Looking for light

Flickers of optimism popping up in life under coronavirus

We are all scanning the darkness of coronavirus for light these days — especially as we celebrate Passover and Easter, with themes of deliverance and resurrection.

While numbers remain horribly grim, across South Florida, you’ll find flickers of optimism. They are not data-driven, but instead emotional and personal and serendipitous, reminders of gatherings past and the promise of better days ahead, free from the trashy tyranny of “Tiger King,” boxed wine and pepperoni pizza bites.

Here are a few of them, but keep an eye out for your own.

“I hope that this can bring a smile to some of your faces.”

Zoo Miami wildlife expert Ron Magill

Within the storm, rainbows

Kids (and parents) all over South Florida have brightened the windows of their homes with paintings of rainbows — sort of a forward-facing version of sidewalk art that is also trending. All together now! “The sun’ll come out, tomorrow! So ya gotta hang on, ‘til tomorrow, come what may! Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I love ya tomorrow! You’re always a day a-wayyy!”

Cheers to Sister Margaret Ann

Remember your local brewery? The warmth and irreverent wit spilling from those beards? The punny names of the beers? This week Due South Brewing Co. in Boynton Beach released a new batch of Nun With a Chainsaw, a hoppy IPA that debuted during another challenging time, in the weeks after Hurricane Irma in 2017. Available for takeout in the tap room, the beer is a tribute to Sister Margaret Ann, a chainsawwielding Miami nun whose tree-clearing work was captured in a viral video and came to symbolize South Florida fortitude. We will be irreverent again someday. For now, we are all Sister Margaret Ann.

Call to the faithful

Houses of worship have been closed to the large gatherings, and yet most continue to serenade their neighborhoods with the traditional call to the faithful — a relic of times when congregants lived and worked and raised families in communities within the distance the sound traveled. Even the least observant among us may feel a soulwarming and unyielding optimism in its message.

Just try to resist

This week Zoo Miami wildlife expert Ron Magill shared pictures of highly endangered clouded leopard kittens, a male and a female, born recently at the zoo. “I hope that this can bring a smile to some of your faces,” he said, “Hopefully, once this pandemic has run its course, the public will be able to return to the zoo to personally see these precious new additions.”

Progress at Sistrunk Market

As wo rry over coronavirus tightened its grip on South Florida, Pompano Beach artist Diane Portwood stopped work on a mural on the side of Sistrunk Market in downtown Fort Lauderdale, a reminder of the unfortunate timing of bar closings for this long-anticipated project. But Portwood recently got back up on the scaffolding and finished the mural, and is now in talks with owners of Sistrunk Market to add another, perhaps featuring her signature astronauts, to the front of the building.

Mango season is near

Behind my house a large tree has begun to shine with a slowly reddening alert: Mango season is coming. This is a time of many rewards — chunks of mango with vanilla Blue Bell, or slushed up in a frozen, homemade mangorita — but my favorite conveyance for this fruit is a cardboard box attached with a handlettered sign that beckons to passersby: “Free mangoes.” This slice of front-yard neighborliness — in the harvesting and choosing and washing and boxing and sign writing — represents South Florida at its instinctive best.

Back to the beach

At a time when everything is shutdown, it ’s heartening to see something getting ready to open up. Construction continues behind large windows covered with smiling young people in preppy beachwear offered by the iconic coastal fashion retailer Southern Tide, opening its first standalone, brandowned store in South Florida on Fort Lauderdale’s tony Las Olas Boulevard. Check Southern Tide’s

LinkedIn for information on hiring.

Back to the boats

South Florida boat ramps are closed but Yasmine Reger is preparing to welcome boaters and the Jungle Queen to the waters in front of her home on the south fork of Fort Lauderdale’s New River, where on Friday she’ll install a 12-by-12-foot sculpture of two crossing palm trees by acclaimed artist Romero Britto. The creation — a wildly colorful piece, static but somehow in motion — is pure Britto. We need this kind of whimsy.

Nourishment for the soul

The closure of gyms and parks has encouraged a lot of us to make the neighborhood walk a new tradition, allowing us to form (at a distance) new bonds with neighbors on streets we usually just drive through. These solo-cupped ambles (wait, is it just me?) also allow us to discover uplifting idiosyncrasies about where we live. For instance, a free book-sharing library in front of the Hollywood home of Jim Curry and wife Paula Villarraga turned into a food cupboard, when people began leaving nonperishable items for those in need. Books are still available, too.

Light the way

Since its opening last fall, the lights of the Guitar Hotel have been a metaphor for the tourism and commerce that is our livelihood. Darkened when the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood suspended operations due to coronavirus concerns, the lights were turned back on this week with three displays rotating every 45 minutes from dusk ‘til dawn. A centerpiece of the show is the image of a pulsing heart, which a Hard Rock spokesman described as a tribute to health-care workers and first responders, as well as “a message that if all hearts beat as one, we will get through this.” Memo to self: Create new U2 playlist.

Goldie Alfonso, 10, along with her dog, Maggie, admire the rainbow and clouds she created with her mother, Alissa, for their home’s window. “My daughter and I wanted to spread hope and positivity,” Alfonso said.

A book sharing box in front of the home of Jim Curry and his wife, Paula Villarraga, of Hollywood, has turned into a food cupboard for those in need.

MIKE STOCKER/SOUTH FLORIDA SUN SENTINEL A bicyclist rides by a pair of inflatable hands with a small sign at the base reading “wash your hands” at the Blue Mickey House on Hollywood Beach on Friday. The house on the Hollywood boardwalk is known for bringing joy to the neighborhood with various inflatables that are on display for different holidays.

MICHAEL LAUGHLIN/SOUTH FLORIDA SUN SENTINEL Sisters Ellie, left, and Caroline Byrd draw chalk art on Northeast 20th Court, in the Coral Ridge neighborhood of Fort Lauderdale on Thursday. Across South Florida, especially at Easter and Passover, people are looking for ways to cheer themselves up and for visual reminders of better times ahead.