Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: moment


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A moment.

Being allowed to use the can opener was almost as freeing as learning to ride my bicycle. I went to great lengths to enjoy my five minute lunch alone in Hugo’s summer field behind our house on VanDyke Road. Perhaps it was the responsibility I displayed with my two-wheeler that gave my mother the assurance I could handle the responsibility of staying home alone. She taught me to tear off the label from the Campbell’s can of chicken noodle soup before I brought it anywhere near the burner. I poured the noodles into the pan. Then turned it on — I was only allowed to use the lowest temperature (You have more time than money she would tell me. No need to burn the house down.) I warmed it to luke, then poured it into the styrofoam thermos I had painted in stripes. I Tupperwared a stack of crackers. Filled another thermos of ice water. Put them all in my corduroy book bag that my mother had sewn for me. Placed that into the wicker basket of my bike. Kissed good-bye my dolls and stuffed animals as if going off to war. Then rode the five minute trail along Hugo’s field. Sat down in the smallest clearing just off the edge. Emptied the book bag. Made it into a tablecloth. Drank my soup. Drank my water. Relished in being my summer self. It was only a moment, but it was beautiful. 

Here in France, I learned to bake the worshiped bread. Normally I do it in the afternoon. Freeze it for our toast each morning. But once in a while, I have the desire to start the day with fresh break. That means making the special recipe before bed. Getting up early. Then finishing the kneed, the roll and the baking. Washing the dishes while it bakes. Our house becomes a boulangerie. My fingers dance on the crust, as I cut the pieces. The butter melts without urging. Even the honey and jam feel special. It is only for this breakfast. There will be additional bread, but only this one moment, eating in the waft of this happy morning. 

Some might say it wouldn’t be worth it. But then they wouldn’t have can-openered their way to magic. I guess that’s for all of us to decide. Me, I hope I will try to make the most of each moment. What else do we have? 

Here comes another, what will you choose?

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The pink passing moment.

Every year the month of July writes a poem that can only be read from my upstairs bathroom window.  My breath  — that leaps from heart to smile — gives thanks to my brain for not memorizing, but allowing it to be a surprise each time.

Certainly there are other trees in the area, we live in the south of France after all. Paintings and poems are bursting into view as I walk my daily route. But this one feels just for us. Our little private firework popping in rhyme. I, we, don’t strain our necks to look past the blooming white tree beneath the pink. The hedge blocks the view from foot and car. Framed perfectly by the window sill, it knows we will come. And it waits. And when I hear it speak in rose, I don’t dismay the temporary, but give thanks for it. If it were ever, if I heard the words again and again throughout the year, would I be breathless? Maybe not. So I give thanks for the gift of July. The passing moment. The brief and beautiful poem outside my window. 

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Impermanent birds.

I am not supposing that my bird paintings will last for the next 700 years, but I feel a part of the history, the conversation, each time I paint one.

Yesterday, we visited the Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It protects one of the largest petroglyph sites in North America, featuring designs and symbols carved onto volcanic rocks by Native Americans and Spanish settlers 400 to 700 years ago. These images are a valuable record of cultural expression. 

We’ve been doing it since the beginning of time — recording our stories. From rocks to the sides of buildings. Paper to internet, we put out our experiences. Our feelings. Our hopes. Our lives. And maybe it’s all too impermanent now. Things are thrown out without thought. Without care. Maybe we think it will all be gone tomorrow. Throwing out insults and disparaging words. Maybe it’s all too easy. What if we really had to think? Sweat above each word? Carve them with heartfelt intent? Would we give our history it deserves? 

I think about our legacy. How the future will regard what we did with our time. 

Mine are not birds on rocks. But in my moment, I am nesting with the Natives, sitting beside a lamp lit Emily Dickinson, trying to find the hope on feathers. Trying to find the goodness in our stories, our time. And I am just as guilty of being impatient. I live in the “I want it right now” — the same time as you, but as I see the concerned expression on the rocks beneath my feet, beside my hands, I think, I hope, maybe we can take a little more time, a little more care in telling our stories. In listening to others. Because they are valuable — or they could be. 

Maybe today, before we make the post, send the email, say the words, we give them a little more thought. Maybe we carve the stone, instead of throwing it.

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Armed with joy. (I love living so much.)

I was a little about halfway through my workout when she came in and got on the treadmill. For thirty nine minutes more, I climbed the imagined hill of the eliptical machine. I hopped off to grab the spray cleaner and a towel to wipe down the machine. In my mid step she said, “You know my brother lives in Dallas.”  

