Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: hill


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…but the climb.

It’s not that I’m attached to the shoes really, but the miles they carried me. 

I was gifted a new pair of shoes for my birthday. I’ve tried them on. Admired them in the mirror. Jumped up and down. Ran in place to see if they were fast. (The same thing I’ve done since getting my first pair at Iverson’s shoes in Alexandria, Minnesota.) They are going to be lovely, I know it, but not just yet.

I put on my old pair again today. I can see my socks through the holes above the laces. I know why they rip there. It’s from each bend at the bed of my toes as I climb up the hills of the Montaiguet. They are not flawed, but accomplished. 

I hope I can see it the same way in myself, in those around me. What if we all could? What if we could see, not the imperfections, but the climb? What if we saw the days that, in the rain, the wind, we still went to the hill? The mornings after not much sleep, we dragged those feet higher. And higher still. And if we did, see all the wind and rain and rocks and miles and steeps, wouldn’t all those shoes seem a lot more beautiful?!!! I’m smiling, because my socks are smiling through the opening. They will get their much deserved rest tomorrow, but today, once again, we open with a climb.

The trail.
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A life standard.

I see her most mornings now at the top of the hill. I don’t know how else to say it, but I’m joyfully aware that the same sun bouncing off of my shoulders is warming hers, as she steps gingerly behind her gated yard. And I’m happy for her that she seems more secure in this new season — secure enough to go from house to garage without looking down at her cane. Is it a flower bed she’s tending? I can’t really see. The house door creaks as it opens and I notice that she looks back. I’m happy she’s not alone. The moment passes as I descend the slope. 

The song rings in my ear with each step. Nina Simone sings “The folks who live on the hill.” I wonder if their lives felt as fast as the lyrics, as they “added a thing or two, a wing or two.” Verse jumping into verse. 

Just as it was a jazz standard, it was also, I suppose, a life standard — these folks who lived on the hill. A less complicated, more romantic version of Instagram. But the songs that imagined these lives weren’t intrusive or invasive. I like that. This warmth of not really needing to know the exact details, just imagining the best for them — hoping for it. 

I can tell you that I carried that warmth all day. I could feel it especially walking to my studio — that same romance of my own life. What a glorious and rare thing to see. 

As we jump to the next verse in our own songs, it’s so easy to miss the magic, the beauty. But I don’t want to do that. So I hum along, and climb. I hope for it. For all. Because I am, we are, the folks who live on the hill. 

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Welcome to the garden.

They stand ready in the garden at the bottom of the hill, these two mannequins clothed in silk dresses. Had she been a gardener, my mother would have done the same. No scarecrows for her. And maybe she did have a hand in it. They were never there before. I have walked past this garden for years. It would be easy to explain away the magic. New tenants perhaps, but I prefer my own explanation — both my mother and mother-in-law passed within a year’s time — now, together, they are dressed to the nines in the ease and rest of the bottom of the hill. 

You can say it’s foolish to believe such things, but don’t tell my legs. Each day when I see them, the ease and strength that springs me back up that hill can’t be denied. And that’s what I choose to believe in. Maybe that’s what we all choose to believe in — whatever gets us back up the hill. 

I have a tiny mannequin behind my desk. I bought it years ago and gave it to my mom as a symbol of the strength she gave to me. Whatever she was going through, she got up, got dressed (beautifully) and faced the day. Who am I not to do the same? Sure I stumble. I get wet, and muddy, and tired, and scraped in life’s bloom, but then I see the signs, I see them, and I am welcomed to the garden. 

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