April 24. Even my cat knows that I am leaving.
(This little section will be dedicated to the notes from my trip back to Ukraine, back home.)
He knows I am leaving. He is judging me because he thinks I am leaving him forever.
It started a few days before my departure. Doubt and fear on the faces of neighbours and family members.
“Are you sure you need to go?”
“Isn’t it better to bring your mom over?”
“Remember to be careful”
A guy from driving school just asked “Why?” while giving me a lift home after my theory exam (which I passed with flying colours, by the way).
The question Why is a good question, and it hides in everything I hear when I say that tomorrow I am finally going back home, to Ukraine, after three and a half years. I have more than one reason to go, and I choose which one to share depending on who is asking. Mostly I just say, “I haven’t been there for a long time, I need to see family and friends”. But to close friends, I can explain that I have already lost my home once, in 2014, when Russia invaded Lugansk, the town where I was born and raised. The creeping feeling of déjà-vù has been tormenting me for quite some time: “What if it is happening again? What if, again, I left my home in October 2021, without knowing I would never be back?”. There are a lot of possible answers to the question Why. To check in with my roots, my identity, and reconnect with those I love is the truest answer.
This morning we woke up to blood-chilling news from Kyiv: russian ballistic rockets hit different neighbourhoods. Many are dead or injured. It is the first massive attack on the capital in a long time. Of course, my husband, Rob, saw that. He approached me looking more serious than usual, almost menacing: “You know that you are not going to Kyiv if it keeps going this way?” he said. “Promise me you won’t go if this keeps happening.”. I do not have the heart to say no to the person who looks at me and sees his whole world. So I promised.
As I was thinking of what to put in my suitcase, I realised that I no longer know where I am going. My home became a totally new place to me. My mother tries to round some angles: “Nothing changed, we will take a walk and I will show you, hoping the weather is good”. The only thing that never changes in Lviv is the weather. Never step out without an umbrella, they say. “Saturday night we are meeting Anna, and Sunday is all planned”, she assured me. She wants it to be as smooth as possible for me. I am not simply coming back home after a long time. I am going to encounter a completely new place.
What am I going to absorb there, in the square, the local store, the tram, the coffee shop, the bookstore, the bar? I can navigate places in the dark, but what about people? Am I going to navigate human contact just as well? I will make a few guesses and see later whether I am right.
I think the people I am going to encounter are exhausted. They learned to mask it out of necessity, carrying on with their lives, overperforming to distract themselves from the surreality of a disaster that unfolds upon them. They are angry, furious. Ready to fist for any ethical conundrum, standing for what they believe is right. They are sad. Because at this point, there is no Ukrainian left who would not have suffered a loss of a loved one.
I got my answer now. In order to tell the stories of Ukraine, of its bravery, resilience, sadness and fury, I have to absorb it. I have to be there. There is a special right to tell the stories that I have to tell myself. It is time to come back home, whatever it has become.
