Writing Reality

  "One" Why is one the loneliest numbe r? Or is it. No and Yes are the saddest experiences you’ll ever know. Sounds like an old song.   The general premise of the song by “Three Dog Night”, was about loneliness. The song hummed through my head, after popping in an old CD bought years before into our car’s player. “One” was the first song to play. I remember when it became a hit. I was still a kid in 1969. There was something cool about it. I was uncertain what it was back then. Over a year later in 1971, “Jeremiah was a Bullfrog…” (a.k.a “Joy to the World”) was released on a single. It is a philosophical song about happiness that God desires for all of us. A few of the neighborhood kids liked it, and so did my older brother and I. As The Vietnam War raged on; there was uncertainty to if the war would ever end. And we wondered, as our young neighbor Eve Anderson wondered, “Why aren’t we having world peace?” On the eve of the new year 1972 about to arrive. Eve was ove

  729…Counting 729 is my private celebration of sorts. It’s not that it matters much to anyone, but me. Yet, there is a sense that on some divine level. Even if my old marathoning coach, Tom Fleming were alive he would say, “You know God doesn’t care whether Jody-Lynn Reicher runs or not. Wins or loses.”   However, that was an ongoing debate Tom and I had for over a decade. I refrained from bantering with him or anyone on that debate though.   For my spirituality is mine and no one else’s. Yet, for some crazy reason I know that it matters. And it is that I know it matters on the highest level. Perhaps it just doesn’t equate to anything of earthly value to anyone else. Yet, the running is spiritual. The grind of my life is spiritual. I strain the body to calm the mind. For I know that is what I must do for me.   It makes me feel things I don’t want to feel. It makes me face the problems of the world, then become introspective.   It makes me feel for others. Yet, it allows me to re

  The AFTERWORD to the Story below: Today, the stranger who's now become a sort of friend. I saw her on the road today. I running; her driving on Park Avenue. A section that was desolate at the time as I had just turned onto the road from a side street going North. As she drove north I ran on the south side, running defensively (as is the unwritten running rule) going north. She slowed and called my name out. "Jody..." Me: "Hey Leigh!" Leigh, "I've been reading the book you gave me. It's great!" I replied, :"Oh I'm so glad." You know it's kind of funny, sixteen days ago I hoped my book on Gratefulness would cheer her up. Perhaps she could reflect on how much she is loved by others. Because that was the purpose of my giving her one of my books. And as tired as I was, thinking earlier in the day that could barely eek out a three - five mile run. At that point today I was about six miles or so into the run. I was dragging. I ende

  AFTERWORD: Yes another one for the day. When you think miracles have surpassed you...think again. I got home from my run this afternoon. I saw the new pine I'd put in eight months ago, was bent in half. It was iced in. I tried pulling it's tiny branches out of the iced over snow, but to no avail. So I carefully chopped the iced snow around the little eighteen inch high tree. I knew she'd lose a small end of some of her branches, but I had to save her. I got most of her to stand up almost totally straight. Then I pounded down a thin pole for her to lean more straight up against. The pole barely made it into the ground as I hammered it in. The past few weeks subzero temperatures would be the cause of that.. I finished hammering and gently got the tree to be somewhat straightened. I caressed its branches. Then I heard a noise. I picked up my head and the injured buck, his buddy and the herd were gently walking through a neighbor's yard and into the woods nearby. I whispe

It may have worked for me... When I grew up, we didn't have enough money to buy bologna, much meats, or a tape cassette machine, and neither drank commercial soda. I played in the dirt, alright. And then I washed my dirty pants by age seven on a metal and wood scrub board, then hung them up outside. We didn't have a washer and dryer for the most part. And there was seldom a car for Mom.  I wore my brother's clothing, my neighbor's girls hand-me downs. My mother made a bathing suit for me. She made other clothing once in a while as well. We shopped at Sears & Roebuck for school clothing. We had a good sized garden that helped us financially in the late spring till about early November.   Starting at age seven I wa s not only setting the table every night before 6pm. As well, after dinner I was in charge of cleaning all the dishes,  scrubbing the sink and making certain the kitchen was in order. I had other chores as well. My brother was the prince.  My dad was the ki

When the Music Leaves Over the past eighteen months, I’ve been super busy. My husband passed before our oldest entered her senior year of high school and before our youngest entered her sophomore year, it was before September 2020. He had taken our oldest to a few colleges the year before, when he appeared healthy. None of them did she like. After he passed, COVID was still in play with no vaccine introduced into society yet. After his death I had to readjust my work life once again.   Although this time, I knew I could no longer do my job safely. As well, my hands were so damaged, that over twenty years ago a doctor told me I wasn’t going to last four more years, at the rate in which I work. Too hard. Too many bodies. I got paid most of the time. Yet, I did charity work every week in my office. I had built a practice of which I ended up meeting and treating at least 4,000 people in my twenty-eight-year practice. In 2021 I took our oldest to see six colleges, which involved more

As I finish putting away the week's groceries, I contemplate other's lives. Aside from my two daughters,  I consider what may be other's lives.  How they have conducted their lives over the past two years.  This is a thought not unusual for me to have. Yet, it occurs more often than not. Especially  now, as the population is probably feeling ever more irked. Regarding perhaps. their illusion of any lack of their freedom. But isn't that what life is about? The illusion of who we are. What we are about. Where we stand on the planet. Who we love. And who loves us. Our significance. Couldn't we imagine if this were all just an illusion? Sounds like a "Twighlight Zone" episode, perhaps. My aim here, are the thoughts of reckoning. I'll explain why I'm claiming such a thing. For about twenty-eight years of a career in dealing with injured athletes,  pain patients, chronically ill and the terminally ill. I found that there were many people who lied to

