Deer In Headlines
By Gery Deer
In a world that never stops talking, the hardest thing to do is listen for silence. We scroll, swipe, click, and chase, convinced the next notification might carry something essential. Most of the time, it doesn’t. It just adds another layer of noise to an already crowded headspace, another reason to forget where we are standing and who we were before the noise found us.
That is why the question matters: what grounds you? Not in some abstract, self-help sense, but in the real, tactile way that keeps your feet planted when everything else feels like it is spinning. Grounding is not a trend. It is a tether. It is the quiet, stubborn force that keeps you from drifting too far into anxiety, ambition, or the endless churn of digital life.
I have come to believe that grounding lives in the senses. It is the weight of something familiar in your hands, the sound of a rhythm you have known for years, the smell that pulls you backward through time without asking permission. It is not complicated, and that is precisely why we overlook it. We are trained to chase what is new, not what is true.
For me, those anchors are unapologetically analog. There is the click of a typewriter key, sharp and deliberate, a sound that refuses to be rushed. There is the feel of bicycle handlebars steady under my grip, reminding me that forward motion does not require a screen. And there is an old truck, a 1967 International Harvester grain truck, that answers to the name Serenity.
Serenity is not subtle. It is steel and wood and history, the kind of machine that demands your attention simply by existing. But for me, it carries something quieter. It carries the low thrum of an engine from childhood, the memory of time spent beside my father, learning without realizing I was learning. It carries the echo of music played with family, the shared language of rhythm and repetition.
In that way, the truck is more than an object. It is a bridge. It connects who I was to who I am, and it does so without asking for an update or a password. It simply exists, waiting patiently, ready to remind me that not everything meaningful needs to be optimized, digitized, or shared.
I suspect we all have something like that, even if we have not named it yet. Maybe it is the smell of coffee brewing before dawn, or the steady weight of a dog settling into your lap at the end of a long day. Maybe it is a song that hits the same way every time, no matter how many years pass.
The problem is not that these things are hard to find. The problem is that we are rarely still long enough to notice them. The world benefits from our distraction. It profits from our attention being constantly pulled somewhere else. Stillness, on the other hand, does not monetize well. It does not trend. It simply works.
When the noise gets loud, and it will, those anchors matter. They give us a place to return to, a baseline that reminds us we are more than our inboxes and timelines. They pull us back into our bodies, into the present moment, into something real. Without them, it is far too easy to drift, to lose the thread of ourselves in the endless scroll.
So ask yourself the question and answer it honestly. What is your tether? What is the thing that keeps you here when everything else tries to carry you away? Find it. Name it. Keep it close. Because when the storm comes, and it always does, you will need to know exactly what holds you to the ground.
In the end, grounding is not about escaping the modern world. It is about surviving it with your sense of self intact. It is about choosing, again and again, to return to what is real, even when what is real feels quieter than the noise. That choice may be small, even invisible to anyone else, but it is powerful. It is the difference between being carried along and standing firm.
Hold on to it, always.
The Jamestown Comet 
advocacy summit, Deer In Headlines, Gery Deer, Gery L. Deer, healthcare advocacy, Jamestown, journalism commentary, Ohio, Only at this table, opinion column
Only at this table.
In Opinion, Uncategorized on March 6, 2026 at 11:20 pmDeer In Headlines
By Gery Deer
It was late evening at a hotel restaurant in Washington, D.C. Most of the restaurant crowd were either deep in their own discussions or had eyes glued to televisions broadcasting college basketball. And there we were. A handful of adults who were born with or a parent of someone with bladder exstrophy, all of us in town as patient advocates preparing to take on Congress.
We laughed and talked, as burgers, salads and something fried occupied most of the real estate between us. Someone had to move a basket of fries so we could make room for desserts and more drinks.
On the surface, we didn’t look so different from anyone else in the room. Just another group decompressing after a long day. But the conversation? That could have only happened there. Only at this table.
Bladder exstrophy is rare – very rare. So, when you’re born with a condition that requires extensive surgery – or surgeries – and lifelong management, there are very few who can relate. Explaining it often brings sighs of pity, confused expressions, and a host of questions.
At this table, there was none of that. We didn’t have to define the anatomy. We didn’t have to summarize childhood surgical histories or explain why insurance preauthorization feels less like paperwork and more like gladiator combat. We could start mid-story.
We compared hospital experiences the way other people compare hometowns. We talked about the benefits and challenges of living with something so unusual it was often hard to explain, even to those closest to us.
That shared experience can lead to its own sort of verbal shorthand. It strips away the introductory chapter and drops you straight into the middle of the book. And shared experiences from birth? There’s no need to tiptoe around things, perform bravery or package vulnerability in tidy language. You can be direct. You can be specific. You can be understood.
There was a moment — and I won’t detail it, because some conversations belong only to those who were present — when the tone softened. Someone shared a memory from adolescence, a time when feeling different felt especially sharp. No one rushed to fix it. No one offered a motivational poster response. Instead, there was safety in letting go, in the expression of feelings and thoughts that only others like us could understand.
It manifests as a shared laugh, or a look, or a nod. It’s not dramatic. It doesn’t require a spotlight. It’s a quiet acknowledgment that says, “Yeah, I know.”
Every community has a version of this table. Veterans find it with other veterans. Cancer survivors with survivors. Parents of children with complex needs with others who speak that language fluently. I experience it whenever I talk to those who have cared for elderly parents. Even journalists have our own version — around a busy lunch counter or late dinner table, arguing about headlines.
The table isn’t about exclusivity. It’s about the rare and deeply emotional relief of not having to translate your life for someone else, and timing matters.
We weren’t children navigating surgeries for the first time. We were adults who had built careers, relationships and resilience. We had come to Washington to advocate, to push for better systems. That context shaped the conversation.
We were recounting the past, but also connecting it to the future. Even more incredible to me was the fact that the congenital flaw that made us the objects of both fascination and ridicule as children was now quite literally our superpower. It was what brought us to Capitol Hill to help others – because we can.
When we finally stood up, games still flickering on the screens and the crowd still rumbling, I looked at that table and felt the weight of its ordinariness. It was just wood and silverware and a stack of dishes.
But for a couple of hours one evening, amid basketball fans and bar noise, it was something far more. It was a place where five people shared something unique to them – an understanding. No, it was more than that. It was something as rare as the condition that we shared, but as unique as each one of us. But only at this table.