Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: hearts


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Opened.

For years, I thought that the Horton family from Days of our Lives lived exclusively in the large television cabinet in my grandparent’s living room. It was the only place I saw them. Grandma Elsie seemed to know them intimately, calling each by name. Wrapped in the coil cord, talking about them on the party telephone line for hours while cooking in the kitchen. And why wouldn’t it be possible? There were countless people who dropped by that farm house. Sat at the table. I thought we were all related. I didn’t differentiate between blood connections, neighbors and soap opera characters. Often stories of real happenings were more extravagant than those taking place in Horton’s Salem. 

When we gathered for Christmas, there were the usual suspects — all the cousins I summered with in golden fields — but I found the additions the most interesting. Ruby, married to Mac who secretly worked in the CIA, (but then how did we know?). Several Loies. Aunt Kay’s newest husband. Did they all live in the television too? And how did they get here? Certainly there was magic in the air. All under the glow of large multi-color bulbs on the Christmas tree. Sure there were packages, ribbons, bows, but so much more was being opened. Arms and stories and magic.

I guess they are still my favorite gifts — love’s surprises that show up and are ever welcomed home. Finding me still, a lifetime and country away. The magic, if we truly believe, never ends. 


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Hearts wild.

I wrote the combination on my hand. On my notebook. And on a small scrap of paper that I put inside my mom’s desk in her office at Central Junior High. I had never had a locker before. I had never locked anything. Not our front door. Nor my bike. Not the car doors. Not my journal. (The only one who was there to read it was my mom, and I already told her everything — feelings as open as the streets roamed.)

This was all new – these lockers at school. I wasn’t sure how I would navigate. How would I remember the numbers? And to date, on bike, on foot, on feeling, I roamed randomly. How would I become so exact? Turn left to the number. Right. Stop. Back again. Numbers. Turning. It all seemed so calculated. I read the number from my left hand and turned with my right. Carefully. Slowly. Then pulled at the handle. Nothing. I did it again. Slower. Counting. Breathing. Sweating. Pulling — nothing. My heart beat faster. Why???? Left. Right. Left. Circle round. Nothing. I spun the dial on the lock round and round as if to break the spell. Just before tears, it opened. I hung up my coat. A coat I would have given up easily to never have to go through this locking again.

But I did it. Day after day. And it became routine. To lock things. Books. Homework. And most regrettably, feelings. I can’t blame all of it on Central Junior High, but somewhere, in this time, in this space, this heart, my heart, that I once dangled from sleeves at high speeds on a banana seat bike, now rested quietly, locked on handwritten poems unseen in a junior high locker. It would be years before I dared show anyone.

But bit by bit, I was given the combination. My mother was always the first number, then a few professors in college, a few friends, turned my number to the right, and I suppose it was that little girl that said enough already — begging to get back on that banana seat bike, and ride freely, feelings whipping through hair and breeze — it was she, me, who turned the final number and released everything. No more locks. Heart, mind, soul — open.

The birds are singing through my open window as I tell you my story. This day and every day. Hoping each letter, each word, gives you a part of the combination to set you free, so you can do the same for another. And one day, maybe we’ll reach that final number — hearts open, wild in the breeze — and we’ll all be free.

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