a moment in the day: morning

Five-twentyish in the morning, dark Portland streets, I'm driving to work. The streets are lonely this time of the day when most of the city is home asleep, sheltering in place. I pull up to a stop light and turn my head so I can look at the Christmas lights making a little blinky rainbow across a house's front porch. They're icicle lights but the kind that look like they're dripping, like the icicles are melting color down into the shadows. I watch them until the traffic light turns green.

Most years, I like the holiday lights to go away, come the first weeks in January, afraid that if they linger too long, they'll ruin the Christmas magic for me the next time around. But these days, these lonely morning drives, I look for them everywhere I go. I've plotted my route according to where I see the most twinkle lights. The rare sightings here and there on porches going up Stark Street. The white and gold lights studding Ringler's on Burnside. The white lights along shops running all the way down Northwest 23rd.

On the radio, they're talking to two New York City bus drivers who've lost colleagues, who are afraid of taking the virus home to their families.

I'm crying again and I don't want to have red eyes showing above my mask when I go in to work.

I signal, make a turn, keep driving, look for lights.