Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: mighty


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Adorable whispers.

It’s only Tuesday morning and I have already underestimated two significant projects this week. This unknowing plays a significant part in me actually getting things done. 

I worked for nearly the whole day on our “catch-all’ closet, releasing a majority of the things that really didn’t need to be caught. I arranged plastic folders and papers. I went through all the Christmas decorations, taking out such items as broken ornaments, the BB gun targets, the grip strength tool and the sombrero. (I never would have imagined that the one thing my French husband and my Minnesota grandma had in common was the inability to throw out the closet sombrero.) I broke down and recycled the random boxes that seemed so useful while opening the gifts. I rearranged and dusted and vacuumed. Several hours and two full garbage bins later, the closet was clean. Voilà, as we say.

Fueled by the momentum, and a head full of “how hard could that be?”, I decided to paint my bathroom yesterday. By the time I finished cleaning, scrubbing and dusting, I was already tired, but there was no turning back. Were the ceilings always this high? With a ladder and extension rollers, and a brush I taped to some sort of pole I found next to the pool cue and hockey stick collection in the garage, I stretched and reached and sweated my way through coat one. Muscled my way through thoughts of, ironically, “what was I thinking!” Then struggled my way through coat two. 

I love the results of both projects. I mention it only to remind myself of the real lesson here. I have been guilty through the years of praying for answers. Oh, how desperately we want to know the answers. When really, the thing that so often gets me through is just this blind, adorable, audacious hope. So I remind myself, again, and for the first time, this “unknowing” that you’re so afraid of, let it go…look around and begin…my heart whispering in both ears, “How hard could it be?”

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Hope is mighty.

When I first learned of Mount Rushmore in Mrs. Bergstrom’s first grade class at Washington Elementary, I still believed that things lasted forever — carved in stone as it were. 

Several years later, when I stood before it, I suppose things had already begun to chip away. Life has a way of doing that. Or maybe it was the fumes from the school buses. The screams of all the other wild students, more thrilled about a day without study than the actual monument itself. I still liked it, but I’m not sure it felt all that reverential. Riding back on the bus, not to our house on VanDyke Road — a house that long gave away the promise that families stay together, that things last forever — but to a new apartment on Jefferson Street, I began to think maybe it was all a lie.

The summer before I left for college, I interned for the Recreation Department at Lincoln School. Working my way through the presidents, I suppose. In their laughter, the kids on the playground, I could hear it, they believed their summer would never end. Who was I to tell them any different. I joined in their play.

I don’t know if it was in college. At my first job. In my first apartment. Or all of them. But I began to build a new future. And it was never based on a forever, but a hopeful now, a hopeful next. And I moved further. And often. Carrying it with me. Hope will never weigh you down. 

Standing in front of Mount Rushmore yesterday, I felt it, the pure joy of it all. It seemed so clear. It was never about life’s permanence, but hope’s. Things will change. Even end. But through it all, we can be strong when wounded, joyful when discouraged. This is ever so light, and oh so mighty. I carry it with me. Ever. 

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Being a cardinal.

We never imagined ourselves as the toughest. We were birds. We played other schools that were tigers, bears, bison, wolves, eagles even… And when I say we played, we really did play. We had fun. I’m not certain if that’s why everyone joined, but I think so. And we were proud to be cardinals. Lovely red birds who played in the afternoons. No one was ever really threatened or intimidated by us, the cardinal girls, but still in the song we sang on the bus, we deemed ourselves mighty — “We are the cardinals, mighty, mighty cardinals, everywhere we go – oh, people wanna know- oh, who we are – so we tell ‘em… (and repeat).

And I think mighty be the exact right word here. Sure, we competed. We even won sometimes. But there was so much more. We did everything together. Dressed together. Hoped together. Sang together. Won and lost. Even cried sometimes. All together. And those years in school, when hope was really all I had — to do it together, was everything. And maybe only a couple of girls knew my story, but it didn’t matter. I don’t think we needed details. They didn’t seem to. I was part of something, and I, we, knew it was way more important than being the best – it was about wanting the best for each other. Being a part of something bigger than ourselves — I guess that, by my definition is mighty.

We were on the radio yesterday. Telling our story. What a delight! How did we fit together? How did we fit in this town? It felt like red and black joy. I was, again, a dancing cardinal!

It’s human nature I suppose to want to know all the details. But when you are welcomed, just for being you, brought into the colors without judgement, oh, what a feeling! People who will laugh with you. Ride with you. Win and lose with you, and still find a reason to sing — surround yourself with these people — people filled with hope, friendship and love — this is one mighty team! Everywhere I go-oh, I want people to know-oh, Yes, I am a cardinal…

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