  I don’t know if he had just filled the tank, but the scooter seemed unstoppable, so I circled the field. He left me in that field, and years went by. My legs, too short to touch the ground, I wasn’t sure how I could get off of this ride. I circled. The sun burned my shoulders, and the engine never sputtered. It became clear to me that I was going to have let it fall, let myself fall. Truth be told, I wasn’t going a lot faster than downhill on a bicycle, but there was fear. Fear of the unknown. I would have to let go. I would have to fall. They say follow your heart, like it knows, and I prayed it did. I let go the handles and jumped. The scooter spun for a minute in the grass and dirt, and died. If I had ever recovered faster from a fall, I can’t remember when. I lept to my feet immediately. Grass stained and a little scraped, I began to run. Never had my legs felt so light, so sure. I ran and I ran. Nothing but joy.


Sometimes, when you run, people think you’re running away.  And that may be partially right…but sometimes you’re trying to get to somewhere…get to a place that will fill your soul with a love that has been waiting just for you, and a forgiveness that doesn’t care how you got there.


It’s easy to get stuck in someone else’s life. You can get trapped in a relationship, a job, a town, an assumption. But there’s a way out. It may be messy, even painful, but there’s a way. Your heart knows it. 


My brother built a life for himself in a shed behind our house. It is strong, and for him, it runs well.  I built a life for myself, trusting in the “last chance texaco” of my heart (it has always saved me), and I left.


I am not running away, but joyfully running along. My heart’s tank is full, fueling my legs and my faith. This truly is my somewhere, and man, it is something!!!!


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Grace.

Boxing has been described as one hurt demanding another.  One punch thrown, and then the counter.  It would have been easy for her to live this way.  She had been hurt so much.  She had taken punch after punch.  And she knew some became used to it.  Some embraced it.  It’s hard not to. It hard to turn from the violence that climbs in the ring with you each day.  But she didn’t want to fight anymore.  She didn’t want to carry pain with her, heavy, like a broken promise.  So maybe one hurt did demand another.  The only way out was to stop hurting.  Stop being hurt.  And so she climbed between the ropes.  Left the smell of sweat and anger behind.  Prayed that one act of bravery demanded another.  Prayed that one smile demanded another.  Prayed that one joy demanded another.  And it did.  Gentle people surrounded her now.  People with love and laughter.  People with hearts.  She is living proof that one grace demands another.