Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: safe


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Corralled in all that I love.

Besides fields of grain, my grandfather had cows. And while he taught me many life lessons, the actual day to day farming, how the cows got from one field to the next, into the barn, I really have no idea. But it’s possible the instincts were not lost on me, as I have the continuous desire to corral my make-up, shower products, and various items on the coffee table. 

It’s hard to explain the satisfaction if you are not of like mind. But if you are straightening your mouse pad as you read this, cornering your books, gathering pens in a holder, then you know. Some might argue that it’s a “control thing.” Maybe, but I think, for me, it’s more of a coming together, a calmness, a peace. No competition of chaos and clutter.

When I walk into our library, my joyful heart exhales. The details of art, books, music and plants, down to the Paris Review on the footstool I made from a stump in our garden — they make me, I want to say happy, but that’s not exactly right. It’s more than that. I am corralled in all that I love. It is a calm and safe place where my heart can rest, and my mind can wander. I suppose that’s home, isn’t it?

I love to roam the fields. Walk. Run. Fly even, in the yet to be traveled. In the unknown. And maybe that’s only possible because of the safety (disguised as love) that I was given first from an earth-roughened heart, on a farm just outside of Alexandria, Minnesota — one that rests me still in the south of France. 

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Your courage. Your coat. Your heart.

I left my winter coat in Minnesota. It’s tucked into the back of my friend’s closet. I used to leave it with my mom. I don’t really need it in France, but that wasn’t the only reason. It was more of a promise that I would come back.  And even more, that part of me was still there. 

It’s silly, I suppose, it’s just a thing. But it is a symbol of something much bigger. Because isn’t that what love is? This giving of a part of you. This leaving a bit of yourself with another. Trusting it is in good hands. In good heart. 

I had a conversation yesterday with a new friend. We spoke of vulnerability, why people are so afraid to share anything, even a simple comment. She said that some of her friends worry that it isn’t safe. If you’re looking for guarantees, here’s one for you — straight from Ernest Hemingway — “If two people love each other there can be no happy end to it.”  That is about as certain as you can get. But knowing it, you no longer have to worry about it. So go ahead and love. Leave it all behind. Your courage. Your coat. Your heart. In every place that you visit. In everything you touch. In everyone you touch. 

I find great pleasure in the fact that on any given day, if she needed to, she could wrap herself in my coat, in my friendship, in a bit of my heart. 

Maybe it’s a chance I take, daily, this sharing. This reaching out. Wanting to connect. To be a part of something bigger than myself. I know this for sure — my closet is full, and my heart keeps making space.  


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Collect.

It was our only safety net. We didn’t have the security of a cell phone. We memorized our home phone numbers, and carried with us the knowledge that in the unlikely event we missed the team bus on an away game for example, we could dial zero for the operator and she would place the call to our home, announce the collect call, asking our mothers “will you accept the charges?” The real security, I suppose, was knowing she always would.

Somehow I made it through my school days without making that call. Sure, there was the occasional mix-up. I sat alone in each of the school parking lots, waiting for the light blue Chevy Impala. And if she couldn’t come, there would be a sticky note on the main door of the school with instructions, like, — “Call Andria for a ride home.” I knew it was for me. We relied on our connections. Our human connections.

It’s hard to imagine now. We never leave home without our cell phones. How would we get anywhere? How would we get back? There is definitely an unmatched safety with the cell phone. But I may never feel as secure as I did back then. To count on someone like this is really pure magic. And it wasn’t just for rides. It was for everything. Secrets held. Emotions shared. Dreams dared. Confessions bared. Everything accepted without question — that was my mother.

The memories are sweet, but not without their own kind of pain. I will walk by a photograph and feel the squeezing of my heart. A glorious ache that I never want to end. “The charges of love,” I think, and smile. I take the bus, the plane, and travel this life. Secure in the knowledge that love will always come for me. And I may not be safe, but I will be saved.

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Banked.

I’m not sure if the tellers were elevated, or if it was just my five year old vantage point, but everything at First National Bank of Alexandria seemed important. I held my mother’s left hand as she struggled to remove the deposit slip from her purse with her other. I needed her to balance me as my head circled the high ceilings. Everything smelled of wood and dollar bills. When the transaction was finished, the teller thanked my mom by name. She knows her, I thought. I was so impressed! She handed me a yellow safety sucker from the bowl behind her desk. (Red was my favorite, but I still said thank you.) 

I was taught that it wasn’t polite to stare, but I couldn’t look away. I could see just the tip of it. It was a flattened cardboard pig with tiny slots filled with coins. “Would you like one,” the teller asked, “to start saving?” More than anything, I thought, and gazed up at my mom to see if it was ok. She was smiling, so I agreed. She handed me the empty cardboard pig and I thought my heart would explode. I didn’t have the words for it then, but I was part of the transaction. And I felt as high as a First National ceiling.

My little pig got heavier with each dime and nickel slotted into place. Months later, when it was full, (from the random couch coin, or my weekly allowance), my mom asked if I wanted to put it in the bank. The real bank. I did, but I wanted to hold it for a while longer…feel the weight of it, the beautiful weight of my transactions. “Hold them as long as you need,” she said. 

It feels the same with memory. Each day I place one in a heart slot, and hold on. Banked. Feeling the beautiful weight of all the joy of my days. All the hands held. The smiles exchanged. The love passed back and forth. The comforting weight of my transactions. “Can you still feel it?” they ask. “More than anything,” I reply…”more than anything!”

Hold everything dear.

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Newsprint and Windex.

.

It was only an hour each weekday. After school. I’d get off the bus at around 3:30pm and wait. Two picture windows faced our driveway. Some days, I could be distracted by The Brady Bunch, but the majority of those 60 minutes before my mom came home from work was spent waiting against those windows.

They taught us at Washington Elementary not to touch the glass windows that lined our classroom, because it was the janitor who would have to clean the windows dailly. And we didn’t want to make his job harder, did we? But seeing how it was my job to clean the windows at home each Thursday afternoon with newspaper and Windex, I wasn’t that concerned. I fogged the glass with my breath. Drew smiley faces. Smeared them away. Blew again. Then sad faces. Erased and blew. Challenged myself to tic-tac-toe. Continuously smearing cheek and fingers across the glass. Waiting. And waiting.

The gravel road always gave sufficient warning. The sound of the tires popping at 4:37pm would tell me that my mom was about to arrive. I’d hoist my top above my waist and wipe the window. Race to the garage entry. Fling the door. And I was saved.

She never mentioned it — the streaked glass. But of course she must have known. It wasn’t like my t-shirt wipe gave a proper cleaning. But that’s who she was — the person who allowed me to be me. Never made fun of my silly antics. She saw me. And loved me.

I smiled each Thursday afternoon as I took last week’s Echo and wiped it across the pane. It sparkled clean along with my heart. A fresh start. All waiting’s worries were washed away.

I see it now. So clearly. I thought she was saving me, daily, and she did, but even more importantly, she gave me the ability to save myself. A gift I continue to use. I smile out my morning window, and I am saved.

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