L.A.T.E. Ride

I can now check off "watch sunrise at Lake Michigan in Chicago" on my list of things to do in life.

The sunrise takes more than half an hour. It begins with a few blue and purple patches in the distance, eventually spreading to thick bands of colors as the sun waits beneath the surface. On this particular morning a long, thin, curved strip of clouds floated over the impending light. It looked like two closed eyes, the lashes painted with a thin brush or cautiously with a fingernail. The light below seemed to create two circles around the clouds to what I could only imagine as God’s eyelids.

Riding along the path I saw hundreds of oval-shaped oranges dancing across the ripples of the lake along shore. The water stretched out beyond the tangerine spots and birds hovered carefully close to land. Sets of couples embraced each other along the water with the highrises behind them.

Except for the swarms of gnats smacking me in the face and the sound of cars on the highway (what the hell are people driving for at 5 in the morning on Sunday? There seemed to be an inordinate amount of drivers), it was a perfectly idyllic scene. By the time the sun was completely above the water horizon, I sat down on a set of rocks. A distinct path of fuscia light shot on top of the water from the middle of the sun directly to where I sat. The light rolled across the peaks of the waves, forming rectangular steps moving in my direction like a semi-flat escalator. A young couple sat about 30 feet to my right. She was a few months pregnant. They were talking most of the time. Before they got up, they gave each other a long hug and he kissed her softly on the neck.

I imagine some people in my position may have been lonely. Maybe it was the rap yelling in my ears through my mp3 player. I think most likely it was a combination of awe at the scene, and a blank thought of any particular person that precluded any sense of being alone. I mostly wondered what the other people scattered along the shoreline were thinking. How many of them were drunk? What were they talking about? If nothing else, the few souls around appreciated the beauty of that brief timespan.

I arrived at this point after participating in the L.A.T.E. ride. From 1:30-5:30 a.m. more than 8,000 people ride a 25-mile loop of the city beginning at Buckingham Fountain. It goes through Greektown on Halsted and continues north mostly on Kedzie until Foster. Riders then cruise down the lake shore path until they get back to the start, where a fruit and bagel breakfast awaits. I thought I would talk to more people, but I spent most of the time listening to music, observing the other riders, and navigating through the snail’s pace of the trip. On the ride back I could barely sit on the seat from horrible swamp ass. I’m writing this now because there are a few moments in my life that I’d like to recall when I’m older. And without transcription I don’t know if I will.