Hear Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary podcast. Click here: https://youtu.be/2nnEeubKFT4
Read his words below:
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Life, actually…
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A WOMAN OF A CERTAIN AGE GOES TRAWLING
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Carefully and steadily she proceeds south from her home on Eastwood Avenue, heading toward the corner half a block away. Her plan is to cross Fifteenth Street and visit the Mall where a familiar daily adventure prepares to pounce and bring pleasure to another extraordinary day.
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She is of a certain age, counted by decades. She is petite and smartly dressed. She carries a respectable handbag and a small umbrella. She is self-contained and smiling. Always smiling.
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Smiling at neighbors, clucking at friendly dogs, picking up an errant candy wrapper and pocketing it for later disposal.
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She smiles at flower beds, inhales their fragrance, continues her journey.
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After safely crossing the lightly trafficked asphalt she arrives at her first destination, a variety store where miscellaneous delights await.
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She adjusts her specs, leans over a waist-high counter and spies an open box filled with multihued beads. She begins her visceral examination, touching first this glass sphere, then this jagged bit of glisten.
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The store clerks are accustomed to this polite visitor and remain pleasantly distant and attentive while she cruises the display.
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She touches a bead with her finger. She uses two fingers to lift it up to the fluorescent light. She holds it at arm’s length, draws it close to her face, each moment paying close attention to its inner glow, its silent world-within-a-world storytelling.
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After another moment of reflection the petite woman of a certain age visits each store display, appreciating what every object has to offer, experiencing the textures and fragrances, noting heft and reflectivity, seemingly never missing a thing.
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She will sweetly continue her explorations till lunch-counter time, then return home to arrange her purchased items for the brief delight of family and other visitors. She will curate these worldly goods as if they are ancient treasures in a museum.
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She reflects on how these objects of desire came into being, how each represents the end result of someone’s long-ago dream. She wonders whatever happened to these anonymous dreamers.
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She wonders whether they still dream
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© 2026 A.D. by Jim Reed