Any inspiring, diverting or engaging words evaporate under intense distress following my country’s election results. I can barely offer this much tonight. I feel weary, confounded. Not yet utterly discouraged or disheartened. One does not abandon hope for one’s countrymen and countrywomen. Nor one’s belief in betterment of the future despite obstacles. In my homeland. My place of living and being, creating and caring, making do and making bridges, reaching for greater good.

Today I shed tears upon awakening. I walked a very long time–it is sometimes the only and even best thing I can accomplish.

I offer these two photos…. because of the beauty and the meaning found today. This is a bed and breakfast, a Greek Revival mansion built in 1911. It captures my imagination in various ways. It’s called Portland’s White House, oddly, perhaps. I have photographed this place for years, in every season from many angles, and have used it once or twice for a post on architecture and a short story.

But today seeing the United States flag hanging so quietly between pillars stopped me on the corner as it never has before.

I believe the flag flown is a rendition of a Betsy Ross flag; she made the original American flag in 1776. I wonder what she would think of all this tonight, she and George Washington and the rest.

Another day, my WordPress friends, another day. I have (we have) much to think on. But we must go on, must we not…? Don’t we have to brave our lives’ and our country’s storms, seek clarity through arduous times and beyond? Yes. In the struggles, we still can maintain comittment to an ongoing mindfulness that melds us to higher principles–and far better actions. We are many and we have to keep at it. I will not be undone, will hold fast to far greater than what can be seen.