Colors

Sweetbriar loop this morning. Eight miles, straight up and no frills. Steady “recovery” pace and didn’t look at my watch until I finished. E. wasn’t out this morning, perhaps she had left as I was about 5 minutes late. Thus I ran alone. 66:11. Both Achilles tendons were sore for the last two miles, will monitor this.

The sun is rising early enough now to where I can catch the sunrise over Center City as I cross the South Street Bridge. There was a mist hanging over the skyline and the sunrise was very bluesy-greysy with wisps of cloud streaking against what promised to become a blue sky. As it got lighter the morning evolved into a palette of what a girlfriend in college once explained to me as “earth tones” – browns, greys, navy blues and maroonish reds. Temps were already comfortable in the 40’s, with all the makings of another beautiful day.

The beauty of the daybreak continued into Mantua as I cruised home down 42^nd Street. If I had a camera with me I’d still be out there shooting pictures. Scenes all around me this morning that presented themselves as if the neighborhood were revealing secrets. A vacant house with the front wall partially knocked in to make visible a living room that looked eerily like my own, complete with a stairway going up the side and moldings around the edges of the ceiling; the sun lit up a row of house facades anchored on the far end by a church, and left them shining in a way they must have in their prime fifty years ago. On the next block a set of bright newly renovated rowhouses looked ready for move-in. Further along, at 48th and Haverford, the sun was a red ball rising behind a large field that hinted how the area looked before the advent of the streetcar suburbs. On the other end of the field loomed ghostlike hulks of two public housing high-rises and a grand 1920’s era insurance building, crowned with a cupola.

I 'm wondering what in my day is now going to top all that.