Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: magic


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Everybody knows.

It wasn’t that hard to piece together. I saw the publisher’s clearing house magazines open on the table, and the presents piling up under the tree. I was bursting with knowledge when my mother came to pick me up from Grandma Elsie’s house. “I know the truth about Santa Claus.” I told my mom while putting on my seat belt for the car ride home. “Oh,” she said, not sure of what my truth would be. “I know Grandma orders the presents and puts them under the tree.” My mom smiled, thinking I knew that all grandparents and parents did the same. But somehow she managed to contain her laughter when I pronounced, (not that Santa wasn’t real) but that I knew it was actually Grandma who was the real Santa Claus, for everyone. 

I wish I could tell you the depths of my pride. I knew Grandma Elsie was special, but this, this was really something. To think it was my Grandma who brought presents to the entire world. If I had begun to question the existence of an actual Santa Claus — the ability of one person to pull off such a feat, I can tell you that all doubts subsided. Because if anyone could do it, it would be Grandma Elsie. 

The roads were already covered in snow. My mom pulled the Chevy Impala into our driveway between the two drifts. I was staring out the picture windows. But for the snow illuminating the winter’s dark, I never would have seen it. But there it was — a streak of red. Santa was running across Van Dyke Road!  My mom heard my screams of delight, but came just after the blur. “What?” She said. “I saw Grandma running across the road!”

We never found out who actually donned the suit and ran on our snowy road. So I can’t completely rule out that it wasn’t Grandma Elsie. If you ask me when I stopped believing, I would have to tell you, not yet. 

I often wonder if my Grandma knows that I’m here. What my life is like now. But then I saw her yesterday in Marseille. I sat beside her in the magic of Christmas.

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A permanent connection.

I always imagined myself as the number one. Not in the sense of being first, but as the connection to my number two pencil. She never explained it as such, Mrs. Bergstrom, our first grade teacher at Washington Elementary, but I felt it right from the start. It was such a magical connection. When she passed out the number twos they felt like little wands. Little wands that took the words she wrote on the blackboard and put them into our hands. Words that were filtered through our hearts and graphited to the sheets of paper that lay dormant for six years, never to be blank again. 

I was sketching in my book the other day with a pencil that I bought from MoMA. In this book, to gain the desired effect of lightness, the actual paper must be erased away. I couldn’t find my eraser. I thought it was probably down in the studio. Being upstairs, I didn’t want to make the trip. I started looking. Holding the pencil in my left hand, I felt it. I had never noticed it before. It was colored in black, this eraser. Indistinguishable from the rest of the pencil, but it was there. It had always been there. I smiled to the heavenly blackboard that I imagine Mrs. Bergstrom still directs. And give thanks for the magic.  For making me the number one to my number two. A permanent connection. 

If you’re wondering what teachers can do, I offer you this — this giving of an intelligence so far from artificial that it can still be held in the palm of my hand. 

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A dip in the magic.

My mother wasn’t one to swim, but she made sure that I learned. And right along with it she taught me how to take a DIP — how to access the Dream In my Pocket. “You never know when you’re going to need it,” she explained. So before anything ended, we made sure our pockets were filled. Before making a return trip home, a new trip would be planned. After an event, we’d plan our outfits for the next one. And one of the most important, in the last pages of a current book we would add to our “To Be Read” pile. 

I finished “Killers of the flower moon” yesterday. Within hours, I went to my TBR. I had purchased these two books about a week ago. I chose Paul Auster’s “The New York Trilogy,” because he had recently passed. I had only planned on getting this one, but on my way to the counter I saw the book, “The Details,” by Kira Josefsson. I had just listened to a podcast about it on my morning walk, so I grabbed that book too. They both waited patiently by my bed.

I was tired last evening. I had taken my actual first dip in our pool. This summer’s dream was officially out of pocket!  The water that may have been splashed onto the lawn was replaced with smiles.

Getting ready for bed, I randomly grabbed the top book, “The Details.” I wasn’t even six pages in, when the magic outshined the lamp clipped onto the pages. The character in the book began talking about her love for reading, specifically for her love of the author Paul Auster. My heart giggled. She went on, her favorite book was “The New York Trilogy.” You just can’t make this stuff up! 

I’ve always trusted the readers, and the dreamers. My mother gave me that. Perhaps these pockets were filled from heaven. I don’t know, but I slept in the knowledge that I was still surrounded by magic. And I will take a luxurious dip in all of it, every chance I get!!!

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Words and toes.

Before there was ever a television series, nestled in the winter corner of my bedroom, book resting on my knees perched to my chest, I looked like every character in the Little House on the Prairie book. I lived in each word. I knew the steps to the house. The barn. I was the girl nestled to a loving Pa. I was the strong and worried Ma. Laura, running, always running. Mary studying. I knew each character in and out. The mean girl at the mercantile. The neighbors a horse ride away. There was no need to mark the page. I read it through. And read it again. 

