Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: house


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Behind the boarded window.

I suppose the lesson was, don’t get too attached. Somehow it didn’t take. 

But I felt a responsibility. I “accidentally” knocked down the real estate sign each night before bed, out of loyalty I suppose. Because hadn’t I picked out the carpeting. The bedspread. All in bright yellow in my basement bedroom. And I wanted no evidence of the sign through my window after my night time prayers. And hadn’t I lined books on shelves and housed stuffed dolls and animals within that same promise of rising yellow on this sturdy gravel of Van Dyke Road? The truth was, I loved being attached. I loved hopping from the school bus, or off of my bicycle, just past the mailbox that claimed our spot, into the driveway that claimed my heart. 

They said it was just things. How easily they threw the metal sign into the back of the car, handed over the papers and sent us on our way. I didn’t have the words for it then, but how ironic it was that to stop all these abandonings, I would have to continue loving with pure abandon. 

Everything can be taken away, I guess. But we give away only what we want to. I keep it all. It’s in the story, the painting. The words and books and flag, and photos. 

I painted someone’s house. I imagined the story. At some point there was love, I thought, because didn’t they take the time to board the window to keep it all in? And maybe someone told them, don’t get too attached, as they hammered the last nail. And maybe in the painting they will always be. 

And don’t I run my fingers across the gathering of all the love that remains and grows? Yes. I am attached. Ever. 

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Covered in the welcoming.

Walking into the entry of my grandparents’ home, I could feel my shoulders relax. Dropping down with the ease of the coats hooked on the wall. Nothing left to brace. No cold. No pretense. My first glimpse into the rumor of home. 

Of course I didn’t have any of those words yet, as I danced beneath the dangling sleeves. Cuffs that smelled like tobacco and earth, brushed across my face. My mother had already made it into the kitchen. But I lingered. Stretching my unmittened hands up and into the damp sleeves. With boots still on, I could slide my feet into my grandpa’s shoes. Almost completely covered in the welcoming. Nearly finished with her first cup of egg coffee, my mother waved me in. 

I suppose I’ve always been one to linger. Wanting the moment to last. It’s the 22nd and I want it all to slow down. I’m not ready to jump to the Christmas Day. I want to play the music. Loudly. Softly. I want to finger the wrapping. Nibble at the cookies. Drape myself in the entry of all the magic to come. I can see my mother’s feet in grandma’s kitchen. There’s no need to hurry. I know I am home.

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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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Only here.

It was the first poem I ever wrote. I was six years old. In Mr. Iverson’s music class. 

Houses, houses, houses red.

In it is a pretty bed.

Houses, houses, houses green.

In it is a pretty scene.

And so began my search. My fascination. With home.  I would go on to paint images of houses and doors. Windows and shutters. I wrote the stories as if they were maps. Each word opening. Letting in a little more light. A welcome breeze. Until one day, one moment, one heart beat, in the warmth of that sun whisking through cracks, it became so clear that there was no “there,” only “here.”

We have been traveling for several months. I have been asked handfuls of times, “Are you excited to go home?” I always smile, in the slight breeze of my answer. 

Sitting at the breakfast table, in a friend’s house, a country away, my husband is drinking coffee from one of my cups that reads, “Come in, you and your heart sit down…” I’m already here. I’m always home. 

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Good morning, Kitchen!

There was no Sunday afternoon that couldn’t be filled with a dream.

I always finished my homework by Saturday. Never one to be scrambling during the last minutes of Sunday evening. No, Sunday was for dreaming. It was in those precious hours of nothing left to do, and nothing yet to begin, that we would allow ourselves the most luxurious dreams.

Lying in front of the oversized stereo in our undersized apartment, replaying the same small stack of 45s over and over, my mother and I would dream for hours. We had several prompts, but one of our favorites was “what would you do if you lived in a big house?”

“I wouldn’t have a reading nook,” she said. “What? You love to read…” “No, she said, “I would move from room to room, reading a different chapter in every space. I would let the words wander throughout every hallway.” “Oh, yes!” I said, “Me too!” “And every room would have a mirror,” she laughed. “Of course,” I said. “And I would dress for each room. And I wouldn’t leave any space unvisited.” I jumped up from the carpet. “I would say good morning to the beds and the bathroom! Good morning,kitchen! Good morning,library!” She got up now too. “And I would dance in every room,” she said as she twirled me to the point of dizzy — to the point of believing all things possible.

