Writing Reality

      As I awaited having my first cup of coffee doing chores—I wondered why or what it was that made me, even to this day of having the urge to save the world... so to speak.     The last two nights before bed I watched nature shows. That’s unusual for me.  It’s usually one night of nature and a science show spread out once a week. My usual was anything with law, anything heroic, historical figures, strategies were my preference—I'd begun to prefer series type shows.     Reading books, I gravitate towards autobiographical, historical people, events and how they climbed out of the event(s). Finally, this morning I asked myself, 'What have I been looking for?' What is it in heroism that I feel near to? Or that I feel is necessary—Heroism, or rescuing, being the rescuer. What is that about? Why do I still feel the urge since I could ever remember?      I thought that it could be the feel good feeling. It...

The Other Day... I was foodshopping. As I went to check out, I met a new cashier. Oh, by the way, how I meet new cashiers is that I rotate where I shop. It's not necessarily for lower prices. Its actually to save on time and gas dollars. I'd been doing this mindful shopping since I could drive in 1980, even though my mother wanted me to get my license the year before as I could have. I just didn't want to rush the responsibility of driving too soon. It was as well as I was aware of pollution and the usage of fossil fuels. So, the other day as I'd finished up shopping I headed to the cashier who'd not had anyone in line. All other cashiers were busy. She, Roxy as was on her name tag. Her set up was next to the customer service desk.  Roxy appeared old-fashioned in the sense you could tell that she took pride in her appearance by her makeup. It was what I'd witnessed as a child in the 1960s.  Roxy appeared near my age. Yet I realized she may be about 8-10 years my...

As I ran yesterday, I wondered what all the reasons were that I’d gone into the Marines. Also, at nearly the same time, I reckoned with what I’d witnessed in the animal kingdom from some nature shows, as well in my own backyard. Questions have been: why do we want what someone else has, if we have enough? It is important to have a defense mechanism in place; however, when is conquering enough? At this point, we should be at peace. There should be more peace. Out of gratefulness, we should be helping others. I went into the Marines to defend peace. Peace for those living in our country. Too, for those outside our country who want the basics, such as food, shelter, freedom and education, which lead to health. A healthy society is a happy society. Yet, at this juncture we have people wanting more. More is never enough. I’m witnessing those in our country who are demanding longevity but have not been willing to take care of the necessities that they’d been blessed with upon birth. I was le...

The criminal in the white house... our White House. You know We the People? If you hadn't noticed we're getting the shaft by the criminal in our White House. He's now hit a records long domestic deployment of military presence in a city in our country, and it ain't right. There's no reason to waste such resources in our nation's Capitol. Yet, congress and our other branches of power are allowing this. I remember my father-in-law and I having a conversation about his trip to Israel decades ago. He said, "Jody, its amazing. You're in Jerusalem and there are military personnel some armed with machine guns, seemingly everywhere. Its great that we don't live like that here."  He a World War II veteran stated such. I can only imagine what Herbie would think now. My husband had said, "You always had great talks with my dad." Yeah, Herbie and I had some indepth discussions. There was much to learn from him too. Herbie/Dad would have a line...

After nearly ten hours of sleep last night. I wondered what I'd get done today. And how my run would feel, more or less painful with my now knowing my running form had changed since my husband passed. My form weakened and got sloppier. I didn't think this would happen to me. I kept looking at the wear on the bottom of my running shoes. Yet, I accepted the unusual wear occurring at the heels of the shoes which years ago was never prevalent.  Then I noticed that once again the wear on my running shoes changed recently. I oscillated between three different types/pairs of running shoes over the past 10 days. My quads got sore, tired. Yet my legs felt different. I realized my old form from years prior was coming back. I had wondered why I couldn't get past a recent injury, no matter the hour I put in every day doing yoga, stretching and foam rolling before running. I knew the hours upon hours of writing every day would cause mental fatigue, thus it could effect my physical fati...

Yeah, I was tired this  morning... I've lived with pain throughout my life. I've ignored much of it. At least, that's what I'd stated to an Army Ranger years ago. He'd saw me fight with my coach one day in 2013. I was taking punches and kicks to the head, arms, body and legs from him. And still I pursued. At times cursing. It sucks when a guy who's been doing this fighting for nearly five decades lands his thick well-conditioned shin, just right on your bursa. It sends shock waves of pain through your body and gets you yelling, "Son of a Bitch!" Yet you pursue as you desire to go in for the kill, yet its training. By the way, you can't kill the coach. Because then, who else is going to know things about you in order to tell you what's left in your tank? I saw the Ranger turn to a guy as my coach now had gone across the open gym awaiting my response. Thinking the kick crippled me enough temporarily to stop me. No, now I was just more focused. As...

       When it’s the early 1960s and your parents are two different religions, one being Catholic. The priest is usually none too happy. Especially, if he wasn’t the one who married the mixed couple. Then they had the audacity to bring him their second living child for a baptism. One would think the priest would’ve been happy to have a chance to increase his parish size. Perhaps having a chance to indoctrinate another paying soul into his realm. But no, he didn’t like my name. Yes, the priest kept denying that my first name represented Joseph. He asked why they hadn’t named me Josephine. It was clear why. My dad’s family were of WASP origin, so we were told. Much later, nearly forty years later we would find out that Dad’s paternal side were originally Vikings who conquered the English Isle of Mann. Pagans—Oh dear God!     Then the Godparents.—both were church goers, but again one was Catholic and my Dad’s sister who was married to a full-bred No...

