Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: learn


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Just ride.

I have raved through the years about my banana seat bike — the flowers on the seat and basket that could have been delivered from the “Laugh In” set by Goldie Hawn herself. The brightest of pinks, yellows and blues that brightened the gray transition of the end of March, when I received it for my birthday. But I didn’t get there directly from my red tricycle. There was another bike. In between. It looked almost homemade. Perhaps it had been Frankensteined from neighborhood parts gathered in the back shed. It was gray and white. The pedals almost worn down to the stub. It only blurred into the gravel that I was learning upon. Dropped and abandoned in ditches, it still was the one that took me to the brightened glory of the banana seat.

And just as forgettable, I suppose, was the three speed black bike from Sears that in-betweened my banana seat and my electric blue 10-speed. And didn’t I park that bike in the furthest rack away from the playground at Washington Elementary? Not quite ashamed, but close enough that it pangs my heart still.

Maybe it takes awhile to see the value of the things that get us through. It’s easy to celebrate the milestones and forget the random Sundays. Our city is mostly shut down today because of an Iron Man competition. I can lose these hours pedaling feverishly toward Monday, or I can choose to enjoy them as the gift given. I hope I do. I’m going to try. These are the words I’m learning upon.

Just ride.
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Pulling an Elsie.

I recently learned that when birds sleep in a row, the two on the outer edges keep one eye open to protect and allow those on the inside to fall asleep. It doesn’t surprise me, I have rested within that protective watch. 

There is a big scientific name for it, which I’ve already forgotten, this act of being able to keep “one eye open” while being in a half sleep — we’ve always just called that “pulling an Elsie.” She had to have been doing the same thing — birding her way through every card and dice game played on her kitchen table. Able to sleep while we pondered over our next move, then waking at the exact moment to handily beat us with chirping joy! And I saw her do it everywhere. In the funeral home where she phone-sat. At the grocery store check-out line (she did indeed check out). Even once in the car. But I was never worried. The speed at which she could belly-jiggle herself awake allowed all of us to rest, to play, to run in a carefree summer, to sleep soundly under her watch. 

I suppose you could just rule it all as nature. But I know not everyone was blessed with a Grandma Elsie. So I give thanks. And make my way to the outer edges. 

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The lift of linoleum.

You can’t tell me that they’re always trying to get somewhere. Most of the time, it looks like they’re playing in the wind. Dancing even. These birds so elegantly bouncing and bounding above. And why wouldn’t they dance, they already have the song. 

She never wore a tutu, nor spandex dresses, but oh how my mother could dance. She would teach me on the carpet of the living room floor. It was slower. But when I had mastered the steps, she’d lead me to the kitchen floor, and I barely felt my stockinged feet touch the linoleum. She’d sing along to the boombox, pull me in and spin me out and I knew I was flying. I asked her if she had dance instructors? No, she said. In school? I asked. No. Did grandma teach you. She laughed (sure it was a bit of a dance maneuvering through all those people in the farm kitchen), but no. Then how did you know you could dance? I asked. I could always hear the song, she said, and pulled me in once again. 

And wasn’t that belief? Wasn’t that the true art of living? Just listening for the music. Trusting your feet would follow. Believing, one way or another, you were going to fly!  

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Between two screens

Working between two screens, sometimes my cursor gets stuck in the opposite one that I want. (Like my brain doesn’t do that all the time.)

It’s so easy to think, “Well, I always did it this way…” Whether I’m talking about different countries, different languages, loves, relationships, even my hairdresser.  And I catch myself swiping madly on the wrong screen.

Change is never easy. Neither growth. But both are so necessary. And it doesn’t mean you have to give up everything in the letting go, the moving on…You keep the lightest of things, like joy and hope and love — none of these will ever weigh you down.

Too often I’m unaware. It’s barely more than air, the little birdie that tells me things. But when I’m paying attention, really paying attention, all the truths that move between who I am and who I want to be, chirp seamlessly between my heart and my brain, and I am saved. 

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The race of summer. 

To be so filled with life that it has to flush from your very pores. Cheeks ruddy and ever ready. I suppose we all think it will last forever — sure that our feet will keep the deal that youth has made. But maybe it’s the heart that takes over. (Or maybe it led all along.) Maybe it’s the heart that drags us from spring’s mud into summer’s bliss. Maybe it’s the heart that races through grass’s morning dew again and again, and lifts us up from green knees when we fall, ever promising to keep our cheeks flushed through autumn. Through winter.

Every time I paint a face, I feel the colors in my own, flowing through my hands. And the corners of my mouth rise up, smiling, so happy to be a part of youth’s reddening still.

What will you do today, to remain in the race of summer? 

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I climb.

Spring arrived not only on the side of the hill, but also in my step. I can buy it at the grocery store. In fact I did just a few days before. And it was delicious. But it can’t match the thrill of finding asparagus, petite stalk by stalk, just off the pathway. 

