Why This One

Maybe it’s timing, coming right after the Corona virus just began to let up on us a bit. Omicron meant that many people, including me, got sick but not very sick. My country got rid of most rules to wear a mask and we were happy for four days, and then Russia invaded the Ukraine.

I’m 53 and lived through many conflicts that were more or less conscious in the media of the countries I’ve lived in. I grew up under the nuclear escalation between the US and the USSR, and as a child had nightmares after those useless drills to duck under our desks while they tested the sirens.

I don’t know why the conflict in the Ukraine is different for me, why it hurts more. Maybe it’s because I lived in a Ukrainian neighborhood for a little while, where the houses were picture perfect and well-groomed in the midst of an area that was getting taken over by central American gangs. Maybe it’s because when I did a genetic test, that area of the world is somewhere back in my ancestry. Maybe it’s that the Ukrainian president is so media savvy, and has been able to show his side to the rest of the world effectively. Maybe it’s because it seems so ridiculously, patently wrong to invade another country. “De-Nazification?” The president of Ukraine is Jewish. In what world does a Jewish person become a Nazi? And I mean, lets say that the worst case scenario happened for Putin; the Ukraine became part of the European Union. So what? No one here wants to do anything but business: build things, make things, sell things, and go on vacation where people build other things, make other things and sell other things. It ain’t that complicated.

Okay, whatever, I need to let off some steam so here I am writing about negative crap in a blog which is supposed to be about happy things. Suffice to say that for whatever reason, this one hurts more than the conflict in Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Myanmar, Tibet, former Yugoslavia, Rwanda (although some of those hurt quite a bit, too). For the moment, each happy thought is slapped in the face by the thought of people a day’s drive from me having their lives destroyed.

Foro is sad, too. His usual charm is muted, and even when I drag him to bed with me he is unable to help a whole lot. I’ve had him and Forina perched by the window so they can look at the birds fly by. Maybe that will improve his mood. It’s a beautiful day.