Ripple River

A couple of years ago,  I was running on the path around Rippliside, a few blocks from our house. The loop circled the elementary school and the city park, baseball fields, hockey rink, skate park and picnic area. It's one mile length was a convenient marker to build up stamina, always knowing how little or how much my muscles ached at a point in comparison to the last time.

The Ripple River meandered along the edge of the park and provided a natural boundary along which the running path followed its contours before pulling away and turning back towards the baseball field and the elementary school. I always felt lucky living so close to the park and appreciated the city's maintenance of it.

Along the river's edge between the path and a dogleg that brought the river into the park was a bench that in the spring was in the middle of a pool of water as the river came over the bank and in the middle of summer was in a groomed area of grass.

On this day, as I ran out of breath and thought about supper or what I was going to watch on TV that evening I saw from across the park that someone was sitting on the bench looking out at the river as it made its slow turn inward. I still had some distance to go before I approached the place and as a runner of questionable commitment, I appreciated the change in scenery.

As I drew closer, I saw something white in the grass at her feet. She didn't turn to look at me but kept staring at the river passing in front of her. The profile of her face was calm but focused and while she was not a young woman, she wasn't old either. In her lap, she cradled a telephone--not a cell phone but the receiver of a landline phone with a short curly phone line attached to a white push button phone, which sat on the bench next to her. The cord that plugged into the wall trailed into the grass at her feet. I kept running around the circle to eventually complete another mile, but when I got back to this same bend in the river, she was gone.

I was tempted to make a joke of this and share the experience with others but there was something about the scene that held my tendency to joke in check and I never did tell anyone.

Recently, as I researched material for class, I read an essay by Courtney E. Martin about the benefits of keeping connections with lost loved ones. In her essay, she referenced a story about a man in Japan following the 2011 Tsunami which was later part of an episode of This American Life. I selected the essay for my seniors as we read material for our theme on love and loss. Before they read the essay, I told them the story of the woman I encountered in the city park. They all wanted to know what happened next like I was setting them up for some sort of revelation. I just asked them to read the essay.

I don't know what the woman I saw in the park that day was doing or why she had that phone in her lap. I don't need to know, but I'd like to think she was just doing what she needed to do.