Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: French


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Heart maps.

The Great Gatsby is now being celebrated at MIA for its 100th year. It’s no surprise, as someone whose first perspective drawing in art class was completely backwards, I did enter the exhibition from the second room. But as always, it was the right door for me. Maybe it was the giant farm land picture, next to the clippings of French fashion, that whispered “over here,” or the script from the book that said, maybe we would always be westerners, but I knew I was home. 

I suppose the universe will always let you know if you’re on the right path. 

For me it’s always been books and art, and a dash of fashion. My maps. So I say to those who ask, “Can’t you read a map?” — “Of course I can, just not yours.”

Late that same afternoon, I drove to the Barnes and Noble in the area. Emptied and dark, I began to panic. It’s never just a book store. I ran to the store next door. She didn’t know much, but something about “moving to an Office Max, maybe open, or going to,” — she didn’t know. I knew of two abandoned office supply stores in the area, one a former Office Depot and the other a Staples. I asked her if it was by the Trader Joe’s, or the Whole Foods. She didn’t know. “I only get off the freeway and come to work,” she said. (We all have our own maps.) 

I didn’t need more books. My suitcase already full. But I did need to know that it was ok. That the books were living on. So I drove to the first one — no. I drove to the second location I had in mind, and there it was – signed and open – calling once again, “over here.” I wandered in the words until I was secure. My heart map folded, fitting perfectly behind my mother’s blouse, once again, still, I am home. 

You are part of my story and it is beautiful.
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Radical Hospitality.

I am no more or less related to Sara, the co-owner of Pascal’s Patisserie than I am to Dominique’s cousin, Bruno, who completes the “co”. I knew the croissants would be good. He’s French, of course. But I was not prepared for Sara – this force of nature that was so welcoming, I was full before we even started to taste.

When you meet your people, you just know. I was reminded of it watching a repeat of Sex in the City while on the treadmill that very morning. It was Charlotte who asked the other girls, “What if we could be each other’s soulmates…” Walking into the bakery yesterday, not two steps into the kitchen, I knew I had found one of mine. Between directing the workers and leading us through the heavenly scents, it felt like I was home.

First she brought us the Dubai croissant — a pistachio filled croissant that made my eyes roll into the back of my head, where I was able to see the part of my brain that said, “pay attention to this woman.” And I did. We double-dutched through a conversation of delight and I blurted out “I need to paint you!” (As I often do when delighted — to which I am mostly met with a backing up so extreme that you can almost hear the beeps.) Not with Sara. She said YES! Even before I asked to take her photo, she was in mid pose! OH, how I love those that lead with yes! She continued to load our plates and our hearts.

I didn’t have the words for it until later that afternoon. We went north to the Mission in Santa Barbara. I looked under the “about” of it, and the first and only sentence was “Old Mission Santa Barbara believes in radical hospitality.” Is it ironic that I would experience both on such a glorious day, or just my good fortune?

And shouldn’t this be our mission? Wouldn’t life be extra delicious. I eat this morning’s croissant that we were so radically and joyfully gifted, and I lead with YES!

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Sometimes lemons.

I wasn’t planning to do it all yesterday. I thought I would just start with the jam. I made the first batch in the morning, and by early afternoon the remaining apricots said, “It’s time.” 

It being a Sunday afternoon, in France, my options were limited. I only had enough sucre spécial confiture (sugar for making jam) to create another small batch. I decided that I would make a tart as well. It became clear very quickly that I was going to have to Elsie my way through this. Within each recipe there was something that I didn’t have. Almond flour. Nope. Next. Whipping cream. No. Next. And this went on and on as the stores remained closed. I finally stumbled upon one where I had almost everything but the corn starch. Google recommended Arrowroot or Psyllium husk. If my pantry didn’t contain corn starch, how likely was it to contain Psyllium husk? My inner Elsie took over. More flour here, mixed with a dash more sugar. Vanilla, why not. And some of the jam I made that morning — of course I added it atop the fresh apricots and my homemade crust. 

While the tart was in the oven, I made another batch of the apricot jam. No apricots lost, and the house smelled of sweet victory. The thing is, we don’t always get to be ready. Possibly never. Yet, life ripens before us at a blistering pace, handing us a bowl of apricots, (sometimes lemons), and we get to decide whether we’re going to make something of it, or not. 