And when I say hill, mountain would be closer to my leg’s truth. It is quite steep. And can be challenging. But while searching for the wild asparagus, I noticed on my second trip up, I hadn’t heard a thing from my thighs. Now, I’m sure they didn’t feel any different from the day before, but I think they knew the task. I think they knew they were as much a part of the hunt as my eyes that scanned, my back that bent, and my hands that grasped. I think to complain would have set them apart, so they marched silently up the hill, and joined in the victory when the asparagus omelette was made just hours later. 

It was my grandfather who always told me whenever I was in deep struggle, (often self imposed), to focus on someone else. And I’m sure I struggled with that as well, screaming like an angry ascending quad, but he was right. He was always right. It’s a lesson I keep learning. Sometimes more quickly than others. But I still celebrate in the victory. He would like that — because in doing so, I am also thinking of him. 

He comes the day. I’m about to join in. I climb. I hope. I reach. I pray. I curse. I kick. I laugh. I rest. I climb. I hope. 

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Taut.

She was not unlike most of the super powers that I watched on Saturday mornings. All were contained in the tightest of fashion. It’s why, I imagined they could move through the world so easily. And so it was with Mrs. Bergstrom. She stood in front of our first grade class at Washington Elementary. No loose ends. Her hair slicked back in a perfect bun. Her black pencil skirt smoothed without wrinkle, making it impossible to see where the chalkboard ended and her waist began. That’s how all the words got in, I thought. This seamless transition. And wasn’t that her superpower, all those words that she spelled out, sounded out, drew out. I wanted some of that power. Just to stand in all that “super” for even a moment. I leaned forward in my desk. Pulled up my neck. Straightened my back. Reached one leg behind the chair to make myself into the straightest line. To create a path for all that knowledge she was passing our way.

It’s easy to let a day go by. To let the passage of time slouch us over. To drape in the fray of worry and get caught in every dark moment. But that wasn’t how we were taught. Not how I was taught. So I wipe the chalk from my hands and smooth them down my skirt and I stand. I stand tall. “Gather it in,” my heart tells my brain — be taut — despair can only slide down, slide off. And it occurs to me how similar the words are. This taut and taught. And it straightens me. Lifts me. Letting go the fray, I Bergstrom to the front of the morning.  

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Understanding crows.

I suppose it’s mostly folklore and misinformation that has given crows a reputation of being a little creepy, a little other. Some say it feels like they are watching us — and studies have found that this part may be actually true, but not with a malicious nature, rather actual curiosity. Crows are very intelligent. They are able to use tools and reason. This “watching” is because they are learning. (We should never be afraid of others learning.)

True intelligence does not fear it in others, but embraces it. Joins in. Hops on. I know I’m barely more than air, but I’d like to think I am that sparrow. 

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Ever the heart.

I didn’t have words for it when I began. It all seemed too much. Too long. And it wasn’t like I was simply out on a limb, I was gone, so far off into the distant future, a future that I could awfulize into every worst scenario. So I brought myself back. Gave myself only the space of this sketchbook. Allowing myself any emotion, but confining the worry, the fear, to about 12” of my day. Feel anything, everything, I told myself. And once I gave it a voice, without my knowledge or permission, that voice began to turn into a song. And that song calls me each day to the page, not the fear. 

And the most joyous thing happened yesterday. Looking at the bird woman, with her wicker bag at the market, birds resting on her head, I imagined her saying, “Seriously, I really need to shop faster.” And I laughed. Out loud. 

And it isn’t time making the difference. It’s the work. Giving myself a place to grow, to feel. A place where perfection isn’t required. And it’s ironic, I suppose, so beautifully ironic, that in this tiny space, I feel so gloriously free. 

It just occurred to me, maybe that’s what the heart is after all, a sketchbook. Not the place with all the answers, but beat by beat, page by page, a tiny space where we are free to feel, to learn, to grow, to become. Ever the artists of our own choosing. I suppose it’s never the brain, nor the hand, that says, I can make something beautiful out of this, but the heart…ever the heart… turning the page, crossing over to the beauty that lies ahead. 

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The gathering phase.

I never thought of myself as shy. I think I just wasn’t ready.

She got the first note from my Kindergarten teacher, concerned that I didn’t say much. “She’s so shy,” it read. My mother replied with a “She’s fine.” It happened again in first and second grade. Maybe third. My mother, knowing me, said “When she has something to say she’ll say it. I smiled in nonverbal agreement. Her belief was mine, and since the fifth grade at Washington Elementary my heart (which is really our only voice) has always been at the ready. I sing it loud through words and art and voice.

I don’t know how my mother knew about the gathering phase. Maybe it’s because she would have loved the same opportunity. I’m grateful that she offered it to me. She never forced what was growing, greening, becoming, inside of me. She gave it the time it needed — the time I needed — and that has made all the difference.

I think we’re often in such a hurry to get people “healed”, or to whatever we consider “normal.” And that’s mostly all for us. I know the furious speed at which we want to get over. But we all have to go through. In our time and in our way.

My friend was surprised yesterday, at the gallery in Palm Springs, how easily I walked up to the owner to promote myself. I wasn’t afraid. I smiled to the sky. I had the confidence, the voice, I can only imagine, because I had been given the time. 

May we all allow each other our moments in the gathering phase.

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