The Washington Elementary School library made it possible for me to read the series a week at a time. The many years captured in these books lasted one winter of mine on Van Dyke Road. My little toes dug deeper into the carpeting as I traveled through each page. Because it wasn’t just my mind wandering. I knew I was there. That, I suppose, is the moment I learned the power, the magic of reading. 

Yesterday we visited the  three historic structures, including the Surveyor’s House, the Ingalls’ home that Pa built, and the First School of De Smet where Laura and Carrie were students. Maybe it was because of the snow, but I don’t think so…I felt it in my toes — they curled like I was seven again, as I ran to her statue. If you have a moment today, read — to a child in your house, at your library, or the one whose toes still curl beneath you. 

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A stroke of Mrs. Bergstrom.

There is a reason we call it spelling. The magic of the letters, when put together to form words, can indeed cast a magical spell within and around us. 

She stood in front of the class of first graders. Mrs. Bergstrom. Tall and straight. Not with a robe, nor a hat, but she did have a wand. Some might remember it as just a teaching pointer. But not me. As she tapped it against each letter chalked perfectly on the blackboard, white dust — fairy dust I was sure — sprung into the air. We were spelling. And it was magic. 

That magic moved from the blackboard to our Big Chief notebooks. Then marched with us single file to the library down the terrazzo halls of Washington Elementary. With each book we moved into neighborhoods. Made friends with dogs. Rode horses with cowboys and bloomed into teenage girls, and boys with paper routes. Everything was possible in the words. 

I’d like to think it still is. As I type each morning, I take that magical journey. With each letter I make a path. Sprinkling it with a stroke of Mrs. Bergstrom. Because it’s all beautiful, even the hardest of days — when wanded into the words of “look what we survived,” and “look what we’ve become” — are nothing short of magical! I still believe it. I have to believe it. I hope we all can.

Because she didn’t just give us the happy words. She taught us how to spell. How to make our way through it all. Today, I too will stand straight and tall. And I promise, I will not waste the magic.

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Magical gifts.

There is a natural magic that happens when the air is perfectly still and the outdoor temperature is just slightly above that of the pool. I can close my eyes, raise an arm out of the water, and not feel the difference. For a brief second, I am part of it all. I am a leaf on a tree. A blade of grass. A bird on the highest branch in the sky. I am not trying to fit, I just do. 

I suppose when catching yourself in this moment, in any moment of happiness, the moment does pass, but maybe it is the impermanence that makes it so special.

Everything will end. That is the very nature of, well, nature. 

There are only a handful of people who are this air to my water. People with whom I can be myself. Just be. And it works. People with whom I can fall, secure in the knowledge of being caught in these moments. 

This magic can go by many names. Love. Friend. Family. Whatever you call your magic, call it often. And when it calls to you, be it whisper or shout, go without hesitation. Be in it. Live in it. Without worry of time or loss — both are out of reach — but the joy of being, the nature of being, is right here. Right now. Shhhh. Be still. Can you hear it? That’s the magic calling.

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Pocketful.

I suppose one of the reasons I loved her the most was because she never tried to explain away the magic.

The first time I descended the stairs to my grandparents’ basement, I’ll admit I was a bit nervous. It was dark — even with the light on. Each step had a voice. My 5 year old imagination ran wild. But about halfway down, it started to smell familiar. Books, I thought. It smells just like the library. I raced the remaining steps. Wet, overworked overalls hung by the furnace.This was the army, I thought, that helped my grandfather in the fields. This one sized army, that was just his size alone. This pinstriped gathering of strength. These dampened blues and browns hung thick with the words that told his story. I ran my fingers across each page.

I wasn’t surprised to see my mother waiting at the top of the stairs. She was always the first to gather me in. Listen to me. To take whatever I had experienced and make it real. “It smells just like the library,” I said. “Pockets and pockets and pockets of stories! That’s where he keeps them, isn’t it?” “Yes,” she smiled. She always smiled, and I was home. 

She could have explained that the smell was merely the dampness of the paper, the material, perhaps even mold under the collective weight of age and use. But she didn’t. She never would. Some of my older cousins would try — LaWanna said I was a baby, with baby thoughts. But not my mom. She never took the magic away. Maybe that’s why I still have it. Still believe in it. Still carry it. By the pocketful!

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The weight of the magic.


Not everyone liked to be called up to the black board. I did. When Mrs. Bergstrom began asking a question, I was suddenly the tallest person in the room. Everyone sank lower in their desks, to discourage her from calling on them — as if she might think, well, I couldn’t possibly ask them to walk all the way up here to the board, they are but floating heads…” It never worked. She called on everyone.