I’ve always been a bit of a worrier. It was my Grandma Elsie who showed me how to tweak that recipe and change it from worrier to warrior. With 9 children, “open or closed on a Sunday” would have been the least of her battles. And yet she conquered them all, ever so sweetly. 


It turns out the most important ingredients in a French tart are Swedish hands and a creative heart. Bon Appétit!

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The grand torch.

I can’t say I ever followed boxing. Of course I had heard of him, Muhammad Ali. But my limited impression was mostly bravado. But then in 1996, when he appeared on the Olympic stage, fragile, all in white, I took notice. Arms trembling, he moved gingerly across the stage. No “floating” or “stinging”…but what I saw, what we all saw, was pure strength. I held my breath as the shaking flame tried to grab hold. Seconds passed. And then it took. The flame shot up to the official grand torch, and the sky lit with the power of vulnerability.

We have a tendency to ooooh and aaaah at the fantastic — at human feats of strength. And we should. But the truth is, they are happening all around us, all the time. I suppose the only real difference is the lighting. Not engulfed under an Olympic size flame, but rather within the subtle glowing of grace. Not emboldened by uniform or flag, but inner strength. Those who dare to brave the challenges of heart and body, and face the day with kindness still. 

In a couple of days, the Olympic torch will pass through our French city. A grand event, for sure, but it makes me smile, as I look at the pictures of my mother on the wall…my grandfather, my grandmother…the torch has already been passed. 

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After the pétanque.

I can’t go back to when they played there, these sun-kissed French boys just out of ear-shot of their grandmother, (intentionally or unintentionally). Back to when they played with sticks and sometimes fists, like only brothers and cousins can. They wrestled below and within the smells of tobacco and cut grass and stove pots wafting through open shutters.

But when we gather each year on August 15th, Napoleon’s birthday, (and one young cousin Guillaume’s), if the wind is just right, and the wine has settled, the vine that hangs above and beside the old house whispers to me, “Listen…listen to them play.” And I hear the clinking of the Pétanque balls, and the spirited calls of who is closer, with arms pointing to the ground, pleading cases, just this side of youth’s wrestle. And these now men, very grown men, are still pinkened by the sun, and the thrill of a summer that just might not end. 

And for the moment, I belong. Because the language of family is universal. And laughter and hope and joy under summer’s whisper, after the pétanque, rings loud and clear, and needs no translation. 

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Dabbing the crumbs.

She yelled, “Sur la table!” We all sat down for the evening meal. The conversation began immediately. It was when I first arrived in France. When they still took the time to translate. Dominique’s cousin said they were talking about food. I smiled and looked at the full table. “Oh, not just this food,” she explained. “You see in France, while we’re eating the meal, we talk about the last meal we had, the one in front of us, and the next meal we’re going to make.” Food is life here.

I was never really a fast-food American. Some of my favorite memories with my mom included the slow intake of small portions over a long evening in my apartment. I would buy the best of what I could afford. The tiniest cut of cheese. Bread from the Great Harvest. A bottle of red. We gathered in the memories of the day that moved between laughter and tears, back to laughter again, all tender. Then decaf coffee with a morsel of chocolate. There were no left-overs to settle, but for the occasional giggle. From my bedroom, I could hear her rustle in the living room. She could hear a giggle burst down the hall. This continued until I squeezed her air mattress next to my bed, and we finally went to sleep. 

Even with this, the transition to the art (and it is an art) of French cooking and eating took some time. As much as you will find paint on my everyday clothes, you will find handprints of flour. Traces of sugar, or jam. I am a part of it now. The meal before. And the ones to come.

It was 105 degrees yesterday. Yet, I knew I needed to bake cookies. French cookies. I mixed the dough. Rolled it on the table. Cut out the circles. Used my fork to make the criss-crossed lines. Brushed with egg yolk for the golden color. The test cookie came out perfectly the first time. My mother-in-law lay passing just a short-drive away. The last meal was over. But our house is filled with the scent of butter, sugar and sweet memory. 

Dabbing the crumbs with fingertips, not to miss a taste, we speak of what’s to come. The next meal. This is life. And it is delicious!

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Four and Twenty.

