Yesterday I encountered a river otter while running by the lake.
I'm on the return trip of my out-and-back route along the waterfront when I hit this straightaway stretch that means I'm almost there. It's my "you can do this" section where I'm tired but nudge myself along knowing it'll be over soon. For a predominantly overcast day, the sun made a very valiant effort while I puttered along that section of the path. It was going to rain; without a doubt. It was just a matter of when. In fact, I was prepared to get rained on during my run, but so far I'd made it unscathed.
My heads down and I'm counting out elongated inhales and exhales when something off to the right catches my eye. It's in the water, and it's moving but not splashing. What is that? It kinda looks like a log—wait, is that an animal?
I slowed to a stop, trying to identify it.
When I stopped, it did a 180° and swam straight toward me. Now, it... it's checking me out, isn't it? Cautiously, I started to jog. It changed direction again and followed me. At first I thought it might've been a beaver, but it's a river otter. I didn't even know we had those here.
I'm grinning at this point, remembering a childhood trip to Alaska where my mom and I saw otters floating together on their backs along the coast. This one shepherded me to the end of the straightaway before bidding me farewell and heading back down the shoreline.
So cool.
I'm winding down my run thinking about how calm I felt when the river otter showed up. It was immediate. I'd been sort of cycling through a list of stressors in my head before that. And that shifted dramatically once I encountered that furry little fella. It felt like good luck or something.
When I got home, I looked it up and discovered that otters are associated with peace and play. So I'm psyched. And I'm grateful—because I think that's exactly what I need right about now.
What's the universe trying to tell you these days?
onward.
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