planting flowers
With this spring that is a bit confusing and still raining fear, bombs and shelling in Ukraine, I have also learned so much about Ukrainian culture. I heard this phrase “Ukrainian people are boarn with the knowledge of gardening". The way that sentence was presented to me was “Ukrainian women are boarn with the knowledge of the earth” and it really made me thinking. It made me reflecting how much women I talk to every week are excited about seeds and planting. How much small things that eventually bloom take space within the minds that also harbor pain, fear, uncertainty and doubt.
As the year rounded up since the first day of the war, my life has showed little difference. Things are routine. Conversations feel similar but more painful as we go. Who’s gonna clean the homes that are left for almost a year? How do I know how to come back? When is the good time? People talking about living double lives - one that is familiar but unsafe and painful and the one here - in the Netherlands - safe but so foreign. How do you navigate duality? How do you switch between the two and make reasonable decisions? How can war be reasonable?
As I was sitting with those thoughts one day whilst early April sun was peaking into the room, I heard a beautiful conversation over the wall. Conversation that had a lot of confusing things - like what is the english word for a certain type of car and how do you navigate shopping in a small city in Ukraine when I heard something that really touched me - he said - “people are planting flowers - because its spring, you know”. He said it with such certainty, with such confirmation of the fact. I felt frozen. I felt humbled. I felt real. The image itself was that - flowers versus the bombs. Honest life versus imerialistic decisions with no account for human life. Life because life prevails. Life because there is no other options. Planting flowers.
And as naive I might sound - it really made sense. Children's drawings against tanks… Signs of love in the face of certain loss… Cherry blossoms in the cold April wind. Because as much it is challenging, it is also somehow about the spring that comes after the coldest winter. Eventually.