Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: time change


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Falling back.

I’m always asking for it. Yet, when it’s given freely once a year in the fall, this gift of time, I could easily complain about it. How to fill the extra hour. How it throws off my delicate schedule. (Insert eye roll here.) So yesterday afternoon, a bit disoriented in this extra hour, walking past the knowing eyes of Grandma Elsie’s portrait, I decided to make cookies. 

A delicious use of my time for sure, but really, in the grand scheme of things, it was, as I so often heard on the farm, “the least I could do.” I heard it from my grandma as she baked for her neighbors. From my grandpa, getting in the car to go to the funeral. The uncles coming to help with the fields. My mother, elbow deep washing dishes for the entire Hvezda crew. How easily they all stepped in to offer their gifts of time.

I worry for the world, how far away we’ve moved from “the least we could do.” Maybe it’s the anonymity of our connections, but how did we become so cold? So ungiving? So unwilling to do even the least?

It’s a slippery slope. But oh, how it levels when we do the work. When I release my grip from the angled path to simply put my hands in the dough, I am grounded. Peaceful in all that butter and sugar. I should have learned it long ago. There was never an empty dish in my grandma’s kitchen. The china pig that held the cookies was always full. When I lifted the hat of that pig and saw the handmade treats, I smiled at her, she smiled back, shrugged her shoulders and said, “It’s the least I could do.” And I knew I was loved. 

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Mother’s time zones.

It wasn’t until I mastered the sleep-over that I understood most people set their clocks to the actual time. My mother had her own time zones. Her bedroom alarm clock was set 20 minutes ahead. The bathroom about ten. And the kitchen five. Maybe it arose from the days when sleep eluded her. When a smile had to be painted on before it could be followed. When there were no extras to be found, not in heart, mind nor pocketbook, she created them herself on the faces of each clock. 

The time changed here in France early this morning. Most of the clocks change themselves now. Our phones and iPads. Our computers. It’s 8:08 on my iPad. I glanced up at the screen saver on my computer and on full display was what could only be explained as my mother’s hand, 8:09.

It reminds me. She reminds me. Time means nothing. It’s what we do with the time. We get to decide. 

It didn’t matter the season, my mother always chose to “spring ahead.” To give herself a head start when facing any challenge. Whenever I feel the stress of time, I reach into the pocket of 20s, 10s and 5s, that she gathered for us through the years, and I, just like those minutes, am saved.

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