a Kind of Refugee / 11.03.2022
This war has so many fronts, as many as there are places or dimensions, real and virtual, that I inhabit. Finding time to sleep is hard.
There were three or four quiet days. I even forgot how the air raid siren sounds. But the body remembers and was ready to move at its 5 a.m. call; it went off again after 11. Russian missiles destroyed the airports outside Ivano-Frankivsk and Lutsk this morning. Three missiles hit residential buildings and obliterated a shoe factory in Dnipro.
I’m sure you don’t need me as a news source but this is what I think about now. And learning new words and expressions to describe what is going on here. “Russia’s brutal assault on Ukraine” is good.
The constant activity on so many fronts also stimulates invention. I recently coined a new word in Ukrainian: післязараз. Resembling післязавтра (after tomorrow) it means “after now.” When there are 5-10 things you need to attend to immediately and someone asks you for something, you say you’ll do it післязараз.
PS I get my daily news updates about the war in Ukraine from The Guardian. They don’t have a paywall; I’m grateful that I can read as much as I need for free. You can help support their invaluable journalism here: https://support.theguardian.com/int/contribute