Beauty in the Big Ugly

This post is inspired by Cliff Carlson's comment, that he refers to our ride through west Chicago as "the big ugly". I was prompted by this to look for what beauty there is in the Big Ugly on my ride to work this morning. First of all it is a beautiful day! It has been hot, hot and hotter, the haze and dull gray of the sky pressing on us with day after day of 90+ heat. Last night the heat broke and it rained. Today the clear light of a bright day shone on me as I embraced the 72 degree air on my ride in. As I ventured east of the park and started into the big ugly, east on Harrison, I looked at my surroundings and noted the vacant lots, the boarded up buildings, the trash strewn streets gleaming with broken glass and I do understand why Cliff says what he does. But then when I settled into my ride, no traffic, I got in front of the Number 7 bus, a tailwind pushing me, I was cruising, 22.5 mph, my heart was beating and my breath was coming on, I felt this sense of inner beauty, the wonder of the human machine, how well I feel, the state of my conditioning, how easy cranking at 22+ mph is, how my tan legs look pumping the peddles-- ah, a thing of beauty! The beauty that shines from within is always with us, no matter where we are, if we only remember to look inward to see it. As I rounded the corner on Kostner and back on to Harrison I passed some of my homies who always greet me, the old man with his dog, the gent on his front porch leaning back on his chair, each one of them calling out to me "morning, morning..." the comfort of seeing them every day on my ride, their warm greeting-- indeed, a thing of beauty! all along the route I see and greet the same folks, the welder, the security guard, the news paper vendors, and the group of homeless folks at the shelter, it makes my day, it is a fine and beautiful thing. The flowers in the window box gleaming with rain from last night's storm, the cloudless blue sky, making the light with out having to touch down-- another thing of beauty. Yes, it is a beautiful thing to be alive and not too hard to find the beauty even amongst the squalor of the ride through the big ugly.

It was a splendid father's day for me. We went on our first ever family run! Ryder's first one mile run! We mixed in some walking, he got hot and took off his shirt, he struggled a bit but never complained. Once we went past Mills park, the one mile mark, we walked all the way to Starbucks and had some chocolate milk and blueberry muffins (Ryder) while I had a grande skim 3-shot iced latte and Karen an iced Americano. Then we walked home. It was lovely. Rather warm to be running for sure 85+, but the leisurely conversation and nature tour was about as good as a father's gift as a man could ever hope to receive. And the book shopping trip to Border's was pretty cool too!