Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: john Steinbeck


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Expecting the unexpected.

Of course I read it in high school.  Possibly again in college. The words haven’t been altered these many years, in this book, Travels with Charley, by John Steinbeck. But visiting Monterey this year, the connection of his words to page to book to heart to the very roads we were traveling, this connection was so strong, I had to once again purchase the book.

Its subtitle, was perhaps the most alluring — In Search of America. Never, for me, has this been more important. On the back cover it reads, “he reflects on the American character, on racial hostility, a particular form of American loneliness he finds almost everywhere, and on the unexpected kindness of strangers that is also a very real part of our national identity.” I pause here. I hold the book tightly. And question. Is it? That kindness? I have experienced it for such a great majority of my life. I have found joy, and pride in it. I hope and pray that I have given it. Freely. That I give it. Still. Can we keep it alive?

I write daily of the lives that have enriched mine. That have held me up. Coddled me. Lifted me. Strengthened me. Brought me so much love and joy. That asked the same of me. And it occurs to me, when I see your comments, when I see you write my grandma’s name with such ease, such familiarity, my mother’s name, my grandpa’s, my teachers’ and friends’…. With each Elsie repeat, she lives on a little longer a little stronger, and I believe in that identity, our identity.

Years ago Facebook did a study. Feeding one group with negative thoughts, another with positive. The increase of negativity in those that received the negative feeds was profound. Now, did we need a study for this? Probably not. But it is important to make a daily decision of what we are putting out there. And it is a decision. 

What is our character? What is our identity? Maybe the quest never ends. From the northernmost tip of Maine to California’s Monterey Peninsula, as a nation, we drive, we pullover, we continue to ask for that “unexpected kindness,” and pray with each roll of the tire, that we are willing to give the same. 

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In the word.

We went in search of seals along the coastline of Monterey, California, but instead I found myself back at the kitchen table of our house on Van Dyke Road. 

I was just a tween when I read it, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. I loved to read. I had been reading for years. First just moving my eyes along with my mother’s words. Then sounding them out by myself by lamp light. (I never had to hide under covers, my mother encouraged me to read.) But this was the first book, my first adult feeling book, my first read that made me climb the stairs from my bedroom, taking them two at a time because of the urgency to discuss this marvelous book with my mother. She smiled as she wiped the orange countertop with a dishrag. She knew the feeling. She was a voracious reader herself. She let me go on and on, not unlike Lenny I suppose, about each word. Each page. Each rabbit. My life has never been the same.

That conversation remained throughout her life. We would call each other after every book. From city to city. Country to country. The words kept us connected. She wrote notes on sticky pads. I wrote thoughts on my iPad. We gathered in between. 

We didn’t see the seals yesterday, but the romance of this coastline went deep. John Steinbeck helped for sure, but it was my mother that aided most in the authoring of my soul. 

We are given what we need, I suppose, when we need it. In the absence of seals, I visited my home.

You are part of my story, and it is beautiful.
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The promised land.

“Don’t touch them,” I heard him say, while I was touching them. It was my grandfather’s voice in my head. He had said it when I found a fallen bird’s nest on his farm. The little bird beaks seemed to be crying out for me, but he said no, if I touched them, the mother would never come back. But surely it couldn’t be the same for bunnies I thought. Not the same for these beautiful cuddly little bunnies that I found on this day in the field next to our house. Bunnies were meant to be touched. To be held. They were accessible. Not like birds. Why, there was the Easter Bunny, and Bugs Bunny… chocolate bunnies, stuffed bunnies… Yes, I told myself, bunnies were meant to be held. There were three of them. No mother in sight. I placed one from each hand, back with the other. They squirmed and nestled and smiled. See, I told myself, they were just fine. The mother would come back.

I told my brother that afternoon what I had found. How I had picked them up. “Now you have to kill them,” he said.

“What?????? Noooooo! I would never!”

“Well, they are going to die anyway. Starve to death. Because the mother doesn’t like your smell.” And he walked away.

I stood motionless. How could he deliver this news and just leave me standing there. I was a murderer, and apparantly, I smelled.

I thought about getting my bow and arrow. The plastic one my aunt had purchased for me at Target. I could “do the right thing” (according to my brother) and kill them. I went into the garage to find my bow and arrow. I touched the string. Slid my finger along the faux feathers of the arrow. There was no way I could kill them. No way. I sat in the gravel at the end of the driveway, now not even certain that my own mother would return to me from work. Why would she? I was a smelly murderer.

When she finally pulled in, she didn’t even put the car in the garage. She stopped beside me. Opened the car door. I told her everything. She assured me that I was nothing of the sort, that mothers do come back. And as I sat on her lap next to the steering wheel, I could only believe her. She was proof.

The next day I searched for the bunnies. Praying for their mother’s return, as the weeds scratched my legs. I searched for hours, or maybe ten minutes, but there was no sign of any of them. No babies. No mother. My own mother went straight to the happily ever after…. “See, she said, “the mother came back and brought them to a new house and they are all just fine.” I believed her.

Years later, the first grown-up book we were assigned in middle school was “Of mice and men.” Lennie, the rabbits. It was all so sad. I wept for the story. For them. And I wept because I felt it all slipping away. I knew now. How could I go forward with this knowledge of unhappy endings? How did they carry it? I wept for my brother. My grandfather. How long had they carried this knowledge? I wept for my mother, who had to have known, but still lived on as proof — still passed on the possibility of happy endings. They all carried it, as best they could.

John Steinbeck says, “In every bit of honest writing in the world, there is a base theme. Try to understand men (humans), if you understand each other you will be kind to each other.” I would have to choose my own path. Walk in my own truth. I suppose we all have to do that. And with each word that I write, maybe I understand them, and myself, just a little bit more. See the beauty of it all, just a little bit more. This I can carry. I smile, and walk on.

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