Skip to main content

Snowflakes

 


Snowflakes

As I run, one of the things I think of often—is how what I view and feel about what I am witnessing as I run and in my life is fleeting. The witnessing is frail. The witnessing is only mine to acknowledge to live and die with and like no other—with barely a relevance like a snowflake.

One flake falling has its own identity as it floats from sky to earth. If it lands just right it becomes part of a hampered or joyous experience to others. However, that snowflake may also become something else—either before or after it hits the ground. It may become part of a frozen tundra, a sloppy slush or merely a drop of water. Either way, it becomes part of who we are; how we respond; where we go; what we love; what we fear.

Whether we like it or not that one snowflake is part of what impacts every living thing’s life—on so many unimaginable levels. As I watch the snowflakes drop when I run; I am reminded too of the irrelevance of my life. The non-entity, that many would like to not know exists.

Even a non-entity is regarded, sometimes as a threat. To all other’s lies. Lies they will accept over the existence of my living. Unlike a snowflake, I temporarily take up a little more space in the world. I remind some of what they haven’t attempted to do. I remind them that its never too late. And that honesty is the best policy. They do hate that. My mother told me that about fifty years ago.

As irrelevant as I am to anyone perhaps. Too, what I witness is just that. My one witnessing is mine and mine alone. No one truly cares what this vessel has witnessed or witnesses without some reciprocity. Some agenda to help them get through a second, a minute, a day, a life. And when my witnessing is gone. There has been nothing before it neither anything after it, that can be replicated.---Jody-Lynn Reicher

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

2023 Holiday Letter from the Reicher's

Well, I didn't think I'd be doing a Holiday Letter this year, but here goes... The Spirit of Norm is in the air. As the wind whips with minus a true snowstorm.  In hopes the Farmers Almanac was correct, I pray to the snow gods. Rain ensued the month of December thus far. We have nearly tripled the amount of rainfall usual for December in New Jersey. And I've witnessed its treachery. Storms such as these hit us hardest in July. Then remained fairly intense through til about early October.  Our daughters are doing well, Thank God.  Their Dad would be proud of them. Our oldest Sarah, now a Junior at UCLA pursuing her degree in Chemical Engineering. She's digging the whole California scene. Which I thought it was for her. She's had some good traveling on her off times from school. For her March 2023 week off, she drove her and a few friends out to Lake Tahoe and went downhill skiing for a first in nearly 5 years. She had to rent the ski equipment.  Funny enough when

Sledging the Hammer

  "You could have a steam trainIf you'd just lay down your tracks..."---Peter Gabriel's 'Sledgehammer' lyrics. This is not the tune that lay in my mind this morning as I reminisced about yesterday's volunteers to help on trail crew.    However, as I looked up the proper definition of sledging that song popped up. I say sledging, which is my own take on swinging a hammer that we call a "Double Jack". The Single Jack is six pounds. I know that because our regular crew of five including me and one staff supervisor are handling Harriman State Park Trails, and have to carry about four of those, two shaping hammers, along with a hoist, belay bag with heavy equipment, first aid kit, double Jack, three 18lb rock bars, a lopper, three buckets, three eye to eyes, two burlap straps, two green wrapping straps, two pick Mattox, a roe hoe or two, a bar for either the two ton or one ton hoist, the feathers with pegs for splitting rocks that we drill... s

It Follows Me...

One may wonder what would inspire someone to work hard labor voluntarily. For me it’s the love of many things. It’s the passion that won’t be broken. Because there are so many aspects to such service for me, that it may seem beyond comprehension. I’d compare it to my youthful desire to enter the military as a young child. Then for a multitude of reasons only to follow through thirteen years later at age eighteen entering the Marines. There were things that followed me throughout my life. Sometimes they were questions of how I ever gave up my over decade’s life dream to become a New Jersey State Trooper. My childhood desire to never wed—to never have any serious relationships with another human being. I desired only service in military and law enforcement nearly my whole childhood. Too the extent that even one of my Marine Corps superiors expressed to me last July, “I never thought you’d ever get married. It just wasn’t who you were. You were always a loner.” I replied, “Yeah. I know.