Writing Reality

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. Yet it never ends. 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 local ultra-marathon today. It would have been the race I’d treat...

  Author Bio:     Jody-Lynn Reicher, who started running in 1976, served in the U.S. Marines in the early 1980's. She went on to become a marathoner setting her sights on Olympic level running. After tragedy struck in 1991, she ended up having eight hours of surgery for hip graphing and spinal fusion surgery which diminished her goal of Olympic marathon racing. In 2001 she opted to start ultra-marathon running, since she'd lost the ability to run fast without cramping on her right side, even after nearly a decade of physical therapy. Since she was too pained to sit for long periods even after the surgery, she eventually changed her career from finance/accounting to provide massage therapy and bodywork for medical purposes. She was an ART certified since 1997 to 2017.. She dealt primarily with pain patients, and injured athletes in her therapy business.      After her husband of over 36 years passed in  2020, she focused on getting their daughters into ...

          The rain storms we had yesterday that lasted into and through the evening, I'd wondered when we'd had summer storms such as this.             Prior to last night's storms, during yesterday morning I'd thought about this as I'd finished my training run. I began my 400 meter cool down walk home. I saw two neighbors. I asked, "Do you remember a cool summer like this one?" One said she'd been thinking about that.     The three of us stopped what we were doing and recalled various dates of events in the past 30 years.     After I got home, I cleaned up and went to writing and editing my autobiography. This, being encouraged by a friend, a long time writer specializing in the martial arts who has written for Blackbelt Magazine.      I proceeded to write and edit for hours. I then ran an errand and was back at it again. As I re-read the first 50 pages, I found myself laughing at stories I'd...

If anyone recalls the Wendy's 1984 commercial with Clara Peller's phrase, "Where's the Beef?!" It was an iconic phrase that brought Clara Peller a manicurist amd actress to fame along with the phrase. It was in lieu of considering and implying that other fast food burger places may not be giving you what you'd expected when ordering a hamburger out. Today, its the prices of the beef. My thought today was, 'What's with the Beef...prices?' I will quote my middle school French teacher, "Oooohhh Lala!" When she was wondering why you'd barely passed yesterday's French quiz after much review, as she'd handed back our marked up quiz papers. I went to the store today perchance to find the multipack water filter faucet sink version I had a coupon for, and to take a looksee at the organic beef prices and the beef prices in general. I had found that a little more than three weeks ago, a first buying beef at this local supermarket in ove...

  Today I wondered if I could pull off a 4th over 10 mile run in a row. And at that, how far would I run beyond 10 miles? Would I start out by running a mostly flat quiet paved path course; then double back around and stay on a path which lacked any undulating? Or would I venture off the path after two or three miles and get onto Mountain Road for a little over a mile or so and make a left to Edson Hill Road uphill eventually to Weeks Hill Road, climbing up over 1500 feet elevation? That course, the Reverse Edson Hill Road Run I'd never ran nor attempted it in over 4 decades and was uncertain I'd had any possibility to do such. As much I felt my quads giving me hints of being taxed by the last three days of mountainous running, I'm used to being sore and knew I could eek another mountainous uphill then downhill trek, so long as I took a hot bath soaking in the water afterwards.  As I approached the Brookdale Bridge realizing to my left were roads marked 'Private',...

A run I'd never attempted in over the 43 years I'd traveled up north, not even considering it. Last year I did a run up to the Trapp Family Lodge and back to Mountain Rd. Also, it was a run I'd never done until last year. So, for my over 12 mile run this morning a course I'd never attempted this path. So, I did the following this morning: I began at Mountain Rd. to Barrows Road to Trapp to S.Luce Hill Rd. to Haul Road to the Cabin ran down the muddy Chris Trail midway then back up to Haul Road then to S. Luce Hill Rd. to Barrows Rd. And to Mountain Rd. It was a rugged, rocky, lumpy, tree covered, no traffic trail for about 9 miles of the run. I saw Noone on the dirt and trails that I ran on, filled with patches of grass, rocks, and dirt. It rained as I climbed up the dirt and rock filled roadway/trail for 45 minutes of the first hour of the run.  On the return run it was a mostly steep downhill, I had to keep my body loose, my knees bent and jockey back and forth to avo...

If you've ever seen the 1950 movie, "Harvey" with Jimmy Stewart playing Elwood. P. Dowd its a comedy-drama about a man who has a puca, named Harvey. Its an invisible 6'3" white rabbit, that he has as a friend. People think he's crazy, as he has these supposed imaginary conversations with "Harvey". I cannot remember the ending, for I saw it in the 1960s as a child.  This leads me to what the writer Mary Chase of the screenplay written in 1944, may have intended; however, it could be left up to the interpretation of the viewers. In my mind as a child, I didn't think talking to an imaginary friend was crazy. And I believe we all do this, even in our adult lives yet we don't usually tell anyone. At least, the older people I treated throughout my near 30 years of doing so did do this.  Some said, they would speak to their dead spouses. Women were more comfortable with it. I can say I am. In doing so, there is this near divine or sometimes divine ...

1977 Cross-country Garrett Mountain   Today marks my entering the 51st year of distance running... I've Raced over 500 events... Was told multiple times I shouldn't run long distance or at all... Birth defects: missing disc in my lower back was not discovered till age 30. I was told it was bad for my feet, especially my left foot. Left fibula was twisted on my talus. Doctor told my mother when I was nearing age 15, that if I stopped running by age 18 my heart would be okay.  I was told a couple times that because of heart murmur, an enlarged heart, defect in left ventricle I'd be dead if I ran a marathon in 1985 just after my 23rd birthday... I ran it anyway.  I was told at age 21 after severe knee pains I'd never run again, eight months later I was back running. Both ankles had issues. My left constantly was sprained(20x). I ran through most of that. They wanted to surgically remove the sesamoid bones in both big toes... I avoided what I felt was the problem causing th...

