day 10

Well...technically day 10 of my countdown would be Sunday, May 29th. But it's 12:19am on Monday, May 30th...but whatever. It's still Sunday in my book.The weather here the past few days has been all over the place. If it's not beautiful sunshine, it's down pouring rain and flash flood warnings.Saturday night I was driving down the 90/94 to meet some girlfriends at The Boundary, and it was one of those "Gotham City" nights in Chicago. If you live here, you know what I'm talking about. The clouds are low and grey, but the lights from the city still seem to shine bright through the fog..it's eerie, creepy, and beautiful.It got me thinking about the first time I'd ever really noticed the skyline like that. Grey & intriguing.It was the night my sophomore year of college when we had a brilliant idea to pitch a tent on the roof of our dorm and sleep out there for the evening. Our version of "urban camping".I woke up early before everyone...which is really weird because I can't even wake up early enough to get to work on time but I managed to get up before dawn. I crawled out of the tent and sat facing the lake, waiting for the sun to come up.This sunrise was gorgeous. Orange, pink, yellow....warm. The clouds and colors changed every minute.But there was the city off in the distance, feeling totally separate from the gorgeous sunrise happening right next to it. And all I could think of was how dirty it looked. How quiet it felt. I was intrigued. It felt like nobody else was awake...just me and the Hancock building. I felt like Chicago belonged to me. This was my city. Where I was growing up in that season of my life.I just sat there for a long time taking it in. I took pictures of the sun coming up--I don't know why I didn't take any of the skyline. I actually think I might have, but then deleted them because it was one of those beautiful things in your mind but is a terrible picture...a picture wouldn't do it justice for my memories and feelings. Then I crawled back into the tent and went back to sleep.I'm pretty sure that's the only sunrise I've watched in years-and that moment by myself is so special to me.