Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: Lavender


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Kitchen conversations.

I always get up first to make breakfast. Alone in the kitchen, I’ll often have a conversation with the bread. After all, we have been intimate. It was just yesterday my hands were in the dough. It was just last night I swaddled it in a freshly ironed cloth, whispering of the tomorrow’s surprise — lavender honey. 

We made a trip to Valensole yesterday in search of the best. Nestled between fields of lavender, it wasn’t really a chance we were taking. There would be honey — Miel de lavande. A couple of small arrows at ankle height on a long stretch of gravel would lead us there on this Tuesday. After several second guesses, we would find the locked door of the farm house that said open Wednesdays and Saturdays. Still we jiggled the handle. We had come this far. We looked at each other and read the sign again. I cupped my hands around my face and pushed it up against the glass. I could see the jars of honey. We jiggled the handle again in disbelief. I don’t know how long we stood there. How can you measure time without honey that is just within reach? That’s when he walked through the shadows. Barefooted and bonjouring, he opened the door. Maybe the angels sang, or was the birds? We quickly stepped inside before he could change his mind. I didn’t need the spoonful he offered to know that I would love it, but I took it anyway. It lingered on my tongue and rolled my eyes into the part of my brain where pleasure lives. I could only say yes. Of course he didn’t take credit cards. What were we thinking? But Dominique saved the day with his checkbook, and I coddled the kilo of lavender honey back to the car. 

How could I not share the story with the bread as it toasted this morning. Even the coffee pot seemed to be listening. 

Needless to say, it didn’t disappoint.  Lavender honey on homemade bread. Wow. I smile at the silver medal from 2024’s Paris competition, proudly displayed on the honey jar — and laugh — because for me, us, it’s nothing but gold. 

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The breath of lavender.

Hours before I knew it would actually be possible, I responded to a friend’s message. She was struggling with the “letting go.” I had this thought – telling her to give them to me. Hand them all over, these feelings of hurt and anger, and I would take them and place them in a field of lavender, to be swallowed up in all that purple. Nothing bad can survive that much beauty, I thought.  And then, if a few stray negative thoughts tried to creep back into her heart and brain, at least they would smell of sweet lavender.

As I said, I didn’t know that only a few hours later, we would be passing countless fields of lavender on the way to see friends near the mountains. An endless sea of purple. “Ooooooooh,” I exclaimed, looking out the window. “Do you want to stop and take a photo?” Dominique asked. “Yes,” I said, but thought, not only that. I had some things to release. Not only hers, but mine as well. It’s funny how easily it all rolled down the ditch into the lap of scented color. I took the photos. The field grinned, exposing the lines of purple teeth, and I smiled in return. 

Maybe we don’t all get the fields of lavender, but it is then we look to the friends that do. I suppose that’s what we’re all here for — to take turns carrying the load on our way to something beautiful. Because the world IS beautiful. Still and ever. 

Pull over today. Take it in. Let it go. The breath of lavender — nothing bad can survive this much beauty.

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A taste of honey.

I can’t say that I ever really liked honey. Well, to be fair, I’m not certain that I had ever really tasted it. Sure, I had the occasional squeeze from a plastic bear, but I understand now that that was probably just manufactured liquid sugar. 

I liked the sound of it – Le miel de lavande, and then I had a taste of it. Lavender honey. My shoes still covered in the lavender field’s morning dew, we purchased a jar from the local vendor. At home, I put a little (let’s not kid ourselves, a lot) on my homemade toasted bread. OH, so this is honey!  Yes. Yes! I DO love honey. I guess you know when it is real. 

I guess it’s the same with everything, not the least of which — love. We’re quick to label so many emotions, connections with the word love. I know I did. Because we don’t know – certainly I didn’t. A taste of this, that, even the other… maybe this was it? Could this be it? And squeezing from the “honey bear” I tried to convince myself that it was good. But was it? Not really. Not for me. 

I suppose one could have stop searching, but my feet answered only to my heart, and it said “keep walking.” So I made my way, slowly, stumbling to the lavender fields. So this is it! This is love. Oui!

I don’t know all the answers, how the magic works, how our heart creates the most unlikely maps, but I do know this, if you can’t taste the honey, really taste it…keep walking. Love should be delicious!

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A cow’s shoes.

My grandfather had cows. The herd had to be moved often. He explained that if he didn’t move them out of the grassy field, they would eat until their stomachs exploded. I don’t know if that’s true, or something he told us to keep us quietly watching the herd for hours, just for the chance to see one of them rocket into space.

