To the Front or to Poland

The wall against which eight men were executed by russia a short distance from Kyiv

Two men one forty one mid 20s, one heading to the front one leaving the country. You might pick the 20 year-old going to the front and the 40 leaving the country but you’d be wrong. It’s the opposite. The 40 year-old is going back for his third year at the front, the young man on the train with his mother has all the proper papers but the border officer I can tell has suspicions. I observed, and she noticed, that the mother’s face flushed as her son handed over his papers. I doubt he will be coming back. What a choice, the mother, her son, and the soldier have made. I won’t judge. It is their choice, and Ukraine, perhaps more of Europe, hangs in the balance.

America has a choice; will we give Ukraine the resources to protect her civilians and drive the russians back, or will our leaders be the Neville Chamberlain of this century?

If you don’t know who he is, your lack of interest in history is the problem.

Selling on the Cobbles in Liviv

2

Older man. Movement.

Back to the cobbles. Someone will buy, and read.


He stands in the middle of the cobblestone street in a light misty rain people move past him and perceptively lean away as he reaches one of his books toward them. A very few give him money sometimes he doesn’t take it but let him take a book. At first I think he might be passing out religious tracts, but I would rather not think that, it just doesn’t seem the way he’s moving, dressed, he has a poet’s demeanour. I’d like to think that they’re his own poems his own work of a lifetime. The books are dog eared; he’s been trying to sell them for a very long time, years, a lifetime. His spirit is as gray as his coat; it is dark wool and he wears a Tam O’shanter cap he lifts and re-sets as another potential pretends he is not there. He moves slowly but purposefully as he goes back into a doorway. He sits there and sorts through his books maybe deciding on a different one to take out that might attract attention, one he has tried before. Young girls stride past, show bellybuttons, creamy skin, carrot hair and tattoos, eyes ahead or down at the great unreal world in their hand. It’s a bellybutton year here in Ukraine; perhaps a positive sign for hope against the aggressor. Delivery boys on bicycles slalom around him, purposeful walkers glance, curious; more look away. His beard is white; he moves carefully but quickly: there must be something in those books, in that life. I should go and find out. But I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know what he was like as a baby as a young man, as he grew into manhood and why it’s important to him to let people see what he has labored onto the page. I do wonder where he will sleep tonight. He waves a book weakly at each passer, loose in his hand from dropped wrist to attract a glance at a title, or at his dark rough hands, another story. A couple stop and look, they pick something and hand it to their small son. He looks at it for a long time and hands it to his mother. Maybe someday he will read it, and remember. They took a selfie with the old man in the background as he goes back to his doorway and sorts through his books, again. He turns to look at street to see if he’s missed anybody. The mist has stopped. He pulls a scrap of bread from a bag and he throws it out for the pigeons. He looks up and down the street to see if anybody’s coming close. I wonder and I wonder and I want to keep wondering. I don’t want to know. Maybe I don’t want to know because I too am an old man and I have written things that no one has read. Maybe I should be standing on the cobblestones offering my scribbles to strangers.

A day in our life in Kyiv

I just wanted to get these notes down so I never forget them.
Our Kyiv apartment, rented through AirBnB, has been great.

Our apartment

It’s a large studio with high ceilings, lots of natural light, thick walls, galley kitchen with breakfast nook, a sitting area with a vacuum tube TV, small balcony among leafy tree tops, queen bed, and a large bathroom with a tub bigger than our entire bathroom back home. Almost daily, we take our trash, compost and recycling downstairs, and at the end of the day, we carry drinking water back up.

The fountain where we get our drinking water reminds me to be thankful for clean drinking water.

We fill our water jugs at a fountain down on a nearby corner. We walk about a kilometer to the community garden or report for work, on our own schedule, to the nearby workshop, where wood is cut, fitted and stained for the many amenities being installed at Kontraktova Square.

The workshop with all the needed tools has been a great place to work.

We work where we’re needed, meet people, share ideas, connect, then stop at the grocery store on our way home, walking most of the way through a pedestrian only street.

I’ve been saving the inspirational quotes on our store receipts. Maybe someday I’ll write a post just about them.

Along the way, we enjoy the fountain and the flowers in the park.
The fountain we walk by everyday.
We climb 90 worn steps up the old stairway in the 1910 building, taking plenty of time to appreciate some of the carefully preserved original fresco wall and the art deco elements.

A preserved fresco in our building.


Decorative designs in the floor, among the 90 steps up.


A local piece of art I appreciate in the hallway of our apartment.

At home, we prepare a simple dinner of pasta, vegetables, precooked roast meat, and pesto. Each night, after showers and before bed, we go through a mental checklist and pack our bags as if we’ll have to run from a fire in the dark, because we might. We cross the drapes over each other, as if that could help. I make sure my bedding is ready to go out in the hall. Bob has the right to feel that good sleep is too important to miss a night of it, so he moves to the side of the bed farthest from the windows.

Sleeping in the very well-lit hallway.

It’s a very simple life, though we do have WiFi and steady internet access, so the world is brought to us through our phones, whether we want it or not. Chop wood, carry water. The people are genuine here, there’s no act, no performance, no judgement, old souls. Get real.

The After Party

Jesper telling stories after a wonderful dinner.

Our amazing day of delivering vehicles and getting hugs in return was capped off with a fun barbecue at Jesper’s dacha, cabin. The whole crew enjoyed relaxing, catching up and drinking beer (because, Jesper makes beer, of course he does!)
The peace was briefly broken when an F-16 flew overhead. We’re used to that sound in Tucson, but it feels completely different when you know that this is for real. A brief silence fell over the group.
As the evening cooled, we moved inside for dinner and had a perfectly Danish, hygge time. So much so that, by the third bottle of wine, the trains had all stopped for the night, and Uber drivers were not willing to make the 45 minute drive out to get us, and curfew was only an hour and a half away.
“Claire, are you sober enough to drive us, in Jesper’s car, back to our hotel?” By the time they asked me a second time, I thought I’d better be. So, I was. Just as we started the car up, the air raid sirens went off. Hmm, in a strange car, on unfamiliar streets, after dark, with no reliable GPS signal because of an air raid, in a war zone. And we all have to be off the streets by midnight. So, yes, I got a speeding ticket, automatically generated and sent to Jesper.

Claire speeding in Kyiv. I think I was doing 86 kph in a 50 zone.

We got the guys to their hotel, but not before I slammed them into the front seat by forgetting there was no clutch, only a wide brake pedal. As we drove to our hotel with only minutes to spare, people were out in the street, trying to flag me down for a ride. Finding a legitimate parking place was another bar I didn’t quite clear. We made it in for the night at 12:02, and I moved the car in the morning, but before Jesper could pick it up, he received an automated parking ticket. He now has the car and has taken care of both tickets. Thank you Jesper. We’re settled back into our apartment for a week or two and will always have fond memories of this once-in-a-lifetime, exceptional adventure.