Jodi Hills

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


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Without sleep or tulip.

The first 7 hour time change means, for me, two blogs in twenty four hours. Arriving in Amsterdam, on no sleep, and one double espresso, it seems like a lot to ask of my brain, but as always, my heart starts typing. 

Even the tulip stands are not  open, so inspiration must come from within. (But then, doesn’t it always.) People have asked me through the years, “What inspires you?” There is always a pause because I’m laughing at the answer I want to say, knowing it isn’t the answer they want to hear – nothing and everything. I’m reminded of when I was gifted a fancy mixer. As I was unboxing it, my husband asked, “What does it make?” “It doesn’t make anything,” I replied, knowing that by itself, it really does nothing, but with it, I can make bread and cookies and cakes, everything! Nothing and everything. Just like with art. Just like with writing. Just like with life. We have to, not find the inspiration, but be it!

And so I type, without sleep or tulip, and the story arrives. Right on time. Waiting for the next flight home, I have everything. 


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Possibly Tulips.

There are the usual suspects — tulips, tulip bulbs, chocolates — but sitting in the Amsterdam airport, all I really want to find is a bit of my Grandma Elsie. 

She could fall asleep anywhere. Anytime. She could take a nap mid-bake, and never burn the cookies. She could fall asleep while you were taking your turn at the card game or dice game on her kitchen table. Dreaming of becoming a UPS driver, or a girlish romance behind the Alexandria motel, while you strategized, only to wake up and beat you every time. In a chair. On a bus. In a car, (even once while driving us home from Jerry’s Jack and Jill, just after the sugar rush of toasted marshmallows) she could easily fall into complete slumber. While the coffee brewed. After drinking the coffee. During the commercials of Days of Our Lives. She slept. She had perfected the Power Nap before it was even called as such. 

I always envied this ability to let go. This is something I don’t possess. To fall asleep on a plane, in an airport, seems unimaginable. But I am not in discomfort. I am not without rest. I am gathered in. I imagine the flowers on her apron. Were they tulips? Possibly. As I rest in the memory of her welcoming aproned belly, they are tulips. I smile. I have taken my Grandma to Amsterdam, not all dreams require sleep.