Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: poet


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Barefoot and pajamaed.

“When the barn catches fire, I am wearing the wrong negligee…” Maxine Kumin (from her poem The Longing to be saved.)

My mother’s first fire was not on the farm where she was growing up, but the dorm of her school. She didn’t want to go away to this school, but her parents were sending her older brother Ron because it was an Ag School (meaning it finished the courses early in the year so the students could go back to work on their family farms.) It was less than an hour away by car, but with no phones, no form of communication whatsoever, the distance felt unbearable. 

Of course the fire started at the beginning of the week, not long after she was dropped off. There would be no contact with her parents until the end of the week when they came to pick her up. Forced to run from the burning dormitory, to save herself, she had to leave everything behind. She stood outside in her pajamas as the flames lit the northern sky. The neighboring dorm was saved. She was able to borrow clothes during the week from another reluctant farm girl. Returning them to her lender Friday afternoon, she stood at the school’s entrance in her pajamas, waiting for her mother.

Not many words were exchanged in that long car ride home. But she was allowed to go back to her high school in town the next year.

It wasn’t her last fire. Literally or figuratively. Through the years she would be asked to run from life’s flames and save herself. To save me. And she did it, never out of fashion.

She loved poetry. She would have loved this poem. I wish I could have found it sooner. We would have read it together. Word by word. Over and over. Laughing. Crying. Saving each other. Again and again. 

I miss her. So much. Some days the embers feel too close as I stand “barefoot and pajamaed.” But then a sweet memory appears, of joy, of laughter, of love, and I feel her car pull up into heart’s view. And I am saved.

Let’s get dressed for the day!

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A love song in silver.

I raced the stairs to his class. He was a stickler for detail. One must be on time, or you will get a “greenie.” A greenie was a small piece of green paper, denoting some poor behavior – like being late, talking out of turn, not doing an assignment. And a certain amount of greenies resulted in detention or grade reduction. Of course this was incentive enough to race the halls of Central Junior High and up the stairs to his classroom, but it was more than that, I was excited for his class, English Literature. I was excited to see him. He postured straight at the front of the class. Suited and bow-tied, a pocket filled with green paper, one finger pressed to lips like a conductor waiting for the orchestra of the English language to begin.

In his fitted plaid lime green jacket he introduced us to T.S. Eliot. He read to us in perfect pitch “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” The boys giggled. Mocked. Rhymed words with “frock” and quieted down after receiving their greenies. “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,” the lyrics danced in my heart. Never to be careful, ordinary, predictable, monotonous — this was the lesson. I put it in my heart and quietly vowed the same.

In my mother’s silverware drawer, there was one spoon different from all the rest. Before I knew of words and poems, or even what was ordinary, I loved this spoon. It was the only one I ever used. My mother made sure that for each meal it was clean. My spoon. My different spoon. Not matching. Not safe. Extraordinary.

When I moved to France, the hardest thing, (the only thing that could have made me stay) was my mother. In the first weeks, my lonesome heart ran through the doubts. Had I done the right thing? No one can give you life’s permission, but I waited for a sign. A letter arrived. Small, but an odd shape. I opened it. My spoon. My different, glorious spoon — a love song in silver.

It sits by my desk. Telling me daily to choose the extraordinary. The sun comes up. I race its stairs to the beautiful unknown.

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The women who saved the fish.


Jason Reynolds is an accomplished American author of novels and poetry. I listened to him speak about an old high school teacher. This teacher told the students that they were going to have a class pet. They all scoffed, especially when he told them it was going to be a fish. The eye rolls were audible. This wasn’t a science class. They all thought it was rather ridiculous. He told them that there was only one rule. They listened. They could never touch the fish. “No matter what,” he said, “you are never allowed to touch this fish or you will be suspended.” No one really reacted because, they thought, there would never be a reason to touch it. Days went by. They studied their humanities lessons. One day, at the beginning of the class, this teacher walked over to the tank and took the large fish out and threw it on the floor. The class was in shock! What was he doing? Was he insane? Mouths opened, but nobody moved. They could hear in their heads, “You must never touch this fish or you will be suspended.” The fish gasped for air. Flopping and pleading on the floor. Two of the high school girls couldn’t take it anymore and raced to the front of the room and picked up the fish, putting it back in the tank. Everyone sighed in relief. Surely this had to be a good thing. The teacher smiled at them. “Please go to the principal’s office,” he said. No no no, the class was saying. They saved the fish. “Please go now. You are both suspended.” They could hardly believe their ears. “Please go, keep walking” he said, “but hold your heads up high on the way. You did the right thing.” They left. “It’s not always easy to do the right thing,” he told the class. “But it still has to be done.” The future author said he felt nothing but shame…why had he just sat there, along with almost everyone else…”

In this experiment, it was always the women who saved the fish. Sacrificed themselves for the greater good. I have seen it throughout my life. My grandmother. My mother. Women all around me. Even during the times they were the fish themselves, they saved each other. Whatever challenges you are facing today, hold your heads up high, and keep walking.

