Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: play


by Leave a comment

The music never ends.

They signed up for the choir like everyone else at Central Junior High, but for three years, Gail Kiltie and David Alstead held the added responsibility of accompanying us on the piano. I never asked if they had wanted to. I hope at least our director, Mr. Lynch had, but I’m not sure. 

Maybe we all just came to expect it. We often do that in our daily lives, so busy singing we just assume others will take care of it — be the foundation. We all have our roles to play. And I suppose, I hope, that we gravitate towards them, want them, but I also think it’s important every once in a while to stop and ask. To be sure. To give thanks for the support given. To let those around us know that the gifts they give us are indeed the music that we sing. To acknowledge them for laying the notes we climb. Notes we scamper upon with such joy, under the premise “well, it goes without saying…” But does it? Or does it just go unsaid. I don’t want to take that chance. So I say to Gail and David, thank you! I say to you who read, who comment, who join me in the words I plunk on my own sort of keyboard, thank you! 

What a pleasure it is to share the music of this life. To take to heart that our pianos will not go unplayed. Our love will not go unsung. 

The notes are calling. I must scamper. 

Shop Now!


by Leave a comment

More Lillian.

She’s far too beautiful to be called Lilly, the plant in our entry. Bloom by bloom, her name is Lillian. And yes, I call her by name each time I compliment her fragrance. I introduce her to the field that hangs behind her. Tell her I will care for her with the same hands that painted the picture on the wall. It’s not unlike how I used to interact with my wagon full of dolls and stuffed animals. They all had names and adventures. As they traveled with me along VanDyke Road they learned the hazards of gravel and the freedom of travel. They dared Hugo’s field. Even helped me count the change in my pocket as we walked the mile to Rexall Drug to get a frozen Milky Way. And in all that fun, I guess I was learning. 

They say that play is how children learn, and art is how adults play. I couldn’t resemble that more than by definition. And oh, how I want to keep learning. So I paint the birds daily. I cut the wood to make the panels. I stretch canvas. And give names to the flowers and trees. I greet each butterfly by my mother’s nickname. I let myself play. Is it silly? I sure hope so! 

In the fifth grade, under the guide of Miss Green, we took spelling trips. We wrote reports on our imaginary travels. Of course we were learning how to spell. How to write. How to form sentences. Without our knowledge or permission, empathy grew for our fellow desk mates, fellow travelers, and we played ourselves into Central Junior High, a little bit wiser than Washington Elementary, a little more Lillian than Lilly.

As I finish today’s blog, I make another click on my gratitude counter, because giving thanks should be fun too.  I pass her on the way out the front door, smiling, we are both a little more Lillian!

All is as it should be.
Shop Now!


by 1 Comment

Dinger!

I would have missed out on the joy of many summers, had it been about winning. Each game started in our basement laundry room. I would dig through the baskets of clean clothes for my t-shirt that designated this year’s team. Baskets, similar to those of the Easter Bunny — somehow you knew in your heart that your mother filled them, but there was still a hint of magic. I pulled through my pony-tailed head, ran my fingers over the iron-on letters and raced up the stairs to the garage. Grabbed my yellow aluminum bat — the bat that truly made a dinging sound against the ball — so fitting that on the occasion it hit a home run, we did indeed call it a dinger! I balanced the bat in the flowered basket of my banana seat bike and rode to the park of the day. We high-fived before any play was actually made. Because hadn’t we already won? We were outside. Bathed in the summer sun. Set free with all the girls once contained in the brick walls of elementary school. Reigns loosened. Dust flying. Hearts pounding. Someone kept score with a pad and pencil in the dugout, but I’m not sure anyone cared, never enough to diminish the joy anyway. Returning home, I put my shirt in the magic basket, knowing it would be washed by a mother who stood knee deep in the laundry room and still managed to smile at the replay of my day. It turns out I had won, in the best of ways!

I haven’t started my next large canvas. It takes some thought. Paint is expensive. My brain knows this, but often forgets to tell my heart, my heart that just wants to play. It pleads the case of “not everything is for the museum,” and “not everything is for sale.” I grab a small scrap of wood. The brush handles clink against the glass. It is the sound of play. The bird comes to life. It is made with only joy. I lean it up to view, step back and think, “Now that’s a dinger!”

Shop Now!


by Leave a comment

An actual rally.

The guaranteed impermanence of both the net and our interest, allowed us to put up the badminton game in our grandma’s front yard. No matter how far we stretched the poles, there was a permanent sag in the middle, which ultimately worked to our advantage. Each shuttlecock, or birdie as we called it, was worn down to the nubs, either by racket or grandpa’s truck that drove over them. We swung with exuberance, hitting mostly only summer farm breezes. We struggled to keep score — the real “wins” coming in the few moments we could strike up an actual rally. 