When it was my turn, I ran, hand reaching out for the chalk. I could barely hear the question over my heart racing. I loved the feel of the chalk in my chubby little fingers. Once in a while, she would hand over her personal piece of chalk – the one with the wooden holder. The weight of it was magnificent. It felt powerful and important. As I wrote the answer, any answer, it felt like my hand was sledding across the fresh fallen snow – gliding, surely, easily, making tracks of white. This feeling far surpassed any worry of right and wrong. There was only this. This magic from head to hand to board.


I’m working on some new projects with my publishers. They are in the United States. I am in France. In these separate countries, in different hours of the same day, we communicate in real time, face to face, actions and creations are immediate. Immediate. Imagine that!
In our discussion, they wanted to know my favorite pencil. I knew immediately. It is the woodless graphite pencil I purchased from the Musée Soulages Rodez. The weight of it is, once again, magnificent! It feels possible. Magic! It feels like no worry of right and wrong. It glides with youth across the page. The one I race to. That is a worthy pencil!


Without saying all of that, when they asked me why, I immediately drew this bird. In real time. Maybe a minute, or two. “Because, this!” I drew. This! With this pencil, it is “my turn.” I guess I’ve always understood the importance of that. Even when fear hides all around me, sometimes even within, I will forever race towards the weight of the magic!

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Seeing it through.

“There was the man who got on his horse one afternoon and told his wife he was going to bring in the cows. She watched him ride off across the flats. He came to their two mild cows, grazing half a mile from the house, and he rode around them and kept on going. She watched him to the top of the rise, a mile away, and she waited and waited. He never came back. “I don’t know what got into him,” his wife said. “He didn’t even say goodbye.” Hal Borland from “High, Wide and Lonesome”


When I start a new painting, I like to keep quiet. Those who know me don’t ask, “What is it going to be?” I suppose there are a few reasons for this. First, I’m often not sure. What I begin might turn into something else completely. That, to me, is never failure of losing the first, that is the magic of gaining what is to be. The magic that comes from seeing it through. Allowing it to become. Never abandoning the canvas, but working with it. Not forcing it to be something it isn’t, but allowing it to be what it wants to be.


Maybe she learned it from her father — the farmer who always came back from the field. But most certainly, I learned it from her, my mother. From her I learned the magic of seeing it through. The magic of no more abandonings. So today, if you’re wondering what the next painting will be… what tomorrow will bring…if you really need to know, know this, it’s going to be magic!

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Mother helped me believe not all things are bad, many things are good.

How do you know to believe if no one has ever believed in you? 
After the publication of my second book, “Believe,” I was asked to read it to a group of inner city kids in Minneapolis.  I’m not sure I like the term inner city.  In the US, the term inner city has been used as a euphamism for lower income residential districts. I wasn’t labeled this as a kid, probably because I was white, but certainly, in terms of income, I was no different.  Maybe the only difference between us was I had someone who believed in me. My mother.


When I finished reading the book to them, which ends, “I believe in you,” most of the kids were quiet, almost stunned.  I looked around, hoping for some reaction.  I looked directly at the largest boy in the group.  I knew if I could get a response from him, the others might follow.  I smiled in his direction. I kept smiling.  He made eye contact, so I asked how he felt about the book, did he have any thoughts?  He said, with no pity, no hesitation, “No one has ever told me they believed in me before.”  The others nodded.  


My heart wanted to cry, but I kept smiling. I was honored to be the first, I said, but I would not be the last. Once you hear it, it cannot be denied. Never unheard.  Now you must live it. 

We painted a mural for their school with the words below. They grabbed brushes confidently, loudly, boldly, and painted themselves a future.


We are born with our eyes and our hearts wide open. Innocence and youth make it so easy to believe…so easy to fall asleep in someone’s arms, to trust in smiles, to see animals float across the sky…to believe your summer will never end.This gift that we’re given – to not just hope – but truly believe in people and feeling and all these things under the sun…this ability to act like it all matters…where does that gift go? Why does time and experience have to wear it away, instead of building on it? At what point do we lose the courage to believe and then just start hoping? And why do some give up completely?Now, I am not the most courageous of sorts…but I’m not willing to give up this most precious gift, for me or for you. I know it won’t be easy, and I know it shouldn’t be. And I’m going to fight for it, every day. Because inside this beautiful struggle to believe, we are given the power to comfort, to heal, to inspire and to love.As I get older, I know my summers may not last forever, but I’m not going to stop believing in the chances that rise with each morning sun. And I know it matters…it always does…the things we do, the things we say, the lives we lead, and the hearts we touch.I want to see giraffes float by, instead of gray clouds. I want to feel the sun, deep inside of me, even when it isn’t shining. I have to believe in myself enough to have the courage to say “I love you,” and mean it…and have the strength to hear “I love you” and really feel it.I believe all this can happen for me, and I believe it can happen for you.

We hung this in their school. I pray it reached their inner-most souls.  

Hang this on your heart today, “I believe in you.”