Jodi Hills

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

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Partager.



Of course we had done it with our toys. Our halloween candy. It was transactional and it made sense, this emptying of pockets and putting on the front stairs to distribute with neighborhood girls. A thing for a thing. But everything changed the first day of kindergarten at Washington Elementary. When Mrs. Strand said we were going to “share with the class,” a rustling through pockets and Trapper Keepers could be heard. Were we supposed to bring something? Worried and empty stooped, I sat in panic. 

It didn’t turn out to be a thing at all. It was a verbal exchange of our summers. (No one referred to it as summer vacation, because we had yet to do something to vacation from.) When we knew the drill, oh, weren’t our pockets once again full! We spoke of lakes and bicycles. Softball games and skinned knees. Bugs and porch lamps and moms calling for dinner. We had so much to share. 

I suppose I haven’t stopped since. The thrill of the exchange has never left. 

Moving to France, there was so much uncertainty. Not knowing the culture, the language. Even the color palette was different. There was, I must admit, a lot of “pocket checking.” Did I have anything to offer? 

I first heard the word at the dining table. I offered Charles a large piece of a cake that I had made. It was the last piece. He looked at me and asked, “Partager” (did I want to share?) I did. Everything. 

I began painting those around me. The world around me. Immersed myself in the palette of Provence. My heart is full. There is so much to share. 

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Between two screens

Working between two screens, sometimes my cursor gets stuck in the opposite one that I want. (Like my brain doesn’t do that all the time.)

It’s so easy to think, “Well, I always did it this way…” Whether I’m talking about different countries, different languages, loves, relationships, even my hairdresser.  And I catch myself swiping madly on the wrong screen.

Change is never easy. Neither growth. But both are so necessary. And it doesn’t mean you have to give up everything in the letting go, the moving on…You keep the lightest of things, like joy and hope and love — none of these will ever weigh you down.

Too often I’m unaware. It’s barely more than air, the little birdie that tells me things. But when I’m paying attention, really paying attention, all the truths that move between who I am and who I want to be, chirp seamlessly between my heart and my brain, and I am saved. 

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The wave of welcoming.

It wasn’t like she didn’t have enough people to feed. Yet she never seemed to mind when neighbors (neighbors whose houses could not even be seen beyond the fields) popped over at the first waft of the oven’s scent. Her wide knuckled hands waved off the intrusion and welcomed them to the kitchen table.

On the rare occasion that her lap was open, (usually during Days of Our Lives), I would sit and twirl her thinning wedding band. Still able to move at the base of her finger, I knew she would never be able to get it over the middle knuckle. “Did it shrink?” I asked. “What?” “Your ring.” She let out a laugh that sounded like a leak of a hose. “No, my fingers got bigger.” I was shushed to listen to Ma and Pa Horton on the tv.

It makes me happy to think it wasn’t because of the work. I know now, it was the wave of the welcoming. Her hands, just like her heart, got bigger with every visit.

I felt it yesterday as I passed some cookies fresh from the oven over the fence to our neighbor. Her five year old granddaughter was visiting. She said her love for the cookies was bigger than the sun and the moon together! I felt the Elsie-ing of my hands and heart. What a welcome feeling!

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Where the ruffles meet.

She said she liked my blouse. My heart beamed. Right there in the Walgreens in Sedona. I didn’t know this woman behind the counter. I will never see her again. It doesn’t make me a better person. I didn’t make the blouse. It wasn’t even really mine. Well, it is now, but it was my mother’s. She deserves the compliment. She picked it out. Looked in the mirror. Saw the ruffles frame her face. She added the small hook and eye where the ruffles meet so they would lay perfectly. And they did. Now they do on me. 

So that’s what she gave to me, this woman at the Walgreens, a trip back to the dressing room with my mother. Getting ready for an event in my apartment. She gave to me, in my mother’s voice, “You look good too.” She gave to me the after-giggle. With just a few words, she gave me all of this. 