There it was! The nugget I wait for each trip. We always get at least one. People are delightful! I imagined her putting the words in her “holster”…just waiting for me to pass by. She was not going to miss her chance. I like to think of the words brewing as she took each step. 

And me, I wasn’t going to miss the chance either.  “Dallas, you say…” 

“And they have more snow than we do.” And we were off. Mid conversation. No warmups. Two humans. Let’s go! “We don’t have much here,” I said, as I cleaned up my station. “And his neighbor, only a few miles away doesn’t have any.” “The world is upside down,” I returned. I let her talk about that brother, those snow-full and snow-less neighbors, for 10 minutes. The only rush I felt was wanting to get back to the condo to tell Dominque of our new treasure — our new opening line — “You know my brother lives in Dallas.” I’m still smiling.

What are we here for, if not to engage with those around us? And why wouldn’t we begin mid conversation… with everyone. We are all humans on this planet. People will still vote for someone you don’t like. Fires will rage. Snow storms will never last beyond spring. And this moment will pass in a blink, so I encourage myself, you, to always jump in. It’s what we learned isn’t it? On the school playground? No matter who was swinging that rope, no matter what song they were singing along to the swing, we jumped in. I want to be that little girl, armed with joy, and ever jumping in.


There was her story– just right in front of her–
and this time, she wasn’t going to miss it.
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In the Sunday evening.

I had already seen it several times, The Wizard of Oz. I had it almost memorized. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say it changed from black and white to color. We were about to leave my grandma’s house when it came on the large console tv set in the living room. Recognizing the music I ran in and plopped directly in front of the television. “Not too close,” my grandma urged. We were still of the belief that the screen could make you go blind. “We’re leaving anyway,” my mom said as she tapped on my shoulder, reminding me it was a school night. I knew it was a Sunday evening. All the good shows were on Sunday night. “I just want to watch a little…” I said, staying cross-legged on the floor. “It’s getting late,” my mom continued, purse in hand. “You know I’ve never really watched it before,” my grandma said. “Oh, look,” she continued, “it’s in black and white.” “She doesn’t even know,” I screamed to my mother. “We have to stay until it turns (I then whispered the rest behind my cupped hand) to color. Or else she’ll be afraid.” That is what sealed it for my mom — this not wanting anyone to be afraid. My grandma sat down in the recliner. I backed away from the tv and leaned against her legs. My mom put her purse down and sat on the organ bench. It was only a moment, I suppose, but a rare one, where three generations sat together, waiting for the change to come.

I mention it only because I’m afraid we’re losing it. These moments. The changes never stop, but we often forget to. Maybe it would be better if we faced them together. Leaned against one another, in the Sunday evening of all that is to come.

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Cinderella’s March.

It was my aunt Karolynn that led me through my first “March Madness.” It’s spring here in France. It won’t snow. We don’t follow basketball. But each year at this time, I am nestled in New Brighton, MN, in front of the television.

Visiting my cousins in this near Minneapolis suburb usually meant playing with my cousins — in the unfinished basement or outside. We only ever used the back door, which opened to both. 

But snow was falling as predicted this March, and I had just had surgery on my knee. My mom was working two hours away, so it fell on my aunt Karolynn to pick me up from the hospital. The leg-length plaster cast was not the full weight of it all. I worried about the school I was missing. The mom I was missing. The fact that my new Adidas track suit pants, purchased solely for this reason, ripped upon trying to stretch over my cast. And even though I had spent much time on summer visits to this place, I had never been alone with my aunt. In the wintertime. Immobile. I started to cry in the driveway. I placed my crutches under my already sore arms and began heading on the sidewalk to the back door. No, she said, and pointed to the front door. I was confused. I had never gone in the front door. It opened to the living room — the living room I had never sat in. She plopped me in Uncle Mike’s chair. Covered me with a blanket. Placed a tv tray around my legs. Brought me a bowl of Chicken Noodle soup – Campbell’s, not an off-brand. And she turned on the television. “It’s March Madness,” she said. I agreed before understanding it was the college basketball tournaments. I liked basketball, but mostly I liked when the announcer talked about the “Cinderella” teams — those with barely a chance, who came out shining! That would be me, I thought. I hoped. Half souped, warmed, the snow kept falling outside. But sitting in this front room, cared for, loved, I was indeed Cinderella. 

It was only a moment, I suppose, but it has stayed with me. Here in another country. A March filled with its own unique kind of madness circles around me, and I am safe. I will walk out the front door, and know that I am loved. 