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Already flying

.

The groups had already formed in high school. In this small school of a small town, the grouping off included — the athletes, the musicians, the scholars, and the good looking, the smokers, the rich, and the poor, and the religious and the lost. We disguised all the groups, covered up the broken hearts and broken homes with silk graduation gowns and marched through the gymnasium. We flung our tasseled hats as they flung us out the double doors, and we began again.

Dorothy Parker wrote the words that I copied from the school library and placed in my pocket —

“Once when I was young and true.
Someone left me sad —
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that is very bad.”

I crumpled the paper and left for college. It was freeing this life. To begin again. To learn again. But still the groups formed as we thought we were making such grown up choices. Gown and hats, this time in the outdoor courtyard. They said words I don’t remember in microphones and flung us off again.

Without knowledge or permission, I began living the second half of the poem,

“Love is for unlucky folk,
Love is but a curse.
Once there was a heart I broke;
And that, I think, is worse.”

So if I wasn’t to be flung, or do the flinging, where did I fit in?

We are all trying to find our way. We get tossed into groups and stereotypes. Lost in should-haves and supposed-tos. And the only way that I can see to survive is to keep learning. What a glorious thing to keep learning. To get beyond the first half of the poem. Beyond the second. To write your own. And write it again. No more gowns to hide behind. No more, this need to be flung…because I was already flying, no need to fling, there was room for all of us.

What a thing it is to fly. I write the words, and begin again.


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Shoulders.

The first time I took my mother to New York, we both got to be models.


Go ahead and underestimate the amount of confidence I carried with me growing up in Alexandria, Minnesota.  Now underestimate a little more, and you might reach my mother.  Oh, we survived, and even had a little fun. We looked at catalogs (nothing was online then) and dreamed, even walked the malls each weekend, and dreamed a little more.  We tried on outfits and gained a little more confidence. We went to Minneapolis and grabbed on to a little more.  Then Chicago – look at us in Chicago!  Our strides got a little longer, our backs a little straighter, and sometimes we even dared to say, “Hey, we look pretty good.”  Which may sound vain – but no – that was pure joy! 

Maybe you need to know a little backstory.  My mom, one of nine farm kids, wasn’t nurtured in fashion.  Practical, stained, sturdy, this was the norm.  There’s nothing wrong with that – it’s very functional.  But function is not often what dreams are made of. And so this little girl dreamed. Alone. Her mother, forever aproned and cooking – nine children – still found time to sew. And my mom, forever washing dishes – eight siblings – became a fashion designer, in her heart.

Now, dreams really don’t amount to much without confidence.  And that’s another hurdle.  How my mother found it, was nothing short of fantastical, but she did. Shedding rumors and divorce and illness, she still managed to dress herself, every day, in something that made them think, “She’s from Alex?”

  
And she was.  We were.  And off we flew New York.  I had just finished the book, “Slap on a little lipstick, you’ll be fine” — again, thanks to my mother — and Guideposts magazine was going to do a feature story on it. My mom accompanied me. They picked us up in a limo, drove us to the meat packing industry, to a giant loft of an acclaimed photographer. They plucked my eyebrows and did my makeup, slid red leather over black silk and I was delighted, transformed, giddy!  My mom watched from the corner as they took photo after photo, smiling and smiling more – no direction needed!  And then the photographer said, why don’t we take a few with your mother!  Yes, yes!  I said.  Oh, I don’t… my mother hesitated. (It takes a while to build a confident soul.)  You have to!  You must!  I want you to!  And she came – into the shot.  And we hugged and smiled and captured it forever!  Look, Grandma!  We’re models! 

 
They put the pictures in the magazine – even my grandma!


This week, the young poet, Amanda Gorman, asked us to acknowledge the shoulders we’ve stood on, and what we stand for now.  These are the women that have held me up.  


My grandma’s photo sits next to my sewing machine.  I once drew a picture of her hands, and wrote, “If she did worry, it never showed in her hands.”  Perhaps that was the strength that allowed my mother to dream.  Shoulders.

I painted a picture of a dress designer’s mannequin for my mom, and wrote, “Not all of her dreams came true, but she was never sorry she had them.”  Shoulders.

These women gave me the strength to dream, to fall in love, to live. They are the reason I believe.  These beauties of strength, survival, endurance, and joy — no one has ever worn it better!  
Look, Grandma!  Look, Mom!  You’re models!!!!!