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The Reservoir
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Ridgely Goldsborough
Her feet crunched softly on the hard ground below them as she jogged.
Fellow runners kept their eyes mostly on the trail at this early hour, knocking out the miles, anxious to get home to a hot shower and a cappuccino.
She found that interesting.
Why didn’t they look around more, watch the morning wake up?
In the winter, the cold compounded the isolation.
Bundled in long-johns, mittens and hats, they seldom said hello or even nodded their heads.
Automatons in motion, that’s all.
What a waste.
The swans gathered in the middle of the lake, sentinels guarding the periphery while the others communed and dove for fish.
“They seem so civilized,” she mused, “unlike us humans.”
Even exercise buddies ran in silence, as if they joined forces only to perform a function of pain, a sort of I-will-if-you-do camaraderie of woebegone do-gooders that weren’t, more of an endure the austerity mentality for the privilege of later sins—potato chips and donuts, and the right to brag that they knocked out a couple of laps.
Her mind ran too, to odd and funny places.
She tried with much effort to imagine what they all thought, what tortured them what gave them joy—if anything.
So easy to hide in a big city, to blend and disappear in a morass of humanity, no names, just faces and bodies in perpetual motion.
What a weird space.
She passed another homeless man, the third or fourth that day, curled up like a fetus on a bed of cardboard, in a man-made cocoon.
“Not that different than hiding in a tiny apartment,” she said inwardly before correcting herself. “At least from the perspective of shutting the world out.”
And then, she crossed the threshold and began to feel the high.
No longer tired, her muscles extended her stride, picked up the pace and propelled her toward an endorphin bliss.
She noticed a couple walking and holding hands.
She watched a couple of dogs frolic and their owners laugh when the leashes caused a tangled mess.
She laughed herself at a fellow jogger buried under a headset singing out loud in the most horrendous off-key.
She spotted three school girls all chatting at once, animated, full of zest.
As her own head raised from the trail to the faces of those coming in the other direction, she caught an eye, and then another, and then a nod, and finally a smile.
“Perhaps I was mistaken,” she worried. “What if it was always me?”
The worry turned to chuckle, one of those AM realizations that remind us of the machinations that cloud pre-caffeine moments.
“What if all they needed was for me to smile first?”
She felt the onset of a silly grin.
“I sure can trip on myself,” she admitted as she turned for home. “What a ride.”
A new arrival glanced up from tying his shoes, saw her smile and conjured up a massive scowl.
This time, she only laughed.
That’s A View From The Ridge…
www.aviewfromtheridge.com
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ridgely began scribbling as soon as his fingers could curl around a pen. So began a love affair, interrupted periodically by schooling, business and any number of self-initiated distractions to mask the fear of pursuing his childhood dream-to be a writer.
The journey took him through Law School, a number of private companies, going public, a large merger and back to his desk, a computer with a keyboard and the daily challenge of following the dream.
Along the way, Ridgely founded and/or acted as publisher for Network Marketing Lifestyles magazine, Domain Street magazine and the Upline Journal along with dozens of books, audio and video materials. He writes several books per year, in addition to The Daily Column.
Ridgely holds an undergraduate degree from The University of Virginia, a law degree from Whittier College School of Law, is fluent in five languages and has spoken to audiences throughout Europe, Southeast Asia, Mexico and North America.
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