Knowing this, it’s probably no surprise that I once wrote that you should fall in love with your bathroom. Nor a surprise that today I tell you to do the same with your kitchen. I changed the picture on the counter, putting up my newest portrait. The counter I face at our breakfast table. The counter that holds the bread that I make. The bread that we toast and add the jam that I make from the trees in our yard. The breakfast backed by the radio songs of “jazz and soul,” and the fuel that feeds the conversations in which we save the world. How could I not fall in love with a space that provides all of this. A space that welcomes us without regard to mood or weather. Every morning this kitchen says, “Come in, you and your heart sit down.”

Life is not perfect. But one does not love a space less for having lived in it. Glasses will break. Food will burn. Crumbs will fall. Paint will chip. But I will go on loving because I was taught to enjoy “the dreaming,” as much as “the dream come true.”

I wipe the counter and take all the morning love to my office. Hello computer! What story should we tell today?

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Be the occasion!

One doesn’t find a place, one makes it.

We couldn’t drink the water in this apartment. The smell was, well…the fact that it smelled should tell you enough. My mother boiled it. Assuring me each time, we wouldn’t be here long. Maybe it was only a year. Possibly less. Time does not pass equally in every address. 

But the rules were the same. “Beds must be made,” she said. “No dishes in the sink.”  Pictures were hung. Books placed on shelves and nightstands. Music played — 45s purchased for a dollar at Carlson’s music center. And we dressed, not for an occasion, but because we were the occasion. “We’re not vagrants…” she said, “yet…”  We could always drink in the laughter. 

Each apartment we moved to was an upgrade. But one was not more, nor less, a home. It was always home. Because we were together. We created the space we wanted. 

When I moved to France, I brought almost nothing, but was certainly not empty handed, nor empty hearted. Our house is filled with art and books. With the scent of bread baking. Photos of family. Friends. The sounds, the marks, of those who pass through — by foot and by heart. And I’m known to change clothes several times a day, because I am the occasion — still and always — my mother taught me that.

Sometimes I catch myself in the worry of time racing, but then remember, this is the gift — I will make something of it!!!

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The scent of story.

I was only six when I was walked into the library of Washington Elementary. The door opened and it hit me immediately, the familiar scent. I didn’t have the words for it then. The knowledge. Certainly it could have been explained away with paper, and time. The aging, a slight dampness to it all. But I had smelled this before, this comforting familiar. And I needed no explanation, because I was home.

This welcoming scent – it was the same as the entryway to my grandparents’ home. Coats lined the wall. Dampened with work and story, they welcomed anyone who opened the door. They said, come in, you and your heart sit down. It was there I learned to trust. Trust in those who made the effort. Trust in those who worked hard to create something. Create a life.This library of coats. Of living.

When Mrs. Bergstrom, my first grade teacher, let go of my hand, I wasn’t afraid. She set me free in this open and beautiful world. There was life all around me. Book after book. Page after page. The words brushed against my arm, warm and worn, as the sleeve of my grandfather’s coat.

Some might say it is only nostalgia. But what is nostalgia? For me, it is not wanting to live in the past. No, for me, I see it as proof. A living and palpable proof of how it feels to be open. It is a reminder of how glorious life can be. A documentation of the extraordinary doors — the doors that let you in, the ones that set you free.

I don’t know what today will bring. But I know what it feels like to be open. I need no explanation. I brush against the familiar, and walk into the sun.

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BIG HOUSE, LITTLE HOUSE, BACK HOUSE, BARN.

The farmsteads in Maine and throughout New England evolved over time as barns and other structures, including farmhouses, were built. Throughout the 1800’s, a unique layout of connected farm buildings developed, based on functional needs including shelter from the winter weather. They were referred to as Big House, LIttle House, Back House, Barn. This connection created greater comfort for the family as the farm grew.

The first time I visited, I fell in love with Maine. The color palette drew me in. A greyish blue sky, that held both the promise of sun, and rain. The guarantee of warmth and growth. The houses and barns, never thick with fancy, but filled with a gentle strength. Such beauty in the simplicity. I wanted that simplicity. That strength. Those connections.

To connect — I suppose that’s everything. Barn. To know the work, the hard, back breaking, “foot in each furrow” labor of living. Back house. To be forever welcomed through back doors, no matter how stained and weathered from the day. Little house. To rest in the comfort and familiarity of the ordinary. Big house. To celebrate the grandeur of the extraordinary!

Big House, LIttle House, Back House, Barn — a world away, I wander through each on a daily basis, giving thanks, knowing that I am home.

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