He jabbed sharply at me. I flinched. 

As the sun set slowly on Kedzie Avenue, a couple blocks south of Lawrence Avenue, I imagined his hardened fist hitting my face, knocking my jaw numb. In that moment, I wondered whether I would absorb the blow and return fire, or go down coldly to the concrete.

I saw him approach from a quarter block away, the lone man coming my way on this surprisingly empty stretch of a normally bustling street. This homeless, cracked-out man wore the dried skin of one who has spent all summer on the streets of Chicago, protected only by his mustache and a smattering of unkempt facial hair. He cackled nonsense as he approached, strutting the way men do here, when their confidence and a garbage bag of clothes is all they have.

I was halfway through my evening’s jog, striding through what has become my preferred route, when he stepped toward me as we passed, his fist rising, a special cackle just for me.

“Rrrraaaahhhh!”

The best “Welcome to Chicago” gift I received actually had nothing to do with my moving to Chicago. It came more than a year before I moved, when my brother-in-law signed me up for the Green Bay Marathon as a joke. That joke, or dare, turned me into a runner.

When I moved into my apartment just outside Lincoln Square in February, I set out to run as many streets in Chicago as I could. These runs - I’ve covered a couple hundred miles so far - have introduced me to this city, its neighborhoods, its feel. These runs have made me feel at home.

I change up the times, but my favorite runs are those in the evening as the sun fades away. I love to bounce through the thicket of people disembarking from the train at Montrose, or Bryn Mawr, or Southport, sneaking a peak at the faces of the day’s commuters as I hop, slide, and twist around them. 

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