When I see them play badminton at the Olympic level, I have to laugh. It is not the same game. I mention it only because I’m reminded how we do this in our daily lives — compare our experiences. When someone tells us of a certain struggle or situation, we are often so quick to say, “Oh, I’ve been through that, it’s not so hard”… or “Here’s what you should do…” or “just get over it…” The thing is, we’re not playing the same game. What might be a swing in a summer breeze to you, may be an international struggle for someone else. Neither right nor wrong. Just different. The best we can do, I suppose, is to sag the net a little and help each other rally. Maybe in doing so, we can all get back to the comfort of a summer breeze, in our time and in our way, and we could all win.

Perhaps it’s just an Olympic size dream raised up from the barefooted grass of my grandparent’s farm, but I owe it to myself, we owe it to ourselves, to keep swinging!

Shop Now!


by 1 Comment

Carried.

It was the heaviest book I bought in college — The Riverside Shakespeare. Weighing in at about 6 pounds, it would have been a lot to carry across campus for any English major, but for me, who spent the majority of my college years slinged and on crutches, it was extraordinary. Yet, I loaded it, joyfully, in my backpack, and hopped on one foot from M5, our fifth floor walk-up dorm apartment, across the quad to the humanities building, sometimes over ice and snow. I never fell. You could argue that the weight of the 2000 pages kept me stable, glued to the ground, but I will tell you it was most probably the strength of the words that held me. Still do. 

When moving to France, I let go of most possessions. And it wasn’t that hard. Furniture and shoes. Clothing and decorations. Dishes and beds. Table and tv. Trading it all in for love was an easy decision. I kept personal items. Paintings mostly, and a few books. It might surprise you, that this heaviest of books made the trip. Shakespeare rests on my shelf. Do I love the book? Yes. Do I love the words, the poems, the plays? Of course. But maybe most of all, I know that you can’t let go of what got you here — what held you, carried you, gave you strength. I suppose that’s why I have this heaviest of books beside me still. It’s why I write of my mother, my grandparents, my teachers and friends. I know what brought me here. What keeps me upright to this very day. 

Walking yesterday, I was listening to a podcast of Dame Judi Dench. She rattled off the words written by Shakespeare, and they lifted me over rock and trail. The announcer was so surprised that she still had all of these words at the ready. I wasn’t. The heart takes on the carry, and allows the journey, still. 

Shop Now!


by 2 Comments

After the pétanque.

I can’t go back to when they played there, these sun-kissed French boys just out of ear-shot of their grandmother, (intentionally or unintentionally). Back to when they played with sticks and sometimes fists, like only brothers and cousins can. They wrestled below and within the smells of tobacco and cut grass and stove pots wafting through open shutters.

But when we gather each year on August 15th, Napoleon’s birthday, (and one young cousin Guillaume’s), if the wind is just right, and the wine has settled, the vine that hangs above and beside the old house whispers to me, “Listen…listen to them play.” And I hear the clinking of the Pétanque balls, and the spirited calls of who is closer, with arms pointing to the ground, pleading cases, just this side of youth’s wrestle. And these now men, very grown men, are still pinkened by the sun, and the thrill of a summer that just might not end. 

And for the moment, I belong. Because the language of family is universal. And laughter and hope and joy under summer’s whisper, after the pétanque, rings loud and clear, and needs no translation. 

Shop Now!


by 2 Comments

Keep playing.

The clothes pins we used were wooden. I wasn’t tall enough to hang anything on the line, nor old enough to wash clothes, but I did use them for a birthday party game. 

My mom said I could use the whole basement for my party. I taped the donkey on the side of the wall. Put dice on the table. And placed the glass jar beneath the chair, beside the bucket of clothes pins. I was kneeling on the chair with pin in hand when she walked in. She paused with a look that said I thought we talked about this. And we had. I wasn’t going to play in any of the games. Or if I played, I wasn’t going to win, because the winner got a prize — their own present. And it being my birthday, I was guaranteed to get enough. “I’m not practicing,” I assured her, “I’m happy to let someone else win.”  And I was. Truly. “I just like the sound it makes, when the wooden pin falls inside the glass.” She smiled at me. “The little clink, clunk…it’s like the glass is happy. It’s not empty anymore.” I didn’t really have to plead my case, my mother knew me. “Keep playing, forever,” she said. 

It’s funny how long I thought forever would be back then. 

I never had a clothesline until I moved to France. Our clothes dry in the breezes of Provence. Our clothes pins are plastic, and not really even pins anymore, but I still can hear the sound. Each memory of my mom bounces against the glass of my heart, clink, clank…and my heart is never empty.

Today is my birthday. I mention it only because I know that I have already won — so much. So I stand beside the chair and offer you to play. I want you to win on my birthday. I want you to hear the sounds of joy. The only way we outrun forever is to keep playing.  

Shop Now!


by 3 Comments

The hand given.

The amount of reasons not to do it had to be plentiful. It could be too dry. Too wet. Too hot. Not warm enough. The tractor could fail. His body could fail. Grain prices out of his control. And yet, I never heard my grandfather complain. 

