Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: record


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Expecting the unexpected.

Of course I read it in high school.  Possibly again in college. The words haven’t been altered these many years, in this book, Travels with Charley, by John Steinbeck. But visiting Monterey this year, the connection of his words to page to book to heart to the very roads we were traveling, this connection was so strong, I had to once again purchase the book.

Its subtitle, was perhaps the most alluring — In Search of America. Never, for me, has this been more important. On the back cover it reads, “he reflects on the American character, on racial hostility, a particular form of American loneliness he finds almost everywhere, and on the unexpected kindness of strangers that is also a very real part of our national identity.” I pause here. I hold the book tightly. And question. Is it? That kindness? I have experienced it for such a great majority of my life. I have found joy, and pride in it. I hope and pray that I have given it. Freely. That I give it. Still. Can we keep it alive?

I write daily of the lives that have enriched mine. That have held me up. Coddled me. Lifted me. Strengthened me. Brought me so much love and joy. That asked the same of me. And it occurs to me, when I see your comments, when I see you write my grandma’s name with such ease, such familiarity, my mother’s name, my grandpa’s, my teachers’ and friends’…. With each Elsie repeat, she lives on a little longer a little stronger, and I believe in that identity, our identity.

Years ago Facebook did a study. Feeding one group with negative thoughts, another with positive. The increase of negativity in those that received the negative feeds was profound. Now, did we need a study for this? Probably not. But it is important to make a daily decision of what we are putting out there. And it is a decision. 

What is our character? What is our identity? Maybe the quest never ends. From the northernmost tip of Maine to California’s Monterey Peninsula, as a nation, we drive, we pullover, we continue to ask for that “unexpected kindness,” and pray with each roll of the tire, that we are willing to give the same. 

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Building a soul.

She stood beside Martin Luther King, Jr. and sang “We shall overcome.” She was only 19 at the time. Recalling it today, Joan Baez states she really thought that it meant once, this overcoming…laughing, in the way that you do from exhaustion but an unwillingness to give up, she says at 83, “I didn’t realize we would have to overcome again and again…”

My mother loved her for a different anthem — the song Diamonds and Rust. She must have spun a hole in the record, with her own reasons and willingness to overcome. It’s gained popularity again today because of the recent movie about Bob Dylan (for whom she wrote this song). The world keeps beginning.

When I was a kid, watching the record spin, I thought I would just figure stuff out, you know, and become something, and that would be it…that would be my life. Thank God that isn’t the way, not for me anyway. I think that I, we, just have to keep becoming. We change and grow. We are molded by love and trips around the sun. It takes a long time to build a soul. We get older, maybe wiser, (even better, we gain a little grace) but we don’t finish – we don’t have to – we begin, and be, and begin again. I think that’s the gift of living…the joy of being alive! We shall overcome. 

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My heart hit record.

Sometimes someone says something, so simple, so pure…and you’re sure they believe it — so sure that you believe it too. And so you say it. The words roll in your mouth, and you start to believe it, sing it even, willing it to be true. 

“I had a feeling I could be someone. Be someone. Be someone.”

That was Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car.” I was in my own state of becoming. Not even making a small splash in this small pond. It played on the radio. Not enough. I raced to hit record on the boombox that I got for my college graduation. Two fingers. Press. Got it. I couldn’t afford the real cassette tape, but listening to the lyrics, I thought maybe she would understand. And I made a promise to buy the original when I did in fact have enough money, when I did become someone. 

I took my own fast car to Minneapolis. Created my own soundtrack. Bit by bit. Job by job. I don’t know the exact time, the exact year, but my boom box was obsolete. There were cds now. And I had enough money to buy them. Drinking my coffee, browsing through the music section of Barnes and Noble, I saw it — Tracy Chapman. I bought it. 

I have made splashes in bigger ponds since then. Even crossed them. Fast cars. Faster planes. All fueled by small words that made a giant difference. Some I heard on the radio. Some came from teachers. A lot came from my mother’s mouth. But they all carried me. They still do. Because my heart hit record.

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