Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: ride


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Romancing the stone.

In Rome we rode a white Vespa. I thought it was so romantic. Until the cobblestones. And even with that bumpy knowledge, only the romance remains. 

I don’t know who’s in charge, but I’m sure they work together, the heart and the brain. Because it’s the same with the gravel road I grew up on. All those pebbles in knees. All that elbowed skin left behind. The ever present rock in shoe. And still, what I carry is the freedom of the breeze. The lifting from the neighborhood. The launch on foot and bicycle from all that gravel. 

Maybe once again I’m just romancing the stone. So maybe my heart is in charge after all, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. If it were different, I’m not certain I’d walk the steep gravel each day here in France. And oh, I’ve fallen here too. I have the additional scars to prove it. But my heart’s memory is so strong — remember the view it says, the two foxes yesterday, the flowers, the birds, the butterflies and sweet jasmine’s scent. The repeat of freedom’s breeze gives youth to my legs and they scoot as if the mountains were Van Dyke Road. And I am without worry. Without time. 

If I have any advice at all, whatever challenge or opportunity lies ahead, by whatever name it is called, ride the Vespa. 

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We must spring!

I received my banana seat bike for my birthday the end of March in my sixth year on Van Dyke Road. Minnesota’s winter had yet to let go. Yet I bundled and booted and climbed aboard. I had trained for this all last summer and fall. The baby bike that I had learned on, with its stabilizing wheels, hung from a carpenter nail in the back of the garage, waiting to be passed along to neighbor or cousin. The slush of snow, salt and gravel spit from the back wheel, leaving a streak up my down jacket. But perched on the flowers of the vinyl seat, and led by the same pink, blue, green and yellow florals of the basket, it never felt more like spring. 

I never gave a thought to the weather, nor the whether… everything was yes! I suppose it has to be. How else would we get back on that bike with skinless knees and elbows? This is what I try to hang on to. Hang on to the slippery handlebars of youth. With no grasp of maybe. Not waiting for spring, but tethering it to my waist and dragging it in. 

The countless training wheels have been passed on again and again. There is no turning back. Only forward. I look out the morning window, and know I, we, must spring!

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The inner whir.

I wasn’t allowed to start it. But that never stopped me from riding. My legs weren’t long enough yet to straddle the seat. I folded them underneath me, which also offered the height I needed to reach the handle bars. Bundled with at least two pairs of snow pants, I couldn’t feel the snow that had collected on the heels of my boots. If I knew the words for throttle and brake, I didn’t understand them. I squeezed both frantically at the same time with a woolened tenderness. The faux fur that encircled my face prevented me from seeing Norton’s house, but as the anchor to Van Dyke Road, I always knew it was there. The two strings that secured my hat, were balled in the same fur, and tucked inside my coat’s collar. I could feel them vibrate as I made the whirring sound for speed in the motionless snow. 

I don’t know how long I spent on the Ski-doo. Perhaps it wasn’t even as long as it took to bundle. Winter outings at 5 years old rarely were. I mention it as a reminder. Glenda the good witch in the Wizard of Oz was right, “You’ve always had the power, my Dear…” I tell myself this as I set out for the day. I smile and hear the whir from within. Today is beginning — Let’s ride!!!

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Painting gravel.

There’s no easy way around it. (And I’ve looked. Googled.) The current painting I’m working on has a stretch of gravel road. Without the luxury of pavement, nor good intentions, it is but a lesson in patience. Pebble by pebble. 

I must admit that I was a bit embarrassed of our gravel as a child. Van Dyke Road remained wild and loose for most of my youth. And I have the scars to prove it. But I was able to recognize the thrill of the change. Half way on my bike ride to town, just off of Van Dyke Road, right in front of Lord’s big gray house, it was tarred, and down hill. No more popping pebbles beneath my tires. I began to fly. My long blonde hair making a trail behind me. Weaving in and out of the geese beside the lake before the railroad tracks. Pushed and propelled all the way to the feet of Big Ole at the beginning of Main. 

Would I have appreciated the sleek, black surface as much, if I hadn’t begun on the gravel? Possibly. But I’m not sure. I think about it as I stumble along this new painting. Anticipating the speed to come. The thrill to come. And it will, all too quickly. Will I remember each pedal, each stroke? I hope so. It’s the journey after all. 

And not showing you yet, this unfinished painting, you get to ride the gravel beside me. Waiting. Watching. Imagining. That’s the gift I offer today. Sweet anticipation. Hang on. Soon we will fly.  

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Second foot off the ground…

There was a magic to the North End of VanDyke Road — not because I knew, but because I wasn’t certain at all. 

Of course I was allowed to ride my banana seat bike down the gravel hill to Norton’s house. I did it in numbers higher than I could count. Racing with an excitement of pedals missed and handlebars rattling, I scattered pebbles behind my back tire from sun’s first light, until I got the porch call to come in for dinner. 

I inched my way past Norton’s, one turn of the wheel further each day. Even with all the stories of fright circled in childish whispers, I knew one day I would have to go into this unhoused, untamed — into the wild.  

It was about six months after my fifth birthday (the days when we gathered in halves as fast as we could, so eager to get to the next year). School had just started. Winter would follow. My bike would have to hang in the garage. I balanced the banana seat between my thighs. Held tight to the rubber coated handlebars. I had asked my mom early in the week if I could go down the second hill. If I could enter the North End. I wanted her to hesitate a little longer, but she said sure, and I knew I would have to go. I lifted one foot off the gravel to the top pedal. Wiped my sweaty hands one at a time on the last shorts I would wear that year. I gripped tightly. Held my breath. Released my second foot and began racing down the hill. I gave the pedal brake a couple of short taps to slow my decision, a decision that could not be reversed. 

