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....

  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. ...

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 m...

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 ...