Yesterday I watched our flag lift and dip on a breeze as light snow fell all afternoon.

Today the flag hangs low, pulled toward Earth by the weight of ice crusting its red, white, and blue all-weather nylon. The all-weather earning its keep this weekend.

Fewer trees will stand in Portland next week. Fewer limbs on the trees still standing.

Heather explained to the kids at dinner last night the way ice expands the tiny cracks in roads, how each freeze and thaw cracks a roadway and slowly tears it apart.

Living through a pandemic is like this. 

Tiny fingers of stress ease their way in and heave at society. A little or a lot. Unease and loss crumble the edges of community and family. What remains is more susceptible to harm and future damage. A future of degradation.

Unless we rebuild.

Some repair happens during the disaster itself. A neighborhood piling more sandbags as floodwaters rise around them. This is where we are today. We approach our first anniversary of pandemic life on the west coast. Caring for family and neighbors the way you would if they needed meals after childbirth or the use of a propane heater when the furnace goes down. What needs done in the spirit of humanity.

The cold outside, our impassable roads, each is its own metaphor for pandemic. Hunkering down at home is a habit if nothing else. For now.

Ice will melt off our flag and drip to the sidewalk below. Roads will thaw.

Rebuilding continues as we aim not toward a future of degradation, but of flourishing.