a Kind of Refugee / 23.10.2022
When the power goes out (which has happened four times since October 10), it helps to be in my own apartment, where my body knows the routes from bedroom to bathroom, from kitchen to the hall, from years of repetition.
Despicable. Disorienting. Cowardly. Abhorrent. Undaunting. These words come to mind when I think about russia’s ongoing massive missile strikes of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure throughout the country.
It makes life less pleasant (literally, colder and darker) but it also misses the point. Does life depend on my attachment to my iphone?
***
Last night I danced. For the first time since mid-February I danced with abandon, relishing every moment of connection with my partner: coming closer, moving further away, getting lost and then finding ourselves together again. The third dance with Vova was spectacular and when he asked, “Shall we dance another?” I hesitated, knowing that agreeing to one more dance when I’m tired could destroy the magic that we’ve just created. “Yes,” I replied, “as long as we take it easy.” That reminder was more for me, with my partner as witness. We danced relaxed, loose, and when I caught myself trying to guess and match his lead I let go, which allowed me to actually feel where he was leading me and ease into it and just dance. Ah!
It felt incongruous to don so many layers in the dressing room before going home. I was —for once, this week—warm! And that warmth was still with me when I entered my cold apartment (even colder inside than outside!), stretched, took a warm shower, and then crawled into bed wearing a warm hat, nestling under three blankets.
***
I’m home again. In my beloved apartment in Kyiv. With the war right here in a visceral way. I’ve learned a new sound, that of an explosion in the air. It’s a softer boom, could be mistaken for thunder. This is our air defense working successfully.
The glee as I stand in my kitchen, with the afternoon sun shining on the city’s right bank across the river, is electrifying. And indecent. It is a kind of cruel happiness that knows that every missile and drone that was not struck down by Ukraine’s air defenses DID blow up something. And it wasn’t me. It is not relief but actual life force perking up and CELEBRATING that I am here and this is here and I am alive to be enjoying this moment.
Unlike the historic apartment building a few blocks from Kyiv’s main train station now in ruins. Or the flower market in the center of Mykolaiv. They now exist exclusively in the past, in somebody’s memory; now some of those people who would remember them are gone too.
***
To start doing the things you used to do before February 24 means to reconnect with that past—memories of things done (or undone) and of moods, states of mind, habits of thought and feeling.
I’ve discovered two distinct selves: one that responds to outside stimuli and demands, the one who thinks and decides quickly what to do when she hears an explosion, gauging the distance, scanning the environment to assess whether it’s better to stay put or move, the one that acts on the most urgent needs that present themselves in the moment. Then there is that self with continuity, the one that remembers what I did or felt the other day, a year or even decades ago, the one with history, family, who is a member of communities and has relationships.
Perhaps in healthy, “normal” conditions, those two selves are one: you make decisions from more complex considerations based on the ways you are specifically tied to the world. But in the former case, the emergency acting self, communities / relationships / memories of past experience are all resources for more expedient response and resolution of the immediate problem.
***
I find it strange and predictable when my friends write from abroad to check if I’m okay after Kyiv was struck by missiles. That they care about my well-being is something I know regardless of when they write to me. That they write me at this moment says more about the ways that our lives and imaginations are shaped by the news from the Internet and television.
Is it possible that your concern for my (or another’s) safety may be more about YOU than the other? Do you want me to reassure you that I am okay so that you can relax and go back to what you were doing? Do you want me to tell you what I see and smell out my window so you can get a more detailed picture of what’s happening than what the news provides? (I often ask questions from this place.) Do you want me to tell you I’m scared and anxious and cold so that you can feel bad and commiserate? Is connecting with me an action that brings you closer to what is happening in Ukraine lest you feel helpless and overwhelmed by the barrage of news from the screens? (I’ve been there too.)
We need each other, to share the pain and joy of living—together. No doubt. A wise performer and teacher once ran an entire workshop devoted to the question: What are you sharing (when you address an audience)?
***
Humanism is an abstraction that substitutes an image of people who suffer but deserve comfort for people themselves, individual people in all their complexity. Each person with their distinct curiosity, touch, desire to reach out to the world and an other, all rooted in the body, is something more and separate from the schemes they use to think about the world around them. People are problems, always. Humanism wants to solve the problem of humanity once and for all.
What really matters to you? Don’t say “the safety of my loved ones.” That is a mirage. Playing with your kids; the smile of your beloved; hugging a dear friend—these things are concrete (real). The safety of those people is an abstraction. Are you willing to give your life for an abstraction?
Pursuing abstract peace, abstract safety for abstract people, and an abstract idea “if russia stops fighting” prevents you from seeing that russia will not stop fighting. It must be stopped—by force, with weapons, through power, pressure, ruin.
In Ukraine we are fighting and dying for freedom. This may sound like a lofty ideal, but it is actually very concrete. It is freedom from being arbitrarily detained, tortured, raped, executed, deported at whim. But immediate dangers aside, it is freedom to live how we want to live. And how do we want to live? How do I want to live? Can you answer that question?
That is why I dance. Because in dancing—much more than in those hours alone in my cold apartment wracking my brain around the logistics of getting 7 zippo handwarmers ordered on Amazon to a place from which someone can get them to me in Kyiv relatively quickly—is where I am sharing the joy of being alive with others.
Culture is carried and reproduced through the body. There is no other way. Through our customs (food, rituals, dancing and singing) and more broadly through the ways in which we relate to our environment and fellow human beings, in the ways that we construct and care for our world. russia is trying to wipe out Ukraine as an entity, a concept, and a people through the total destruction of our homeland. That Ukrainians refuse to stop dancing, singing, and feeding their neighbors and defenders is one way of asserting ourselves as distinct and existing.
As my strength and vitality return so does my sense of being in the world. Here the priority is clear: What did I do today to help Ukraine’s Armed Forces?
Cuz all our culture and aspirations and dreams of a different kind of politics are nil if our army can’t do its work and do it fucking brilliantly.
PS I also think about explosives. The Iranian Shahed-136, which russia has been deploying regularly to attack cities throughout Ukraine carries a load of 40–50 kg, which can transform a brick building into a pile of rubble (you’ve seen the photos from Kyiv). One kg, delivered with great precision by a small kamikaze drone, can significantly damage an armored vehicle.
My friends are producing 50 such drones to hit targets in that part of the country nobody in the media’s supposed to talk about right now. Help them get into action faster.
Look: https://heroesukraine.org/en/serial-production-fpv-drones/
Paypal: heroesukraine.org@gmail.com (Note: FPV)