Jodi Hills

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

Tag Archives: wind


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Jonquil.

I was a teenager having surgery in Minneapolis. It was not yet spring, but for my mother. She was dressed in yellow, head to toe.  From my wheelchair, I could see her slacks, not break at the knee, but simply curve like a note in a Harry Belafonte song. The elevator door opened and the doctor smiled at her — said she looked as “beautiful as a jonquil.” I didn’t even know what that meant, but it was the most elegant compliment I had ever heard. Back at my room, no iPad or telephone, certainly no dictionary, we could only imagine how beautiful that flower looked.

It has been decades, and I’m still lifted by yellow. I’m still lifted that my mother dressed to lift, herself and me. I’m still lifted by jonquils standing tall in a breeze that they shouldn’t survive, as my mother bent, but never broke. 

As the elevator door opened to 2026, I gave the woman in my sketchbook a yellow sweater. That’s what we do, isn’t it? Lift each other. 

Welcome to the garden. 

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Aloft.

Soaring birds that wish to stay aloft without flapping usually fly INTO the wind for lift.

I suppose that’s the goal, isn’t it — a lot less flapping, and a lot more lift. And I mention it only as a reminder to myself. Oh, it’s so easy to get upset over the little things. “But they did this! – again…” and “she always does this – every time,” and “look at that, c’mon!” (So much flapping.) 

And we all know the goal. To get higher. But ooooh, those words — when someone tells you “to just get over it…” I’m not sure why exactly, but they sound like fighting words. Like it’s all your responsibility. Like why do I have to do it? Why do I always have to go higher? (Oh, that flapping!) So I tell myself in different words, be the soaring bird. And my heart stops fighting the wind, but using it. To glide. Higher. And I always feel better. Always. 

I’m so human. I learn the lesson over and over. But I’d like to believe I become the bird a little easier, a little more quickly, with each passing lesson. I hope so. Because the view! Spectacular! 

Maybe you’ve already mastered it. If so, I say bravo, little bird! And I make you this promise (me, too often here among the flappers) — I’m learning — and I’ll see you up there!

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Pink tornado.

I have sat cross legged on cement basement floors many times, waiting for a tornado.  I have heard sirens. Nestled against transistor radios. Imagining flying cows and houses. Everything in black and white. Waiting for the technicolor of the Wizard of Oz’s ending. Sweaty hands folded, I stayed until given the all-clear. Then climbed the stairs to blue skies. 

I never saw one – a tornado – until last night. It was pink. In my dreams. It sped toward the house. Terrifying, but almost beautiful. In full color, right from the start. I waited in the corner. Holding my breath. Wanting to close my eyes… watching. A pink blur passed by the house. I survived.

In moments of imagining the worst, I have been my own tornado. The wind twirling and blowing in my chest. It’s too full. Too much air. I can’t breathe. I blow and I blow, praying to slow it all down. Breathe. Just breathe. Praying for the all-clear. Please give me the all-clear. Eventually I give it to myself. I suppose Glenda was right — “You’ve always had the power, my dear, you just had to learn it for yourself.”

So I learn again and again. To just breathe. To be patient with myself — amid the winds of change. Within my heart’s tornado — it’s almost beautiful — it IS beautiful! I breathe, and climb the stairs.

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