A Chance Meeting

(Day Four in my Month of Blessings)

I am endlessly amazed at the feats of the human body. Our capabilities for movement and endurance, grace and stress. I was out running today – another absolutely beautiful fall Tennessee day – and was just so darn thankful for my health. My ability to move. To run through the neighborhood. To breathe easily (well, relatively speaking, I was running up a hill at the time).

I passed two distinctly separate things that gave me pause for thought and the motivation to run even better. The first was a coyote standing in the road – looking at me. I had seen this same coyote earlier today and it seemed a little eerie to bump into him twice in one day – and for him not to be more skittish. As I was running, I thought, “Great the thing is probably rabid and it’s going to come attack me – that’s all I need!” It was bad enough when I got hit by a car while I was running and had to explain that one again and again but to also get attacked by a coyote – not possible in this lifetime. I ran faster up that hill. I thanked God for His presence and my safety and while I was at it, I shot the coyote a few positive thoughts too – hope you’re well, hope you find you’re way home, hope you’re not hungry for a 39 year-old mother of two . . .

And then, as I almost reached the top of the hill, I saw an older woman coming down her driveway with a wheeled walker, a companion by her side for support. As I smiled at them and said hello and they looked at me, I wondered if she envied me my run. I stood up a little straighter, picked up my pace a bit (noticeable to perhaps only me because I was nearing the top of the big hill), and ignored the side ache that I’m almost sure was from the two mini-Mounds bars I snuck out of Taggart’s Halloween candy. What I knew was that I was able and this woman in the walker was not. It made me thankful.

Thankful for my body – imperfections and all. Thankful for the body that on any given day, I can find something wrong with, but that serves me better than well and affords me so many opportunities: to run in the warm afternoon sunshine, to jump with my kids on the trampoline in the backyard, to breathe easily and deeply, to perceive deeply and assuredly with all five of my senses, to grow and birth two babies . . .

From a lifetime of battling a body image war, I could spend a lot of time recounting what I wish was different. But today, I am throwing up a hallelujah for what is: me – whole, healthy, vibrant, and strong - dreaming of a movement-filled future for a woman with a walker whom I do not even know. Not to mention a record-breaking time on my three-mile loop . . . thanks to some coyote I think I’ll call Chance.