      It was 1981 and I was stationed at Camp LeJeune. I was working in the Motor Pool that afternoon. Amazingly I was not passing out from the unshaded hot pavement as I had the day before with heat stroke. The motor pool lieutenant was standing by a bunch of guys who’d moved what appeared to be part of a telephone pole into a clear area of the motor pool. The space was enough for thirty Marines to be just standing around, kibbitzing.    Somehow, I was commandeered away from dead-lining a five-ton truck that afternoon. The Sergeant and Lance I was near also had been called over to where the partial telephone pole was. As we meandered over, one guy said, “We’re going to do coordination drills.” They all looked at me. Yeah, I hadn’t got my first stripe yet. I knew what it was. I’d play along. Yet, not knowing how far they’d go. I’ll tolerate just so much fun when I’m exhausted from heat stroke, and I know there’s batteries to clean and other jobs that had ...

  ...And it would be the second time serendipitously I’d met Bill Rodgers, who was the four-time New York City Marathon winner and four-time Boston Marathon winner. [1] Only this time, it wasn’t just a “Hey. How you doin’?” Like in Pittsburgh on May 5 th of that year—as my husband and I walked by the Marathon Running god. It was, “I can’t find my car in this underground parking garage”. And my reply was, “Oh you’ve lost your car. I’ll help you find it.”         Earlier that morning I did a slow thirty-minute warmup before the race. Again, the race was chockful of world class runners. It was a rainy, nearly eighty degree day. I came across the finish line as fourth woman and 110 th overall finisher with a 1:17:31 for 20K. After the awards ceremony I walked around and spoke with some of the runners who’d finished around my time. Then I got my bag and went to find my car in the underground parking garage that we runners had been offered to park in before ...

      I arrived home to our apartment and Norman said he was going over to his parents’ home; his father might not make it through the night. The man who’d been like the father I’d never had was on his way out. Norman said, “Dad has been tanking since Wednesday.” My heart sunk ever more so. Norman’s father had been the only related adult I knew aside from my husband that cheered on my commitment to long distance running. I could talk to his Dad/Herbie about the military, business, exercise and running.     Soon we were off to Norman’s parents’ home. It’d reached nearly 90 degrees that sunny afternoon. We entered the dimly lit room where Dad lay in a hospital bed, one room off the main entrance’s foyer. Mom called us over. She had just extracted fluid from Dad’s lungs. We followed Mom up to the kitchen. She gave us an update—she realized he might not make it through the night. Yet wanted me to try and get some of his medicine into him with applesauce as sh...

 It was 1985... Before getting to the office, I’d planned to run fifteen miles with strength advanced fartlek like so: first two miles was the warmup on the road which would be mostly uphill from three tenths of a mile to about a mile and four fifths, then flat to the first two miles—and that would be when I’d start the stopwatch on my wristwatch and run hard for five minutes, then I’d run easy for two minutes—next a hard three minute pick up, followed by a minute run rest easy and finally a hard one minute pick up followed by a thirty second run rest easy stint. I proceeded to do five sets of this drill on the road covering 62 minutes and 30 seconds and then an easy two-mile jog back to the Haledon High School cinder track a half mile away from our Woodside apartment. I was motivated when I got to the track. So, instead of an easy four laps to get an even fifteen miles in before work—I ran four quarter mile intervals, like so: 87, 85, 88, 91. I did a little jog of a minute in betw...

As I finished my second exercise set this afternoon... I was ready to pass by a neighbor that lives 420 meters from our home. He is age 99. He will be 100 in December. He was cleaning up his yard and clipping his shrubs for tomorrow's town yard pick up. I stopped by to chat with him. He said, "The kids don't want me to do this, like its going to make me die. I think at this point I could die in (pointing to his home) there sitting down or outside doing this." I responded, "You're correct. You gotta live. Do what feels good for you. "  He, at this point can hear me with hearing aids. Though his sight has diminished to two feet within his range, then he can see me. He remembered when my husband passed. We talked about marriage and protecting our children and their future. He remembered who our children were and asked about them. Then we talked about birthdays. I found out that he and I had a ton of birthdays in our families in July and October.  We laug...

You stay alive, as you've survived the incident. The memories live with you as long as you live. 35 years ago, today I was supposed to be dead. But here I am currently sitting behind a computer writing this to you, the reader. This would not be an ordinary death. No. Not one that anyone would like to talk about—your spouses, your family, your friends and so forth. This death would be filled with rage. I will say rage enough to take out Putin and all his armies at least. I still feel that today, deep down in the basement of my soul. That rage still moves me. Oh, I’ve gone to and gone through the best therapies. Yet it remains. Perhaps my business here is not done. I might be a conduit of some sort. Who knows. I thought this morning as I gently stretched after chores, hoping my pain would not entice me to withhold my desire to run. Yesterday’s run was brutal. I eeked out 1.31 miles in a 8:23 per mile pace feeling pain the whole way. Thank God, I decided not to work my way through a...