I mention it only because we need to know it. Know how easily we can brighten a person’s day. With just the smallest of efforts, just a few tiny words, like a small hook and eye, we can bring us together, to the joyful place, where the ruffles meet.

Never underestimate the power of a compliment.

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And candy too.

“So then my brush goes between my fingers as if it were a bow on the violin and absolutely for my pleasure.”

I ran into my grandma’s kitchen. If the screen door slamming wasn’t enough to convey my fury, I clenched my fists firmly by my hips and screamed over the motor mixing the dough. “But I gave her all of my candy!”  My grandma put down her spatula and turned off the mixer. A blending of cousins ran around the summer grass. I wanted to make friends with the girl arriving from Illinois, so I filled my pocket from the Lazy Susan, I explained — Slowpokes, Sugar Daddies and Babies. I gave them all to her, in exchange, I thought, for immediate friendship, but she ran off to play with my cousin from a Minneapolis suburb. “They are sitting under the apple tree right now, eating my candy!” My grandma looked down at me and smiled, “You mean eating MY candy.” I shook my head reluctantly — she had a point. She wiped her hand on her apron before tossling my enhanced summer blonde. “Always be a cheerful giver,” she said. I turned to make my way to the front door. “Hey,” she said, and pointed with her head to the corner cabinet. “There’s plenty more.” I filled my pockets again. She had given me everything I needed, and candy too.

Be it gift or heart, I’m not proud to say that I have to learn the lesson quite often, to be a cheerful giver. Sharing with no sense of obligation. With no demand of return. Just loving. Even with and to myself. To do things, out of pure pleasure, without condition. 

I painted the violin chair with no expectation. Well, maybe one — joy. When I sold it, I heard my grandma say, ever so cheerfully, “Hey!” 

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My singing pinky.

The physical therapist for my hand wants to be a singer. I like knowing that she plays guitar. That her fingers create music. Maybe the song she’s humming in her head is traveling down into her heart, through her arms, then fingers, and into my hand. (I may have heard my pinky sing.) 

I suppose as a dreamer, I’ve always trusted those with a dream. 

My mother wanted to be a dress designer. And it was that dream that carried us from Herberger’s, to malls, to boutiques, to dressing rooms around the country. It was pure joy that reflected off of three-way mirrors and bounced from her heart to mine. Lives well designed.

Sitting at the table, drinking egg-coffee and eating home-made pastry, I asked my grandma what she would like to be. “A UPS driver,” she said quickly. “Then I could drive from house to house and sit with people and have coffee and visit.” “I think we’re doing that right now,” I said. We smiled in the moment of that dream come true. 

When we think of people not just as who they are, but who they are trying to become, I think maybe we can be a little more forgiving, a little more empathetic, perhaps more understanding, and certainly more joyful — what could be more fun that travelling along on a dream?!! But we have to be willing to dare, and willing to share. I encourage you to do both. My singing pinky is proof that everything is worth the dream. 

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A Schwan’s delivery.

It was hard to believe that something so delicious could make me ill. But it was evident after only a few tries, I couldn’t eat ice cream. Somehow still, I found it very exciting when the pale yellow blur of the Schwan’s ice cream delivery truck drove toward my grandma’s house. I began running up the gravel, hands waving in air, directing him into the driveway. I knew full well that my grandma’s love of root beer floats would never allow her to miss a delivery. I hopped and skipped and ran with the truck to the house. Uniformed and certain, he jumped the steps and went to the back of the truck. “You’re Elsie’s granddaughter?” “Oh, yes!” I said proudly. I could tell by the smiling way he said her name that he liked her. He unloaded two of the giant tubs as my grandma came out the screen door. Her hands ever floured or wet, or both, she wiped them on her apron before signing for our haul of vanilla. 

How wonderful, I thought, to deliver ice cream. Everyone must be so happy to see you. I was, and I didn’t even eat it. The only other delivery person that I knew was my Uncle Mike, who drove a beer truck in the Twin Cities. I asked him if people jumped up and down when he arrived. He looked confused. Like I do with the Schwan’s truck, I explained. Not so much, he said. Maybe you should paint your truck yellow, I said. He smiled. 