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The golden glimpse.

It wasn’t certainty, but the complete absence of the need for it. It was only a moment. Perhaps it will take even longer to explain than it lasted. But it did happen. This morning. I walked out the back door. There was no change in temperature. It felt like the world was one big room. Everything equal. I walked around the yard in my swimsuit. I can only describe the feeling as enough. I felt thin enough. Pretty enough. Clever enough. (Not because I had changed, or gotten better, it was just that everything was connected. There was no better, no worse — we all just were.) I was loved enough. Given enough. Not wanting. Nor waiting. Just being. A part of it all.

And I hope you can hear the joy, the gratitude in the word enough.

I jumped into the pool. Still the same temperature. I swam my laps in the blue that held no separation. Was it sky or water? Swimming or flying? I wasn’t sure. But it was enough. Leaving the pool, the water beaded upon my skin. Under the sun. Slowly drying. I was embraced. Framed. Just as the woman in the painting. Golden.

By the time I reached the house, it had passed.

Only to be felt in glimpses now. But those glimpses, I smile knowing, they too, will be enough. I’ll catch a flash of it, walking past her, hanging on the wall. Or maybe walking on the street. I’ll smile as she randomly strolls by, effortless, this stranger, not known by name, but by frame, both feeling, it is indeed golden — just to be — and we are enough.

I sit now within and between the labored breaths of my mother-in-law. How many more? It’s not certain. But there’s no need for it. Not now. In and out. Pausing. And there it is — the slightest smile between the gasps. A glimpse of just being. And I know it’s enough. It has been so beautifully enough.

She’s somewhere between water and sky now. Her arms, merely twigs, make a flutter. The sun is calling. She, I, we, all caught in the golden glimpse. It is more than enough.

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S’more!

We took the bus from the roller rink to city park. Our sweaty legs were the only things grounding us to this world and the green pleather bus seats. We hovered between the exaltation of this finale to the fifth grade, and the silent wishing that this day would never end.

We jumped on picnic tables and rolled in the promise of summer grass. Our teachers started a fire and passed around graham crackers, marshmallows and Hershey chocolate bars. Some of the boys lunged with the toasting skewers, fighting off the time. Then blackened their marshmallows in the fire. The girls roasted theirs to a delicate brown. The hot marshmallow melted the chocolate sandwiched between the graham crackers. We all shook our heads in agreement to the name — s’more! For that’s all we wanted — more!

Perhaps it was the crash of the sugar high that silenced us on the bus ride back to school, but I think it was more than that. The open windowed breezes blew through t-shirts and pony tails, as our heads rested on classmates’ shoulders. Maybe we knew how special this day was. How exotic to catch yourself in transition. The magic of this moment, no longer a fifth grader, not yet in junior high…just here, together, joyfully sweated in our exhaustive friendships of youth. I mean we used everything. We spared nothing. We gave each other every laugh. Every tear and fear. We faced every open window. Together. Knowing we had it all. Knowing there would be more.

I laughed the first time I saw them in the exotic aisle of the grocery store here in France. Hershey Bars. Exotic! And then I was transported in time and place. Tasting this magical day of so long ago, so far away. And in that moment, I thought, they got it right. What could be more magical than this? More exotic?

I stood silent. Catching myself in the between. Hovering in this space of brand new and brand familiar. My imaginary pony tail brushed across my face and I smiled.

I will give everything. And humbly shake my head in the agreement, “S’more!”

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In a moment of happiness.

The kids and I played a game last night. Well, game is a funny word – no winners or losers, wait – I guess all winners. Anyway, we started with a blank piece of paper. One pen. One person started by drawing a line, or a shape. Passed the paper to the next one. They continued. And soon that line turned into something. For instance, a pirate — Jack Sparrow no less. We did this for an hour. Talking. Laughing. Drawing. One scrap of paper. One pen. We had so much fun.

It was not lost on me that about 5 feet away there was the Christmas tree. Gifts piled all around. So many presents. They aren’t up yet. Soon they will be rejoicing, and ripping and laughing for all the new! Before they do, I just want to spend a little more time in the moment. The moment when all it took was a connection. That moment will return. This is what I give thanks for, in the morning calm.

Now, I love a good present. Love to give them. Love to get them. I will soon gush over the purse that I picked out myself and then wrapped and put beneath the tree. But this moment. In the quiet, when I know that I already have everything, this may be the greatest gift of all.

The blessed dawn of Christmas Day.

Merry Christmas! 🎁