The alarm clock on the nightstand registered a sixty one early on Saturday morning. The windows cranked open as the bright moon shined down from the western sky.
The air is still and the lion across the river is roaring faintly over a motorcycle racing on the distant street.
This is beautiful to me. The only thing missing is Hazel breathing in her sleep. The soft breath of a child that will soon be too old to crawl into her daddy’s bed.
These moments don’t last very long. The moon will be under the horizon before the sun starts to appear from the east. The traffic will start to build and drown the morning stretches coming from the lions grotto.
Beauty changes all around us every quick minute of the day. That’s the gift of life or the mystery depending on how you look at it. Beauty doesn’t last long.
Today’s quote comes from the last couplet of a John Keats poem. A poem about an Ancient Greek urn that has been around for centuries. A piece of art that was around before the romantic poets and will be around long after John Shepley.
My grandchildren will visit the Chicago museums and see the same treasures that I did. They will see Buckingham fountain and the bean in Millennium Park. They will see the Picasso at the Daley building.
But the future Shepkids will have to experience their own early morning October Saturdays. The beauty on this morning belongs to me.
You always hear the saying about beauty being in the eye of the beholder. I woke up to cold air on my neck and the moonlight shining across my bedroom. A beautiful way to wake up.
I see beauty when I unwrap a Chicago hotdog and the colors of the tomato and relish and mustard. The red, the green and the yellow masterpiece about to leave beauty in my belly.
A steaming pizza box with the picture of Italy is a beautiful site. So is an elevated train screeching along Lake Street. The couple in their eighties that walk by my balcony every evening before dinner time is beautiful.
Beauty doesn’t have to come from a poem that is two hundred years old about a Grecian urn that is two thousand years old.
Beauty is the fleeting moment that we all breath. It changes in the angles of the moonlight and the sunlight. Beauty changes as our children grow taller and their voices grow stronger.
Beauty is a middle age man with a big butt pulling the blankets up to his chin snoring in his chilly bedroom on a cold October morning.
What will this October weekend bring me that will bring beauty to my eye?
Will it be in a growler of BuckleDown beer and an Alpine sub?
Will it be played on a rugby pitch in Lemont?
Will it be the empty breakfast plate thrown in the sink by my oldest son?
Or when he says, “thanks dad! You make the best scrambled eggs!”
Will I find beauty listening to my Saturday radio programs or the folding of the Saturday newspapers?
Will I find beauty in the steam coming from the coffee cup and that first sip of caffeine?
The answer is yes…. This is the beauty that lays ahead of me on this only October 9th, 2022 that I’ll ever see.
Today is National pierogi day… I find beauty in these Polish dumplings filled with flavor.
Saturday morning errands can bring beauty. Saturday afternoon chores can bring beauty as well. So can the Saturday evening cocktail with Frank Sinatra in the background.
Your job today is to find beauty. I trust you’ll see it before it’s gone.
