Despite Everything, Strawberries

The longer you're in it, the more normal it gets

Somehow, things are settling into an unsettling kind of ‘normal’. School isn’t back yet (thankfully), but afterschool clubs are. Maya’s gymnastics practice is a fifteen-minute walk from our house, and on Monday she begged me to take her.

I would have rather stayed home but she was desperate. She said: “You know what to do if there is a siren. And I know what to do. So what’s the problem??”

The problem is that these are not those errant missiles from the Houthis that we had all last year. These ones are cluster bombs, child. And there are more of them.

This is what I wanted to say but I didn’t, obviously. Instead, I heard myself say, “OK, if you speak Russian to me the whole day, we’ll go.”

She did. And we went.

She even wrote me a WhatsApp in Russian asking me to buy strawberries while I was in the grocery store.

I mustered up my courage and went to the grocery store to get some cheese. And strawberries. Because, despite everything, the strawberry season is in full swing.

I got what I needed, paid, and was about to leave when a siren sounded. Went to the shelter with all the other people. When we got the all clear, I stopped by the freezer and grabbed a bucket of ice cream to take home.

Your perception of danger changes the longer you’re in it. I used to grab my emergency backpack every time I headed to the safe room. It contained my laptop, my coloring pencils, my notebooks, and sketchbooks — things I don’t want to lose if our house is destroyed, but also things I might want to use if we’re there for hours.

But lately I got tired of dragging it back and forth, so I don’t take anything. Because maybe I’m not thinking ‘if our house is destroyed’ anymore.

But then I read that someone brought the key from their apartment into the safe room (they said Homefront Command recommended it). Why? So that if your house is ruined and/or you get trapped inside, you can toss the key outside to the rescuers. But then, if your house is hit, doesn’t the key to the front door become kind of useless? I’m not sure about the mechanics of it but I brought the key in there as well. Even though I don’t take my backpack in there anymore. Even though I’m sure we’ll be fine.

I keep thinking about this guy I met last year. I was looking for my lost cat and saw a guy sweeping the street in a neighborhood I rarely go to. I asked if he’d seen a grey tabby around here. He shrugged and shook his head, and I understood that he didn’t speak Hebrew. I asked “What language?”

“Russian,” he replied. I switched to Russian and showed him the picture of the cat. He said he’d seen her last Thursday down the road. I gave him my phone number and asked him to please call me if he sees her again. His name was Oleg and he was from Ukraine.

He asked if I was born here. I said no, in Russia. An awkward pause followed during which I had time to think that maybe he won’t help me find my cat now because I was born in Russia. I asked, “Where in Ukraine?”

From Chernivtsi.

I told him my family is from Ukraine originally (which was true but probably also out of place because I haven’t had anyone there for 20+ years.)

How is it there now? I asked.

He shrugged: last week was really bad. His family is still there - only he, his wife, and his daughter have immigrated. Now his uncle in Moscow keeps telling him, “You ran away from a war and you came into a war! You have to leave again!” He added, “But where will I run? Greece? At least I’ve started learning the language here a little bit… and what will I do there? Start from zero again? You know, here it’s a country that’s always at war. So at least people are used to it, and there are things like safe rooms, and everything is well organized. But in Ukraine, there is nothing, and only money counts…”

I wonder where Oleg is now and if he ran away to Greece after all.

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in other news 🖍️

I spent this week outfitting this child’s room while he was fast asleep. I didn’t plan for this room to look the way it does. It started like a generic child’s room in an undefined time and place. But then I needed a more authentic door. Then a more historically accurate window. Then a Soviet-style heater. And little by little I was transported into another world. Into a world where a child is sleeping through the night and nothing bad is happening outside. At least not yet.

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