We were doing so well, until we got into the higher numbers. Not only did we have to learn the language, the French words for the numbers, we had to do the math as well. To say the teacher explained to us — (A “we” that could be only described as a collection of people from the land of misfit toys. Myself – the American, the two women from South Korea, the Cambodian, the Russian, the Mexican, and the 5 Arabs.) — this would be an overstatement. But in her defense, what good reason could there be to stop giving the additional numbers their own names and start combining them in different math problems? For example — the number for eighty is not given its own name, no, it is quatre-vingts (4×20).

Deep in my wandering brain, I thought of the first time I had heard this four and twenty. Yes, yes, baked in a pie…

“Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds
Baked in a pie.

When the pie was opened,
The birds began to sing.
Wasn’t that a dainty dish
To set before the king?”

It was my first music box. It was red and yellow, shaped like a tiny radio. You spun the knob and it sang the nursery rhyme. This one was my favorite. I dialed it in. The birds survived every time. Imagine that I thought – baked in a pie – and they survived! Glorious! I sang it again and again.

As the nursery rhyme repeated in my head, the teacher had already gotten to the nineties. It was even worse. In the nineties, you have to multiply and add. You can imagine the nightmare that 99 brings for a non-French speaking person — quatre-vingt-dix-neuf (4×20+10+9).

I suppose it will come as no surprise. To test out of this first unit, we had to hold imaginary conversations with the French officials. The first scenario, she explained, was in a store. I was to be the clerk selling dresses (so far so good.) She would be the customer. I looked at the pictures she gave to me. It showed a dress hanging on the rack. As big as life the tag read, $99.99. My heart sank. She asked how much it was. I started doing the math. The numbers raced in my head…all clunked together with the Song of Sixpence. I began my quatre-vignt-dix-ing… then stopped and said, in my best French — this dress was on sale. (Wasn’t that a dainty dish, I thought?) She laughed. I passed the exam.

I have been given the tools I need to find my way in and out of life’s pie. And so I keep singing!

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A passing moo!It was the first language I ever tried to learn — cow. 

Of course the car windows weren’t automatic. We had never even heard of such a thing. You had to turn the handle round and round to make the window go down. (I think I still make the cranking motion to indicate opening a car window.) 

There were lots of fields en route to my grandparent’s farm. Sitting in the back seat of the chevy Impala, I waited to see them — the giant black and white beasts. If I caught a glimpse at 55mph, I cranked the window and urged my mother to slow down. I sucked in a giant breath and mooed out the window. They stopped chewing for one brief moment. Staring at me with such confusion. Almost bewildered by what was coming out of my mouth. 

I stare into that same look quite often here in France. With deep breathed delivery, I converse in what sounds to me like perfect French, but I understand what they are hearing — a passing moo. 

Some days, I really have to crank to return to that childlike confidence. That willingness to open myself to the world around me. To be brave. Vulnerable. Present. 

I suppose we all have to do that for varying reasons. Every day. 

The sun is up. I crank my arm round and round with youthful vigor! I am ready! I am here! Mooooooo!

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Youthful summer logic.

We didn’t have lawn furniture. We had blankets — old blankets that took their place beside the winter weary hanging coats and resting boots.

Laura Ingalls Wilder book in one hand and blanket dragging from the other, I told my mom I was going to read in the grass. “Haven’t you already read that one?” she asked. “Not outside, no,” I said racing through the screen door. She smiled, seeming to understand my youthful summer logic. 

I learned quite early on that the words took on new meaning outside. Let loose in the warm air, they wiggled like white winter toes set free. Bouncing in breezes. Flapping with wings. It seemed to me that I was returning the favors given by each book read in the trappings of the cold. Housed in the wintertime, they allowed me to climb inside each page. To travel without fear of inclement weather. So on these sun-filled days, it seemed only right that I would let those same words out. And the language they took on was magical. The voice of freedom. Maybe all things (and mostly people) tell a better story without restraints. 

Yesterday I finished reading the book Flâneuse,by Lauren Elkin, from the luxury of a lawn chair.  ‘Flâneuse [flanne-euhze], a noun, from the French, a form of flâneur [flanne-euhr], an idler, a dawdling observer. This is indeed a book made to be read outdoors. I wandered, and yes, even dawdled through each luxurious sentence.

I suppose my love, nor logic, has never lived indoors. I wish for you the same — words filled with so much meaning, they need open spaces. Lives filled with wandering paved and gravel paths. Loves so vast, so high that the birds envy and try to reach. Throw those curtains wide. Fling windows and doors. Step out into the wiggle of toes and heart. Breathe. The day is opening!

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