Wars happen all over the world all the time. Why is this one different? Is it because we lived through four years of our own madman in the White House? Is it because we could have it again? Or is it because we are losing our insularity, and yet another layer of our American optimism?
It’s Friday morning and I’m sitting in front of the window drinking coffee. I’m watching the snow fall outside in the backyard, piling up on the tops of the bird feeders. We’re expecting a large snowfall for today and I keep forgetting that it’s February still. Snow is common this month, even expected. But just a couple days ago I was outside without a coat walking with the dog on the brown grass that covered our soggy lawn.
“Do you want to make a fire?” I say to my spouse Janyce, who, for a change of pace, has come upstairs from her basement office and set up her computer at the dining table.
It feels like the start of the pandemic again and I have to keep telling myself that it’s not, the numbers are down, we’re going back in to campus, and it’s just a snow day. Although it’s not a real snow day, either. Now we work at home, or anywhere. Still, it’s hard to concentrate on work again today.
I made us a large pot of turkey pumpkin chili and some corn muffins this week. I took some to drop off to our friends down the road while one of them is recovering from surgery, and I kept some for us to eat from steaming bowls, while sitting here at this table together, me still in pajama bottoms and wool socks, Janyce in her workout attire, and our new dog, tightly curled in a ball on her safe chair and sleeping soundly.
My work today involves rereading international undergraduate admissions applications and getting them organized to present to a standing committee over Zoom on Monday. But I keep stopping to read news reports of Russia invading Ukraine, news reports that are changing by the minute, all while students at area colleges are out protesting.
Wars happen all over the world all the time. Why is this one different? Is it because we lived through four years of our own madman in the White House? Is it because we could have it again? Or is it because we are losing our insularity, and yet another layer of our American optimism?
I ordered a book of published essays by an editor of a literary magazine I know the other day. I wanted to hear her point of view on what it means to be nostalgic for the American past. In a tiny paperback of nine concise essays, Jennifer Niesslein mines her own memories and asks questions of herself about her class, her Southernness, her whiteness, and her mortality. I love how honest they all are. I love how she asks these questions and comes to small and large realizations about what it means to be nostalgic in every essay.
“Nostalgia relies on a certain kind of shorthand that, for most people, plucks the attention-grabbing headlines and images from history. It will always elevate the mainstream over the marginalized, the broad over the detailed.” JN
I whipped through most of the essays in one sitting and at the conclusion of all the reading, I felt more inspired to keep working on my own.
“Gee. I see a fire in the fireplace,” says Janyce. “Maybe it’s just me, but I seem to remember someone promising to make oatmeal? Once there was a fire made?”
“I’m on it!” I say as I walk to the kitchen and start looking for the right size heavy bottomed pan in the cabinet.
I’m distracted though. I feel a distinct cognitive dissonance this morning living in my warm house, working quietly in my safe space, able to easily access my money online and pay some bills. Now I’m cooking a meal in my kitchen while people on the other side of the world— but closer than they have ever been— are throwing piles of clothing and cans of dog food into plastic bags and hurrying out of their homes with their pets in tow. If they are lucky, they will make it across the border to Poland or Romania. And those are just the people who have decided to go in time and have the means to leave.
While I was scrolling through news reports of Russia capturing Chernobyl, I came across this photo of a wolf looking into a trail camera. It was set up near the defunct nuclear reactor in a long abandoned village near Ukraine. I remember the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown in 1986. I was midway through college and somewhat concerned at the time. But, to be honest, also not all that concerned. Not like my kids’ generation is concerned right now. Maybe this is why the image of the wolf, who looks a little like my scared but still curious rescue dog, stopped me in my scrolling.
In an old Reuters article this same photographer quoted: “People can never live there — it’s impossible— not even for the next 24,000 years,” Ukrainian Ecology Minister Hanna Vronska said of the zone, which encompasses 1,000 square miles of forest, marsh and open countryside.”
But the wolves are back.
“That wolf looks a little worried to me,” says Janyce peering over my shoulder to get a good look.
“Oh I don’t know,” I say. “I think it looks kind of curious, too.”
“What are you doing today?” she says.
“Well, I’m not scrolling through news reports anymore, that’s for sure,” I say.
We both look over to our dog, now stretched in a perfect yoga pose on the bench by the window. She looks over at us, sitting up, and her posture might suggest she is willing to change her nervous emotional state and venture outside a little.
“I think I’ll take my cue from the wildlife,” I say.
“Good luck with that,” says Janyce.