Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: seasons


by Leave a comment

The changing seasons. 

Looking out the window this morning, I see the tops of two green leafed trees turning red. I had to look it up because I didn’t know, even after so many years of living through the changing seasons, if all trees change their colors from top to bottom. And the answer is no. It varies by species and environmental factors. Some do change from top to bottom, others from the interior, others still from the bottom to the top. And the thing is, none of them are wrong. 

We don’t judge the trees for how they change. Could we do the same with humans?

I suppose I’ve always been an “inner.” All my changes have come from within the heart. That is my natural way. But that’s not for everyone. The intellectuals will rouge their way from the top of the brain. Thinking their way into all the new colors. Others still will need to feel it. Seeking proof from foot’s bottom. 

And wouldn’t it be wonderful if we just celebrated the colors? Not worrying about how you got there, but that you arrived. 

I hope with all my inners that I can do that for you, and even myself. And gather in all that beauty of change to survive the next season. And the next. We are built for change. For rest. For growth. For greening. And starting once again. Bravo, I say, to all that make it though, the changing seasons. 

Shop Now!


by 2 Comments

Reattaching apples.

I have no memory of the apples growing. Each year, they were just there. The branches seemed to go from bare to weighed in just the blink of an eye. And as quickly as the green apples appeared in my grandparents’ trees, we were tripping over them in the grass, loading sack after brown paper sack to give away. 

Maybe it’s the way of all living. It goes so quickly. We move from grand point to grand point, missing all the little things along the way. The how we got heres. The growths. 

I keep trying to think of her as a young woman — the journey of how Elsie became Grandma Elsie. She wasn’t always in that kitchen. In that yard with an upturned apron full of apples. She once had to have giggled with the girls behind the school. Cursed her parents and dreamed of boys. Imagined a life. A future. 

To know the exact details, I suppose, would be like trying to reattach the apples to the tree. But I think it’s enough to know there was more. There is more. So much more to all of us. There are reasons and seasons of how we got here. And maybe we’ll never know all of it, but I think there is empathy in the attempt. Compassion in trying to imagine the whole picture. None of us are just one thing. Maybe in learning that, we come to see some growth after all.

Shop Now!