Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: this is happiness


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This is happiness.

It’s ironic, I suppose, that I’m always wishing for time to pass more slowly, but I often fight it while gathered within. I must admit I stumbled over the first pages. Perhaps even chapters. The book I’m reading encourages, in fact insists with the beautiful placement of each word, that the text be wandered slowly. To be paced under the heat of a summer sun, conserving the energy that each word consumes, as it makes its way from paper through hands, and head, finally resting in the heart. All the while with the promise, if you do tenderly barefoot each grassblade’s syllable, you will be lifted, winged to another time, another place, and fit directly in. Soaring mid the chaos and heartache with such profound joy, because just as the title says, THIS IS HAPPINESS.  

The question that’s always in the holster, “Well, what’s it about?”  I could no more answer that than if you asked the same of the day to come. Isn’t it always about living? My only hope is that I can take the same command of the day as I have come to in this book. To navigate with slow appreciation. 

Some will say, oh, people don’t read anymore. And I think, I’m people, aren’t I? And it doesn’t feel like I’m alone. I’m comforted in the fact that two of my most popular paintings of this bird series have been, not just with books, placed and stacked, but with people reading. (Over 80,000 likes on Pinterest gives me great hope.) Gives me, well, wings. And I think, I know, even for a few flaps, a few slow flutters, this indeed, is happiness. 

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Precious Fields.

I suppose the closest thing we had to an “influencer” when I was in college was the purchasing of a used book highlighted in bright yellow. Being on a tight budget, I was often subjected to what the previous student deemed important. Perhaps it was defiance, or simply making my own path, but armed with my own highlighter, pink, orange, anything other than yellow, I colored over and in my deepest connections to the word. By the time the next student, spending their last dime to earn an education, opened the textbook, it would have been completely highlighted. Just as it should be, I thought, because wasn’t it all important! Every word a path lit fluorescent.


And I think that’s our real responsibility, not to push or “influence,” but offer a light. 

I’m reading a new book, This is Happiness, by Niall Williams. I’ve only just begun, but I am deep in the journey. This author demands that each word be walked carefully, like Hugo’s precious field behind our house on Van Dyke Road. No trampling through. Respectful of all that the ground had to yield, before and yet to come. With each paragraph, the golden crop brushes against my chubby thighs, leaving the safety of house toward the excitement of town. Tiptoeing out of youth, with its remains gathering in my shoes. 

I suppose I am a highlighter of word, and memory, and heart. Because isn’t it all important? Isn’t it all important!! I walk the new morning. The gravel in my shoes answers a bright and glorious YES! 

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