  After quitting my job at an organic supermarket late last year, I took two excursions to New England. One was within two weeks of my last day at the market, which was not planned. The next excursion had been planned seven months prior. Now that we no longer have pets and our children are in and out between college and whatnot, I wanted to treat myself to a lallygagging restful stay at a couple hotels in New England and just sleep, run, walk, hike, read, write and eat. Besides having started a new business in 2022 which wouldn’t account for much immediate income; I went back to work for other people in late 2024 and added a second part-time job in early 2025. This was to aid in the funds of taking time to help our oldest over two years move into two new housing and apartment units, as well as her graduating across the country in 2025. By my driving 3,000 miles one way I could bring supplies to her and save us both money. What ended up occurring on the second excursion up north w...

  The chicken sucked, a baby was crying, a granddad was being loud with his grandsons at a table nearby in the diner; however, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gone out to eat with someone. Especially with a family member. Now, upon further reflection it was June 14 th , 2025, on the Santa Monica Blvd with our daughters and our eldest’s friend after her college graduation. And the food was beef and it was grand—$600 later and still perhaps the best food I’d ever had out. Back to the other night, I was having a meal with our youngest at an eatery of her selection. She was overly distracted, but I understood all the distractions they were fun, anxious and seemingly at top speed. Up until recently I’d been at top speed. Our oldest now has recognized that top speed isn’t always necessary; however, I warned her of the very thing I demonstrated back home to her throughout her childhood—intensity. I remarked, “Your dad was the exception in a spouse handling my intensity as a scienc...

Can we dream what we imagine? That was my thought last night as I lay in bed, only slightly fatigued from my training run and then the over 5 hours of shrub and lawn care amounting to over 22 miles of running and walking during the day. I wasn't mentally taxed as I'd been trying to revive the UltraRunner within me, once again. Yes, I had enough energy at 10:20pm last night to mentally imagine my ultimate peaceful presence with nature as some part of my future. I knew it would most likely be only an imagined dream in part of any future of any kind for me. So, I proceeded in my mind's eye to envision a sunny, yet partly cloudy day, late morning, spring-like, my sitting on our back deck. I wondered what would be with me. First thought was a big, black bear. I knew I'd have to provide some food to show him I was his friend who only wanted to sit beside him. I wondered if he'd let me stroke his fur. Would it be safe? Yet, I would not touch him as he would be eating the s...

As I read the recent issue in “The Atlantic” in the Dispatches section “A Fine Country For Old Men” by Idrees Kahloon, I paused midway on its second page. What struck me was something I’d thought about nearly daily. A question of how my generation and a generation before mine received benefits for their aging out of the workforce. And it wasn’t just that that’d struck me. It was as well, the knowledge that our youngest child states every now and again of how the Boomers have screwed things up for her generation. I’d mostly held my disagreement, keeping it to myself. Yet I did not exactly agree or disagree with her, until I reckoned with all the facts. That’s out of respect for another human being. Yes, respect for a child who’d just become an adult of our modern era. That’s not what happened in my day, nor was it certainly in the family I grew up in. To me, my upbringing compared to today’s standards and mine were an aberration if not a catastrophe. On the outside I appear ‘okay’, some...

This day twenty-eight years ago. Tom Brunetto (he has since passed 2014) and I met at the Ridgewood Duck Pond at 4:15am. We made a pact a couple weeks leading up to this day. We both had topped off at 36 miles. So, we promised each other we would do a 40 miler together. Tom overdressed and forgot shorts, he was wearing long running pants. The temperatures soared passed eighty degrees. I think it hit a blistering eighty-eight degrees. The sky was clear blue. The last eight miles Tom was beside himself. He said he couldn't finish. Instead of my getting upset, I bribed him for the last eight miles to get us to forty. I had no energy left and still had work at 11am till 8:45pm that day. The only rest I'd get was a shower, and a drive at 3:45pm to a doctors office for four more pain patients to treat. So, Tom having other stress in life I decided, since I helped mangle his legs for perhaps a week's recovery I said, "I'll tell you what. You run eight more miles get...

 "Oh God! He was so innocent." I mumbled to myself as I'd gotten into the first chapter of "Born Survivors" by Wendy Holden. The ongoing debate He was unwilling to see my side as truth 42 years ago, then the last time I brought it up over 20 years ago. I wondered why, but then I gave up the one debate I knew was the truth, it was about how we in the United States needed to quash hatred and how to go about doing so. This morning I was forced to reflect back on one thing that he had no longer wanted to view with me, documentaries on the Holocaust.  Yes, my Jewish husband had to stop watching them about 20 years ago. I had to view them alone in our living room after he and kids had gone to bed. I can say I didn't wonder why, it was disturbing. Yet I forced myself to watch the known horrors unfold in the documentaries I'd watched.  My husband could watch certain scary movies with our oldest, like "Alien", "Poltergeist"; however, I couldn...

  “People die.” She said. That line was stated to me nearly seven years ago, by a childless woman, who’d just lost her husband who I’d been taking care of for a number of years. I was still in her life as a therapist taking care of her mother and once in a while herself when she’d moved too many boxes as she was having repairs and the like done around her home and her mother’s home a few miles away. She, being about a decade older than I and had been retired from teaching for some time now, was alone in a near empty house. A house much bigger than my home with my husband, two children and three pets. I took her thoughts in stride. She was sad, as she’d just lost her ailing husband. She was well aware that he’d pass; however, I knew the exact day he’d die ten weeks before. I remember coming home and being upset after the session at their home and stating, “I know someone will die before Memorial Day ends, and that they will not see June 1 st .” My husband looked at me dumbfounded,...