In addition to getting together with friends, I had hoped to cycle in Madison area but the weather did not cooperate. I drove through pounding rain Friday afternoon which the area desperately needed. We had a fun dinner at Quivey’s Stable in Fitchburg. I ate fried fish and cheese curds and felt very sluggish Saturday morning. I spent the early morning hours watching the “drizzle to no drizzle” and back again trying to decide if it was good idea for me to cycle around Lake Monona Loop. I eventually decided it was not the wisest idea to go out on wet, unfamiliar roads with compromised visibility and opted to drive around Lake Monona instead.
The Lake Monona Loop will remain on my list of to dos on future road trips. I love eating in local diners for breakfast/brunch so I tried to find one in Madison before I left town. Unfortunately others had the same idea and there were long waits for 3 different locations so I took off for Naperville. As I was not in a hurry, I widened my area in search a diner and ended up at Ned’s Diner in Belvidere, IL. I took state and county roads to it and continued on back roads as far as I could before connecting with I-88 into Naperville. It was beautiful countryside and a relaxing drive. The diner food was great!!
I arrived in Naperville a few hours after the torrential rains had ended. While I had stayed on the outskirts of Naperville with friends many times over the last several years, I had never really walked around downtown Naperville where they now live. It is an amazing downtown with a riverwalk, a old rock quarry turned into a community swimming pool, a community outdoor music venue and much more. Much of the sidewalks along the riverwalk were flooded.
While Sunday had a high chance of rain, it turned out to be a beautiful day for cycling and after looking at the maps of trails on line, I took off to ride through the Greene Valley Forest Preserve about 6 miles from downtown Naperville. My goal was 30 miles and I ended up with 33 miles. I was never so happy for Google map’s as I was able to get “lost and found” in the Forest Preserve many times. I road through beautiful preserve and various community parks along the Dupage River and some lakes. It was great to see so many people out enjoying the nice weather. I rode by a Earth Day Fair – which I presume was postponed from the actual Earth Day in April. Aspects of trails were still flooded on Sunday afternoon.
After the fabulous ride I arrived at my hosts in time to listen to a bit of an outdoor concert of the community band which featured some adult beginners who took up their instruments during Covid. This was their first real time performing together. After cleaning up, there was a delicious rum cocktail – while waiting for our outdoor table at the sushi restaurant on the Naperville Riverwalk. Prior to Covid, I didn’t really like Mules but the flavor of the ginger beer works for me now so I had a lovely Blue Mule. with Sushi. Sushi was followed by sitting on the outside patio of a Mexican restaurant with live music. A 2 man acoustic group played 70’s and 80’s covers and billed themselves as the Best Acoustic Band on the Planet – perhaps not the best on the planet, but certainly perfect for the afternoon. The music was accompanied by 2 spicy margaritas. I subsequently visited my first Starbucks Reserve that serves even more expensive coffee drinks with and without alcohol. I didn’t even know this new type of store existed. There was one more spicy margarita upon returning home while we watched the women’s gymnastics trials. What gifted athletes!!!
The 5 cocktails were injested over a 5 hour period of time and that seemed a perfect amount for the day and the circumstances. I was able to continue a dialogue I had started with one of my hosts – a black man – into unconscious bias and his experiences growing up during the same years as I did for high school and college. He was a athlete – a quarterback in high school and college (during the 70’s). While I can imagine the challenges he faced then and throughout his life, his willingness to share with me was helpful. It is important to hear the individual perspectives of the impact of unconscious bias – things I would not have considered. For example, being invited as a guest into a world of white privilege in the South. As a woman urologist I was often the only woman in the room and knew what it was like to feel invisible or a token. However, I did not feel any internal conflict or anxiety about being served by others that looked like me. But he did.
I hope the telling of personal stories- real and fictional- in all forms of media will open more dialogues. As an example, I was blown away by this season of This is Us. In my opinion they attacked unconscious bias head on and portrayed it as a complicated process. It was painful to watch and I think it is important that it was portrayed as a process rather than discrete problem that can be solved in one episode.
My journey to understanding unconscious bias regarding every person that is different than I am continues.
Tamara Unleashed 