Surely it has to be taught. There must have been a million things my grandma delighted over with me. Things she had no interest in. How else would I have known, known this joy of feeling good for others. I loved art and clothes and drawing and crayons and “Look, look what I made! It’s flowers glued to a scrap of bark! Look!” And my grandma showed all of her teeth in love. An ear to ear joy. This is the only explanation I have for being happy, truly happy, to celebrate a Schwan’s delivery, not for me, but for her!

Joy is not owned. It is passed and given away freely. It is run along beside. A yellow blur of others. The day is pulling toward the driveway. I raise my hands in the air and skip to whatever joy it may bring. 

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Little Eiffel Towers in her apartment.


She packed her delight alongside our Walgreens’ provisions. Just a young girl in a red smock in this Biloxi Walgreens, so eager to learn about the world. “Where are you from?” “France.” Gasping, she asked if we lived by the Eiffel Tower. No, we smiled, south. “But you’ve seen the Eiffel Tower?” “Oh, yes, many times.” She was so excited. She said she wanted to go. So desperately wanted to go, and began to count our change again, apologizing. “No need to apologize, it is exciting, distracting even,” I said. “Do you eat croissants?” She asked, wanting to know everything. “Yes,” I replied, “I even make them.” “Oh my! You have to send the recipe!” I told her I would. And I meant it. She already had me, but then she went all the way. “I’m going to make enough money one day to take my mom. She loves Paris. She has little Eiffel towers in her apartment.” My heart spread across the Walgreens store.

I took her email address that she scratched on the back of our receipt. I sent her pictures of croissants I have made. The Eiffel Tower I have stood next to. Kissed under. Dreamed above.

Sometimes all we need to know is that it’s possible. I hope she believes it. If we can give each other that gift, then we have everything.

I carried her delight through the electronic doors. Hope stayed with her. We are all on our way.

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When someone shows you their hope, it’s hard to unsee it.


Living in the south of France, I see the Sainte Victoire mountain daily. Each time, I give thanks for my current view, and also for the view Paul Cezanne gave us in his paintings. Would I have seen it without him? Would I have noticed the extraordinary beauty of this mountain without his vision? I’m not sure, so I give thanks with each passing step.

I suppose it has always been this way. My grandfather did the same with his farm. Without him, perhaps these fields would have just been blurs from a car window. But not for me. Not since walking with him. Holding his roughened artist hand that turned those fields from black to green to gold each year. Work. Magic. Love. I slow down the car.

We all have a responsibility to find the beauty. To share it. It’s everywhere. Poets and philosophers have tried to explain it. (Certainly smarter than me.) But maybe it’s all about hope. Maybe that’s what makes everything beautiful. So that’s what I try to create. In the faces. In the paintings. In this life. There is hope. Always, if we choose to see it, and share it with each other.

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Being there.

I think my heart recognized it even before my brain. I was certain you could see it beating through my dress as I stood before Cezanne’s painting. I told Dominique, “It feels like there’s so much blood in my heart — or love…”

“You’ve been there,” he said, smiling. And indeed we had, just a short time ago. We stood in the very place that Cezanne painted. The exact position. The same view. Others were in the museum, but for a few moments, we were inside the painting.

I don’t suppose it’s enough to just live it. It’s so important to share our experiences. Because somewhere, someone needs to hear it. They need to hear it from someone who has been there, been through it. (And oh, how I, we, you, have been through it!)

Being interviewed the other day, for the first time since her passing, I was able to speak about my mother deeply without falling apart. I could feel it – so much emotion – but in this moment, it was love, still, so much love.

It may not sound like much, this moment, but I know, today, someone needs to hear it. Someone needs to step aside from the exquisite pain of love lost, even for just a moment. Someone needs to step inside my painting and feel the hope. Feel the love. And I say to this someone, possibly you, nothing is going to be easy, but everything is going to be ok.

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