I remember judging them. How stupid could they be, I thought. I still sometimes do, until mornings like this one. Mornings when I cross the line of just enough lavender honey to make the toast delicious — cross the line into wow, my racing heart and sleeping brain. That was a lot of honey!

It’s these humbling repeated lessons that keep my judgements at bay. (Not as much as I’d like, but I’m working on it.) We never know what the others are going through. And why they are going through it. Why something that is so easy for you is hard for them, and vice versa. I guess the only thing we can do is remember to be kind, to them, and to ourselves, because the roles will continue to reverse from day to day.

I won’t pretend to know what you are going through today. But I will tell you, whatever it is, I care. From the bottom of my honey-filled heart, I do care. And I’ll walk with you to the next field.

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“You had me at lavender…”


It’s not like I thought honey came from a plastic bear, but not far.

Yesterday, on our small village tour, we bought some lavender honey. Before living in France, I had never really thought of the magic of bees. Bees. The work. The patience. The craft. Nothing short of magical. How they take, without harming, from their surroundings and create something so fabulous. What a lesson to be learned. I want to be better at this. 

Of course we needed bread for the honey. In the spirit of the bees, I made it. Taking the hours to mix, and wait, and rise, and wait, and roll, and wait, and bake. But the payoff, a house that smells better than any boulangerie…and the taste of bread fresh from the oven! 

This patience is a tricky thing to learn. We always want the answers right away. I am guilty of it for sure. Needing to know all the outcomes. How’s it going to be? I can get so far ahead of myself that I spiral out of the possibility of now. But now I have the lessons of honey. The sweet taste that tells me, relax. You don’t need to know how the magic works, just believe in it, taste it. It’s lavender. Lavender. And for a moment, this moment, I am saved.

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Pull over

Cezanne painted the Montagne Sainte-Victoire again and again. Living near it, I understand why. Every day it looks just a little different. Clouds, sun, sky, even my mood, can change the colors, change the view. But always, it is beautiful. Cezanne was lucky though, there weren’t the obstructions of today. Electrical lines, buildings, bridges and freeways can really distort the lines of vision.


I am always looking for that pure view. When I paint it, I can take out the obstructions, but it’s very difficult to see it, in all its majesty, without something clunking up the line. We have pulled the car over many times, thinking, this might be it, this might be the view, and then I take out the camera, and there it is, in the camera lens, that wire, that pole, that rooftop.


Yesterday, we were driving to Vauvenargues to see Dominique’s mother. On the way there, I caught a small glimpse of “maybe…maybe it’s the view…” So on the way home we did the ever hopeful pull-over, walked the side of the road, jumped over a ditch, and raised the camera. A sea of lavender rolled into the mountain under a sky of blue. Wait, what? No lines? No obstructions. Just nature. Just purples and violets and greens and blues and whites and grays. It was beautiful. And we got to see it. Smell it. Feel the lavender breeze against our skin, and the strength of the mountain, holding us together. Simply amazing.

I guess it’s the same with people. There are so many distractions. So many things that block our view. It’s so easy to turn away. Just pass by. But maybe if we took the time – really took the time – to see people in their own natural light, we would see what makes them amazing. We would see the beauty of all their changing days, both sunny and dark, and we would be gathered in.


What if I did that for you, and maybe you did that for me? Simply amazing. Again and again.

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Lavender honey

It’s getting harder and harder to know who we can like anymore. “Sure he was a good painter, but a bit of a misogynist.” “He could really write, but he killed so many animals.” “Oh, sure, she can sing, but who did she vote for?” “Oh, I loved that movie, but I can’t watch it anymore, that actor… is that even a religion?”

It’s so much to think about. Can we separate? Do we have to? Is it censorship? Oh, my poor head. Sometimes, I just want to enjoy something. For what it is. So this morning, I opened the jar of lavender honey – made by hard working bees, in a sea of lavender, in an unchanging part of Provence. I spread it generously over my homemade bread. Let it sink into the crevices. Took a deep breath of the lavender, closed my eyes, and slowly took a bite. I let it rest on my tongue and carry me to the waving purple fields. Delicious. Pure. Joy. If I could eat an almost perfect poem, written by an almost perfect author, it would be lavender honey. Good morning, assurance.

I guess, for me it’s more than enough. I wake up with the one I love… and lavender honey too.

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