Pay Attention

“It’s yellow,” answered the young girl.

“What else?” asked her grandmother.

“Just yellow,” said the girl.

“What about the edges of the petals?” Grandma pressed.

“Oh,” the girl mumbled. “They’re red.”

“That’s right.” Grandma gazed lovingly at the small child. “The petals are both red and yellow.”

The girl smiled, a grin so wide that it caused her eyes to crinkle and squint as she basked in the total attention that such a special grandmother gives.

“Look at that butterfly on the veranda,” Grandma stated. “What color is it?”

“Brown.” The girl smirked.

“What kind of brown?”

Grandma sat in one of the many paisley dresses she favored in the spring, her walking shoes tap-tapping the wooden slats.

“Light brown and dark brown,” answered the girl with confidence.

“What else?” queried Grandma, with patient firmness.

“Black,” the girl added, “all around the brown spots.”

“That’s right,” Grandma repeated. “Pay attention.” She paused and leaned forward. “When you look, really look. Don’t just glance. What do you see? What do you hear? Take it all in and let it touch your heart. Then you will feel all the beauty.”

The woman cupped the girl’s cheek in her aged palm, intertwined her fingers in the tumbled hair and pulled apart a matt.

A tiny hand reached up to clutch her Grandma’s wrist.

The girl turned her head and nuzzled, the sun’s rays on her face in a bathing glow.

After a while, she dozed off, into a colorful dreamland, that magical place of childlike wonder, without boundaries, limited only by the influences of life awake in a world of disbelievers.

In Grandma’s arms, those influences lost their power. By and by, her eyes fluttered open.

Full of excitement, she began to speak.

“I saw them,” she stammered, talking too fast. “Red ones and blue ones and green ones and purple ones.”

“You saw what?” Grandma gently interjected.

“Flowers—hundreds and thousands of them—fields of them everywhere. They covered a whole mountain.”

“Tell me about them,” Grandma nudged.

“I ran in them and I fell and rolled and they were soft and I looked and I listened and I felt them right here.” She pressed her hands to her chest, her mouth open in silent tribute to the magic. “And I smelled them and I heard them and they sang to me and every one of them was pink.”

“I thought you said they were all different colors,” Grandma questioned.

“Not on the inside,” the girl continued. “I did what you said and I felt their hearts—just like mine, pink.”

“What about that white rose by the stair—does it have a pink heart, too?” The woman gestured toward the bush.

“What do you think, Grandma?” the girl queried.

“If you feel it fully it might,” the woman suggested.

“Of course it does, Grandma. That’s easy,” the girl asserted, shaking her head up and down in happy innocence. “All you have to do is pay attention.”

That’s A View From The Ridge…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Author and International Speaker, Ridgely Goldsborough, started his first business at the age of 16. After graduating from Law School, he earned his first million at the age of 29 and in the last three decades, started 43 companies. For one of those businesses, he founded Domain Street Magazine, the very first internet based magazine about the domain name industry.

Ridgely and his team have over 400 active websites in multiple business verticals and he speaks around the world, in both English and Spanish, as one of the foremost experts in internet marketing, with a specific emphasis on video-based follow up sequences, the secret sauce to online campaigns. He has written 11 books, hosted his own television show and created dozens of audio and video programs on success and prosperity, and conducted dozens of online marketing campaigns resulting in millions of dollars in sales.

In addition, Ridgely is the co-founder of the WHY Marketing Formula, the revolutionary marketing program used by professionals world wide to attract ideal clients. He is a frequent speaker at the top internet marketing conferences on the use of the internet to build marketing networks based on the WHY of the company founder.

When not traveling, Ridgely lives in Florida on the water, with his wife, Kathy. They have four children and share a passion for travel, fine wine and building businesses.

This article originally appeared in the Summer 2021 issue of CHOICES Magazine