Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: history


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Impermanent birds.

I am not supposing that my bird paintings will last for the next 700 years, but I feel a part of the history, the conversation, each time I paint one.

Yesterday, we visited the Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It protects one of the largest petroglyph sites in North America, featuring designs and symbols carved onto volcanic rocks by Native Americans and Spanish settlers 400 to 700 years ago. These images are a valuable record of cultural expression. 

We’ve been doing it since the beginning of time — recording our stories. From rocks to the sides of buildings. Paper to internet, we put out our experiences. Our feelings. Our hopes. Our lives. And maybe it’s all too impermanent now. Things are thrown out without thought. Without care. Maybe we think it will all be gone tomorrow. Throwing out insults and disparaging words. Maybe it’s all too easy. What if we really had to think? Sweat above each word? Carve them with heartfelt intent? Would we give our history it deserves? 

I think about our legacy. How the future will regard what we did with our time. 

Mine are not birds on rocks. But in my moment, I am nesting with the Natives, sitting beside a lamp lit Emily Dickinson, trying to find the hope on feathers. Trying to find the goodness in our stories, our time. And I am just as guilty of being impatient. I live in the “I want it right now” — the same time as you, but as I see the concerned expression on the rocks beneath my feet, beside my hands, I think, I hope, maybe we can take a little more time, a little more care in telling our stories. In listening to others. Because they are valuable — or they could be. 

Maybe today, before we make the post, send the email, say the words, we give them a little more thought. Maybe we carve the stone, instead of throwing it.

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Bear Witness.



We don’t have jellybeans in France. It has been my extreme pleasure to introduce my French family to what may have been the last essential element in my mother’s food pyramid.

It’s not surprising that I have a colorful array of jelly bean related stories. Red was my mother’s favorite, and mine as well. We spent more than suspicious lengths of time in the candy aisle, searching the bags for the ones that contained the most red ones, balanced with the least black and purple. So when Mr. Bulky’s came to Ridgedale Mall, offering the largest, freshest of Jelly Beans, that you could scoop out, by color even, our lives were dramatically changed for the better. My mother would scoop red after red into the sack. When it was nearly full, she added one yellow, just “to make it seem random,” she’d say. Clearly that would cover our tracks. We’d laugh in sugar coated smiles.

At Easter time, when Walgreen’s put out their sacks, she’d sort them out by color. Saving the white, purple and black for the birds, scattering them out the window of her apartment on Jefferson Street. “I’m not sure they eat them,” I said. “They’re Jelly Bird Eggs…” she reasoned. Again, our smiles glistened red!

Dominique grabbed a few from the sack he keeps in the car just before we went into the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. (I love that he loves them!) It’s not an easy museum, and it shouldn’t be. From slavery, to mass incarceration, my heart sank. I shed a few tears in the reflection room as the choir sang, A balm in Gilead. The last section we went through was on voter discrimination. I could see the jars of Jelly Beans. Smiling, we entered. What are the Jelly Beans for? We started to read. How did I not know this? They didn’t teach us this. But I should have known. But it’s so crazy! So insane! Can this possibly be???? To suppress the minority vote, they were asked to take tests – with the most ridiculous questions – like how many jelly beans were contained in this giant jar. Neither of us were smiling.

The thing is, we don’t have the same stories. And we are our stories. We carry them. We live them. They stay with us. Maybe the truest “balm” we have is to listen. To learn. To share. We are all here to tell a story. All.

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Cheating hearts.

If it was only 29 years, it was 29 of the hardest years I had ever seen.

Visiting the Hank Williams museum was our first choice in Montgomery, Alabama, after finding out the Rosa Parks Museum was closed, the Legacy museum was closed, and the art museum was closed. Even F. Scott Fitzgerald’s house, closed.

Of course I had heard of “Your cheatin’ heart,” and perhaps a few other songs, but I can’t say I was a real fan. I just assumed he was old, as I had with anyone I was introduced to when I was young. And the images didn’t tell a different story. In the videos and photos, I would have said he was in his seventies.

The man at the front counter said to be sure and ask questions. There were mostly stage outfits and record labels, nothing that questionable. The wooden Native Americans caught my eye. This made me wonder, until I saw the story of his song, “Kaw-Liga.” The whole thing made me a little uncomfortable. The story of the Native American turning to wood by the water, waiting for his true love. They spelled it differently on the marker by the bridge. Differently on the carved statue in the museum. Someone got it wrong. (I was having the feeling that we all did.) Of course I asked about the spelling. He didn’t actually spell it, but said the word slowly, claiming that this was correct because “he fished in that very lake.”

Still confused, we walked to Hank’s statue just down the street. I saw the date listed, 1923 – 1953. It took a minute to compute. Certainly this wasn’t his age. Were these the years he lived here? The years of his songs? 30 years old? Maybe it was the same engraver who tried to spell Kaw-Ligi. It just couldn’t be. I asked Siri. 29 she said. “It’s even worse,” I shouted to Dominique in the street. He was only 29! A hard 29!

So many things get by us. So easily. It’s hard to believe, even when the images are right there in front of us. The Freedom Riders. Bloody Sunday. The Civil Rights Movement. We learned the dates in school. But did we ask the questions? Are we asking the questions? Are we curious enough, open enough, loving enough, not to repeat the same horrific mistakes?

I suppose that’s the one thing the man at the Hank Williams counter got right – “Be sure to ask some questions.”

If you saw that I am not just my face, but all that I have faced… and if I did that for you…
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