I don’t remember how long I stayed. There is a part of me that still remains in the conquered fear of North End’s open gate. I was so happy. So relieved. Neither pushed nor prevented, I had entered the unknown and survived. 

This is the joyful knowledge I pocket and roll around in my nervous fingers as I face today’s unknown. I smile. Second foot off the ground…

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The summer I didn’t go to California.

Entering the second grade they began the year with an assignment — What did you do on your summer vacation? Now, to be honest, I wasn’t ashamed of my summer schedule. I loved it. I would get up early. Fill the the styrofoam covered thermos — the one that my brother made in shop class and discarded in the basement — with ice water, and off I ran into the sun. I ran even faster than the hand painted stripes on the school made thermos. Some laughed when I continued the report. Of how I ran through Hugo’s wheat field. Rode my banana seat bike through the cemetery. Climbed Big Ole’s foot. Spent my weekly quarter for vacuuming and cleaning the house mirrors on a frozen Milky Way bar from Rexall Drug. Softball games. The endless swim of Lake Latoka. I heard one girl whisper loudly behind a cupped hand to her neighbor, all the while keeping eye contact with me as I returned to my desk, “She didn’t even go on vacation.”

I held my smiling face through perched elbows as she spoke about her trip to California. It sounded nice, I thought, but what I was thinking of was how after 4pm, when my mom came home from work, she would vacation out of her pretty summer work dress into shorts and a t-shirt and we would get on our bikes. It was gravel on Van Dyke Road, but traffic was non existent and you could ride down the center of the road. We stretched out our arms and rode hand in hand as the dust kicked up behind us.

I’m still smiling. I’ve been to California and beyond. Well beyond. But my heart vacations daily, floating just above the gravel.

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Tools.

I was always pretty certain that Monday would come. It surprised me, this wild abandonment that some of the other children had on Friday afternoon’s bus. How easily they jumped on the green pleather seats and flung every care out the rectangular windows — betting that Saturday would last forever, or somehow Sunday would come to the rescue. 

I suppose a bit of me envied it. But not enough to not finish my homework on Friday afternoon. And it wasn’t like someone was forcing me. I felt no pressure from my mother or friends. I had found my own way of setting myself free. Once the work was done, I could enjoy my Saturday. Take away Sunday’s panic. I didn’t have the words for it then, but it was definitely self care. 

All of the routines that I had made for myself in Minneapolis flew out the bus window when I moved to France. Practices and solutions all needed to be changed. Modified. Easily sending me into a frenzied Sunday on any day of the week. “But this is how I used to do it… But why can’t I…” It takes me a minute to give up the argument, but when I do, I can usually find a new solution. 

As with most things, I was given the tools long ago. I just have to remember to use them. And I want to keep learning. Changing. Growing. Keep giving to myself, in my own peculiar way, the ability to feel Saturday’s wind in my hair, Sunday’s “there, there…” and all the possibility that Monday can bring. 

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Hop on.



I didn’t know about tides then. Didn’t know that trust itself, as easily as it came in, could be pulled away.

I saw the bikes, entering the lobby of the hotel in Long Beach, Mississippi. (Even as I’m typing the state, I can’t help but spell it aloud in the rhythm we learned at Washington Elementary.) They weren’t banana seat bikes, but my youthful heart beat as if it were my sixth birthday. Having learned the repeated lessons of adulthood since then,I timidly asked if the bikes were for rent. “No, you can just take them, enjoy them, and bring them back.” She said it so easily, smiling, not knowing the beauty of the gift — or maybe she did…

Dumping the suitcases into our room as fast I could, I raced back down to the lobby. “We’re going to take them out,” I exclaimed. She smiled.

With the first wisp of my hair, the Gulf coast became the road to Lake Latoka in the summer of my Alexandria youth. I was riding. Free. Balanced by the trust in everything. good. Because it was there that we could hop on and off of our bikes. Lean them on sides of buildings. Drop them in ditches. In vacant lots. Neighbor’s yards. And they would be there. Waiting. Ready for our return. And maybe this was the truest of freedoms. Even more than the wind in our hair, against our bare legs — this trust.

Time and circumstance has a way of pulling it back. But it can return. I have felt the tides. Even come to believe in them. Trust in their return. Trust in trust itself.

Sand sparkles the backs of my legs. And the depths of my heart. Reminding me that today is a day to hop on. I am free to believe. Balanced in love. Ever and still.

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Just ride.

The trees are blanketed in last night’s rain. They don’t seem burdened, but relieved. They received what they needed.

I remember summer mornings on VanDyke road. It was gravel then. After a rainy night, (not too much, just the gentle summer kind) the road was firm and tight. It felt like I could ride my bike so much faster. And everything smelled possible. I had no schedule. No direction. I just woke up. Wiped the seat of my bike, and rode. The tops of my shoes were wet. And it felt like I was a part of it all. No different from the ground I rode on. And somehow I knew, just like the dew covered grass, and the trees and the road, I too would be given everything I need.

I haven’t missed a day of writing in 406 days. Before I began this daily blog, I thought I would have to search for the subject. But all I really needed to do was wake up, and see. Every day the world offers more magic than I can contain on paper or canvas. The birds singing. The taste of butter in the croissants. The dew covered trees.

As I walked around the house this morning to open the shutters, the tops of my shoes dampened. I smiled. It’s harder now to let go of daily worries, but when I wake up and look around, and really see, I mean really see, I have everything I need, just as I always have. No different from the youth and dampened gravel of Van Dyke road. I am a country away, but still home. I smile, and hop on today’s ride.

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