Blessings By the Mile

     I’m at a writing conference in Philadelphia and am staying on a campus in a dorm. So many thoughts swirled in my head last night about getting my classroom ready for the school year, missing my family, trying to figure out how I'm going to do all of the things I've learned at this conference, finding time to write all of the stories I have ideas for, and figuring out what to add to my blog. My thoughts even took me to the white duck in the pond on the campus here. The poor little guy is all alone, swimming around all day by himself every time I see him. It was hard to sleep with so many stray thoughts.
     When my alarm went off at 5:30am, I was not excited about waking up. I’m normally a morning person, but I run every other day and I did not run yesterday. I could also hear rain hitting the window. Ugh.
     It would have been really easy to reason away why I shouldn’t have to run. I’m at a conference, it’s raining, it’s hilly, and I’m so tired. I should maybe set the alarm for another hour so I can be more alert in my sessions today.
     Blessings at Mile 0: Deciding to get up and do it anyway. I climbed out of bed and got my running clothes on. Before I left my room, I checked my email. The top email was from Hawaii, from a man that asked me to contribute to a book about kindness. Today was book release day! Fun news!
     Blessings at Mile 1: The rain feels awesome in the warm air. As I turn on the road leading around a chapel, there in the grass, was a flock of geese. They were calm and seemed to be socializing and enjoying their time together. In the middle of the flock was the little white duck. He has friends! I smiled the rest of that mile knowing he had someone to hang out with.
     Blessing at Mile 2: As you could probably guess, I’m an animal lover. The blessing in this mile was a group of baby and mama deer peacefully grazing by some trees. They seemed completely unphased by me running by.
     Blessing at Mile 3: My route took me back by the pond. There swam the little white duck, again by himself. Maybe he is like me and enjoys fellowship with others as much as he enjoys his alone time in the pond. This made me smile too.
     Blessing at Mile 4: I started seeing people heading to breakfast and realized my running time was up. I made it 4 miles and feel great. Time for a shower, some good food, and I guess I figured out a blog post to write!
     Enjoy life's simple blessings.