The Buck, well he the three legged, injured, kind Buck... didn't stop here over the past few days. I looked through the kitchen window yesterday afternoon, as our temperatures pulled up to a 'Balmy' 17 degrees farenheit. Well it felt balmy, compared with the morning of 7 degrees and this morning at eight of 5 degrees. I began to worry for him yesterday at three o'clock in the afternoon. That time is when the herd had arrived in my backyard. I realized just minutes before I was outside and saw who I thought was his caregiving buddy. Yet, who appeared a prince now suddenly groomed into the king of the nine deer I saw yesterday. He arrived in the open side yard alone at first. He looked at me intently.  I actually felt his communion with me. I asked, "Where's your buddy?" He looked. He seemed without, as if he knew what I'd just asked. And he didn't want to reckon with the answer.  Neither did I. If you've watched deer enough you can see their p

This morning my mind gives in as I wash a dish... "Give me hope (love), give me hope(love). Give me peace on earth. Give me light. Give me life. Keep me free as a bird(free from birth). Help me cope(Give me hope), help me cope with this heavy load..."---George Harrison (his words) No. I'm not a Beatles fan. I'm more of a classical fan like that of Chopin, Verde, etc... As I stare out my kitchen window awaiting deer to enter the fray. I know nearly all my chores for the day are done. Chop Wood, Carry Water... I have training yet to do. However, it's remained light for the better part of the past two years. Due to circumstances beyond my control. Every day repeats itself to a large degree. Chop Wood Carry Water... My regular job/career I've had for the better part of nearly three decades. It's spirit, left over a year ago. Yesterday, I pondered thoughts as I'd attempted to figure out any correlation between the massive amounts of exhaustion in my legs,

  Is anybody home? There are many suggesting and actually driving the world; primarily the people in it to becoming virtual. Virtual by means of intangible, less feeling. I’m speaking not just spiritually, yet the physical as well. Prior to the pandemic, depending on where you were I noticed there was less handshaking upon meeting others. I guess perhaps I would be one of the few sensitive to these things on an extreme level. Which could be due to, that for twenty-eight years as I was in the hands-on-people business. I noticed people either became less trusting or more demanding or both. Perhaps I’ll explain how this goes with handshakes upon meeting, eventually. It could be a city effect.   In which I do not feel a connection to. I feel more of a connection to the earth, its unheard inhabitants, the plants. The quietness of a field, the silence of a forest. A cricket, the crackling of leaves under nature’s footfalls, or a fallen branch. Actually, it is what I seemingly have alwa

  The Eight Hundred Pound Gorilla in the Room Many of us can ignore the rumblings. Some of us don’t mind being embarrassed on a world platform.   This writing here today is not about the latter. It’s about the former. And speaking of ignoring the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room. Actually, in every United States household, perhaps. I’ll be the lioness here. That is how I was tested psychologically many years, decades ago. I’ll do what needs to be done. And I won’t care who’s toes I step on. Even the team will hate me, but we’ll get the job done. I wondered last night why I could not sleep. Unusual, for me to say the least. I know. I’ll start with, my now deceased husband was an educator.   As much as he was math, he also read a ton on history. Granted, among other things. We had our debates. We thought nearly opposite on ninety percent of everything. A marriage like any other marriage is filled with compromise and it should also be filled with reason, forgiveness, and commit

  It’s Our Fault As I write this blog upon receiving a text from a friend that all my state’s hospitals are overloaded. I think to an afternoon about a decade ago. My youngest at the time was in first grade. She came home and revealed to me what was being taught in her first-grade health class that day. It was wrong. I’ll start with that. Yes, what was being taught, how it was taught that day in my first grader’s classroom for health was wrong. Off the mark. And she knew it. As a matter of fact, she respectfully called the teacher out on it. She raised her hand as the teacher said, “…There are good drugs.”   He called on her. She replied, “Mr. DeCarlo. No there aren’t good drugs. Drugs are not good.” He rebutted gently, “Yes there are.” Up went her hand again. He called on her again. She responded, “Mr. DeCarlo, how about the side effects. Ohhh like, headaches, nausea, stroke, muscle aches, restlessness. And how about sudden death?” So, flash-forward to hours later. We were sitti

  Ode to B.W. and Her Doppelganger B.W. is for Betty White. And if you don’t know who she is by now. Well… go Google her name. An icon, to say the least. A couple years ago I had a client, who could have been a doppelganger for B.W. She was funny. Looked nearly identical to B.W.   She was kind. She loved animals. And I wondered what I would ever do, if she died. I said this to a couple of people who had worked in my office. As well, to my husband. Yet, he’d never met her. But he saw the gift from her I brought home, of an old train set from her husband’s Christmas collection. I truly feared this woman’s death and the impact on my emotions it would have. Her end was a bit unlike B.W.’s passing. I watched this woman deteriorate mentally. But she was still so cute. Just so cute, and funny. I just adored her the world over. I treated her for nearly twenty years to just about five weeks before her death. This particular woman was absolutely amazing. She took care of one of her childre