Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: heart


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In the beautiful folds.

They say that paper has a memory. Meaning, if you fold it, the crease remains. Perhaps the same is true of the heart. 

The limb I found myself wobbling upon yesterday was a bit more unstable than usual, so I gathered in my heart and took it to the paper. It always welcomes me. And even with all of its security, it still challenges me. Dares me to create. To learn. To grow. To find the beauty even in this moment of uncertainty.  

I didn’t plan the portrait, I just started to paint. As she came to life, I knew what she needed to wear. My mother would have loved this ruffled blouse. How it gently gathered around the neck and framed the face. She was the queen of white ruffles, my mother. Such a delicate beauty. 

And there it was — found — the uncertain beauty of the moment. 

My heart is not broken. But it will be forever creased. Remembering and saving all the love. And it is here, in the beautiful folds, that I have the courage to move from limb to limb. To dare the lift of love, ruffle my feathers from heart to face, and let myself fly.

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Banked.

I’m not sure if the tellers were elevated, or if it was just my five year old vantage point, but everything at First National Bank of Alexandria seemed important. I held my mother’s left hand as she struggled to remove the deposit slip from her purse with her other. I needed her to balance me as my head circled the high ceilings. Everything smelled of wood and dollar bills. When the transaction was finished, the teller thanked my mom by name. She knows her, I thought. I was so impressed! She handed me a yellow safety sucker from the bowl behind her desk. (Red was my favorite, but I still said thank you.) 

I was taught that it wasn’t polite to stare, but I couldn’t look away. I could see just the tip of it. It was a flattened cardboard pig with tiny slots filled with coins. “Would you like one,” the teller asked, “to start saving?” More than anything, I thought, and gazed up at my mom to see if it was ok. She was smiling, so I agreed. She handed me the empty cardboard pig and I thought my heart would explode. I didn’t have the words for it then, but I was part of the transaction. And I felt as high as a First National ceiling.

My little pig got heavier with each dime and nickel slotted into place. Months later, when it was full, (from the random couch coin, or my weekly allowance), my mom asked if I wanted to put it in the bank. The real bank. I did, but I wanted to hold it for a while longer…feel the weight of it, the beautiful weight of my transactions. “Hold them as long as you need,” she said. 

It feels the same with memory. Each day I place one in a heart slot, and hold on. Banked. Feeling the beautiful weight of all the joy of my days. All the hands held. The smiles exchanged. The love passed back and forth. The comforting weight of my transactions. “Can you still feel it?” they ask. “More than anything,” I reply…”more than anything!”

Hold everything dear.

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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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Filled and filled and filled.

When Mrs. Strand abandoned us to take care of other children, horrible other children (I thought), that she liked better, I was just so angry, and mostly hurt. To be fair, they were her children, and yes, she was pregnant with twins, but still.

When the substitute kindergarten teacher walked in — with all her opposites — dark hair, short, nyloned, I was furious. I just wanted to bite her. So I did. I don’t know if she knew it, but I did. When she walked around the classroom halfway through her first day and pushed (quite possibly gently) our heads down to our mats for our morning nap, I was so close to her leg. So close I reached out my mouth. Opened it. I know a loose baby tooth rubbed against her nylon. Maybe she didn’t notice. Maybe it was subtle. But in my five year old brain, the point had been made. I loved Mrs. Strand.

It didn’t take long for me to let it all go, the loose baby teeth, and my hatred for Mrs. Podolski. Maybe it was because she didn’t force me to drink the glass bottled milk before nap time. Or maybe it was because she hung our indescribables (just a longer word for scribbles) all around the classroom. Or maybe she did just pillow our heads to the mats each day. In any case, she was nice. And I loved her too. “There’s so much room in my heart,” I thought, as I fell to sleep on the floor of Washington Elementary.

It was my first lesson in the letting in and the letting go. It wouldn’t be my last. I stopped biting, but my five year old heart didn’t ever really change. It has been pushed and coddled gently. It has been bruised and stretched and filled and filled and filled with the tenderness that only love can bring. It still amazes me. Each morning. I lift my head and think, and hope, and pray, “Let there be room in my heart!”

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Tools.


It isn’t often. It’s only happened a couple of times in 10 years, but it’s been enough to keep me humble. To keep me aware. I respect my electric saw. It cuts the angles to make the frames to enclose the paintings.

The first time it occurred, it terrified me. I can’t say why it happened. Maybe a flaw in the wood, or an extra strength… I don’t know. I always check for nails or screws in my reclaimed wood. I wear goggles. Take the usual precautions. But something snapped. And I mean cracked with the most vengeful noise and a piece of wood shot across the studio. Like a gun or canon went off! It took me several days to go back to it. To be calm enough to try again. But I did. And the fear slipped into knowledge. It became an additional tool. It happened again the other day. Less terrifying, but I knew enough to step away. To think it through, and return with a clear head.

I hope I’m smart enough to do the same in my relationships. I hope we all are. Gathering in the fear, the surprise, the anger even, and turning it into knowledge. To know when it’s time to engage, and when it’s time to step away. We are given all the tools. Right from the start — I guess we just have to keep learning how to use them.

Trust is a big one. I will admit that it has been a hard one for me to re-learn. Taken away with a bang at a young age, it took me a long time to go back to it. But I have been lucky. The door has been opened and opened again with the kindness of others. And I can’t turn away. There is beauty to be made. Joy to be felt. Love to be loved. Life to be lived. The day begins – my heart is a tool – I’m not afraid to use it.

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Rolling.

I didn’t know my great aunt Ellen very well.  It was clear though, that she was the opposite of my grandmother. In size, weight, humor, and day to day living. She seemed to be afraid of life itself. She was thin as a rail, but watched everything she ate. She didn’t drink coffee, only hot water. She carried what she called a purse-snatchers purse — a decoy, while her important items were stashed in a different location. She also wore extra undergarments, just in case… I was too young to know in case of what.  

I hope there was more to her life than I remember. Otherwise, I’m not sure that she really lived. 

On occasion, my grandmother must have worried. She had nine children. Pick any day, and something had to have gone wrong. John got kicked in the head by a cow. Kay had rheumatic fever. The crops needed rain. But through it all, she never seemed paralyzed by daily fear. She seemed more to be rolling. She was chubby and laughing and  always believed in the good. She died thinking she was just about to win the Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes. 

I will admit that I get frightened by many things. We all do. But I try to keep rolling, even when my tears are doing the same – I keep rolling. Because I, too, believe in the good. And I don’t want to be paralyzed by fear. I want to be known, always remembered, in full stride, with my purse of youth dangling from my arm. Alive.

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