Sitting on his overalled lap at the card table he only spoke of the current hand he was playing. He and the chosen three adults laughed, accused, pointed, shook heads in knowing victory, slapped losing cards on the table, and kept playing. Oh how they loved to play cards after a full day of farming. And when the sun came up the next day, he walked past the card table, pocketed his pipe, and went to the field that was given, worked it accordingly, without complaint. Each year turning it from brown, to green, to gold. 

Yesterday at our family gathering, (a multi-national event), I was speaking with my German niece in English in the French countryside. “I don’t have enough time,” she said. “And I’m sort of afraid,” she continued. “And I could fail…” She offered up reason after reason not to paint, even though she claimed she wanted to. She was looking so far ahead. Beyond canvases painted, sold and shipped. A business created, and what if that failed, all before a brush or tube was even purchased. “You could just paint a picture,” I said. I could hear my grandfather’s voice deep from within.

He never played next year’s hand. He farmed in the day that was given. What a lesson to be learned. I remind myself constantly. Because I, at times, can get way too far ahead of myself as well… with all the what ifs of tomorrow. But really, we only have this day. And I choose to make something of it. 

It occurs to me as I’m typing this, the answer to one of her questions. I told her I was working in my favorite palette. Stroke by stroke in these moody, earthly colors. She asked why I loved it. It’s so clear to me today, it’s the hand I was given. 

Thank you, Grandpa.

Shop Now!


by Leave a comment

“Some.”

It was pretty clear from the start that I wasn’t going to be a saint. But a poet? Maybe.

I knew she loved poems. My mother. She tucked me in each night with Emily Dickinson. I was safe and feathered (the sweet spot where hope lives).

I suppose I saw early on how the words lifted her. How even in her darkest hour, they offered this light. I wanted to be a part of that. That lifting light.

Once I started looking, I could see it. You had to want to see it, but it was there — the poetry of our town. You had to pass the giant Viking statue on main street to get to my school. The giant Viking that claimed us as the “Birthplace of America.” Written on his shield, what could be more poetic than this? Inside Washington Elementary, Mr. Iverson brought the bouncing words and notes into our kindergarten music class. The librarian read the words aloud that soon we would learn to spell in Mrs. Berstrom’s first grade classroom. Words screamed from monkey bars and whispered in lavatory lines. Words I scribbled in crayon and revealed to my mother at bedtime. Hope lived.

Poetry winded through my wet hair as I raced on my bicycle from Lake Latoka. Poems ran beneath my sanded feet in the ballpark. Waved through the farm fields of my grandfather. The open windows of my grandma’s car. Bounced upon the neighbor’s screen doors. Crackled in the summer gravel of Van Dyke Road. Fell from autumn trees. Rested in winter snows. And returned with spring — just as promised. Summer bikes once again pulled from garages.

I attached the playing card to the wheel beneath my banana seat. The joke would now be on my brother, because he could no longer ask me to play “52 pickup” – now it would be 51. The click-clacking echoed through the streets as I pedaled. What was making the sound? Was it the wheel? The card? Or the wind?

And so it was with the poem. Who was writing it? Was it me? My mom? The town? The words echoed in my heart. I wrote them on paper. And we were saved.

They don’t make me want to go back, but pay attention to the place I’m in — the poem that is gently click-clacking right outside my window. A love that keeps lifting. Safe. And feathered.

“EMILY: “Does anyone ever realize life while they live it…every, every minute?”

STAGE MANAGER: “No. Saints and poets maybe…they do some.”

― Thornton Wilder, Our Town

Shop Now!


by 2 Comments

Awakening.

It was Don Quixote — the first professional play I ever saw. I suppose I’ve been chasing windmills ever since.

We boarded the big yellow school bus in Alexandria, Minnesota and took the two hour ride to Minneapolis. It was actually in Chanhassen, a smaller suburb. And we probably just called it “the cities” (short for Minneapolis and St. Paul). When I think about it, we did that for almost everything. Put a “the” in front of it. Claimed it. Gave it importance. As if it were the only. And for a long time, it all was, the only. My grandparents farm was “the farm.” Viking Plaza was “the mall.” The twin cities of Minneapolis and St.Paul — simply “the cities.”

But it was there, just a bus ride away, inside the Chanhassen dinner theatre, that I dared, maybe for the first time, to “dream the impossible dream.” Without my knowledge or permission, the tears flowed down my teenage face as the actor sang the song. I guess my heart always knew.

I wasn’t sure how I would survive my first birthday without my mom. How would I “bear with unbearable sorrow?” We went on a mini vacation – a quest. And there was the windmill. “The” windmill — My impossible dream. There was still joy. Incredible, possible, joy! I had, in fact, a wonderful birthday!  Truly! I will forever believe. Forever chase. 

It was mom who put me on that first bus. I won’t let her down. I will keep riding the wind.

Shop Now!