Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: traveling


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In the rear view.

I liked to sit by him at the table, breathing in the smell of the earth from his overalls, but there were often things on his plate that had me racing to the cereal cupboard for a replacement meal. I was not one for squirrel, or gizzard. Gravy poured over anything never appealed to me. It didn’t present the horror of a church potluck, but it was close. So I grabbed a stool to reach the bowls from up high, and something Kellog’s from the variety packs my Grandma so generously kept stocked in the very attainable bottom corner cupboard. And I was saved. 

We carry emergency food in the car. Mostly crackers. Mostly for me. Dominique will often brave the local cuisine as we drive from state to state. Gas stations are sometimes the only source. Somewhere in the indistinguishable fields between Colorado and Nebraska, we pulled over. After gratefully using their bathroom, I knew I would be finishing my Wheat Thins. Dominique looked behind the glass and settled on the deep fried gizzards. (Of course they had gizzards!  If my grandma could so easily show up with her root-beer floats, my grandpa was certainly not going to be outdone. And there they were – gas stations gizzards.) 

I kept driving with the box of crackers neatly tucked between my legs. Dominique ate his gas station gizzards — and really enjoyed them! The smell of earth seeped through the windows. Rueben and Elsie smiled in the rear view.

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Almost purple.

When we got to the end of a bag on a road trip, my mother always, with a grin, suggested we give the purple jelly beans to the birds by throwing them out the car window. So it’s not surprising that yesterday, in the Petrified Forest National Park, when the crow made no attempt to fly away, even after taking pictures, that I went to the back seat of the car and picked out a jelly bean. (Of course we have them, mostly only purple left, it’s a road trip after all, and I am my mother’s daughter.). I walked right up to the big black bird. Gave the jelly bean a little roll, and the crow plucked it right from the ground. I think he loved it. I watched. You know, just in case. I wasn’t sure a crow could eat a jelly bean. (I was prepared to do cpr.) But he pecked it smaller. Ate it up, like everything in my history told me he would. 

I promise I won’t make a steady habit of feeding the birds jelly beans. But how could I miss the opportunity to bring my mother along on our trip?

Gazing out over the painted desert, looking at the trees that now were made of stone, time could have seemed too big to imagine. But maybe there is no time at all. Maybe everything is, all at once. Trees are stones. My mother is with me still. The black wing of the crow, shines blue, almost purple.

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