Days before the year’s close, another dismantling was on display outside our windows. Breathtaking views tugged at unexpecting heart strings, coloring the monumental with shades of nostalgia. The workers, strangers before, now waved back to a captivated boy and the mom with the camera. The fourth wall demolished, lives on display. It felt like the last day of summer, heavy and fleeting at once.

What had begun so concurrently with our own grand-scale reconstruction as to seem a reflection of it had grown apart from us, into familiar permanence. A beacon of industry regarded with nothing but wonder. A weathervane for the astronauts. A colossal plant on the windowsill, turning as if toward and away from the sun. Now, the giant stalk is picked apart, dimensions collapse, a landscape is shocked into change.

The transition is over, the construction has been a success. Soon, orchids will peek out of windows that haven’t yet been fitted with glass. It is, so aptly, a time to celebrate endings, embrace emergence, mourn permanence.

In the year to come, we will remember the crane that seemed close enough to reach out and touch with our hands. We will strive to live well, wave back, bear loss, and reclaim the sky.

Photos of the construction site at Warsaw’s Różana taken on the morning of December 28, 2016. Emotions ran high, routines were disruptive: key moments were missed, but the spirit has been captured.