Gentleness

Everything we knew in that town all our lives has pretty much ceased to exist - and, mind you, the town is not on the frontline. Nothing there has been destroyed, it's just been under occupation since 2014. Now our industrial bakery, meat processing plant, and coking plant - they all have stopped production under the glorious russian governance. Our steel mill - the main town employer (it's a monotown, everything is dependent on that mill) - has been put on "hot conservation," which basically means it's kept operational but produces nothing.

She says at all the border checkpoints (and there still is a border between the "DPR" and russia, despite them proclaiming it a part of russia in 2022), they check everyone's phones. Every phone has spyware on it, and every conversation is being listened to. She says sometimes she'll be talking to my father on the phone and then hear other voices commenting on what she has said, or just chatting in the background. I can't tell you if it's true or not, but I believe her.

Я іноземка, але чим більше читаю про Василя Симоненка, тим більше хочу писати. Творити та розповідати з серцем. Його було вбито у 28 років радянськими агентами за розкриття масових поховань НКВС у 1963. 28 років!! Він був молодий, та багато писав. Зробив так багато в 28 років. Потім, раптово, рання смерть та без більш голосу. Так страшно!! Перший вірш, який прочитала українською - «Ти знаєш, що ти — людина?» Всі люди: Нам треба не лише спішити жити та кохати, а творити та будувати гарні світи. Висловити себе! Життя коротке.

I’m a foreigner, but the more I read about Vasyl Symonenko, the stronger urge I get to write. To create and speak from the heart. He was assassinated at 28 years old by Soviet agents for uncovering mass graves of NKVD victims in 1963. 28!! He was young and accomplished a lot in just 28 years. Then, suddenly, an early death and an end to his voice (which is just what the regime wanted.) It’s scary to think about!! The first poem I read in Ukrainian was his most recited poem, “Do you know that you are human?” In the poem, he says, in translation:

Today, everything’s for you —

The lakes, the groves, the steppes.

You must hurry to live,

You must hurry to love —

Make sure you don’t oversleep!

Well, in finnish, the word for moth is "yökkönen", from "yö" (night), the suffix "-kko/kkö" which has many purposes but one of them is to change any word into "person involved with doing something with the root word", and the dininutive "-nen". So the name of moth is "little night creature".

Are kids who refuse to eat actually as much of a problem as people with kids make it out to be? I have never heard of someone's kid starving to death with a plate full of food in front of them just because The Food Was Yucky. Nor seen an adult with stunted growth from childhood starvation for the same reason. And yet people with kids talk about their struggles with their kids' eating like that's a very real thing that can happen.

I also don't know of anyone who starved themselves to death due to wanting chicken nuggies instead of whatever their parents cooked that day. But I did see kids with health problems due to poor diet, and kids who grew up having unhealthy relationship with food because parents never modeled food diversity and, essentially, just let their offspring figure out the consequences of not eating by themselves. Think about how you feel after not eating for 8 hours straight: parents (good ones, at least) don't want their children feeling like that. And, in my experience, little humans' body sensations are a hundred times higher, and the chances of them having upset stomachs or skin conditions or (impressively) low immune systems due to bad nutrition is a lot.

I know that if I'm in a horrid mood and my head hurts in the evening, I'm probably hungry. A toddler who just had their first bit of body-consciousness doesn't know that, and has not yet learnt the link between "disgusting green stuff" and "not being cranky and tired all the time", so it's on parents to make sure they eat well and enough.

It's easy to forget sometimes, but (some) (most, hopefully) parents really want their kid to be happy, not just live long enough to adulthood. So, they stress over the (real) possibility of their kid being moderately unhealthy, and if the kid is adamant about not adhering to the diet, they will stress and feel like bad parents. Especially so, if, when they do a yearly check-up, the doctor points out that the kid has a Vitamin-XYZ deficiency and anemia.

Anyway, I'm not talking about parents who just refuse to see their kids as human beings and instead insist on feeding them an adult-sized portion of whatever is most convenient that day. Seen that too and had to communicate to a grown-ass 42 year-old woman that her plan of feeding her 6-year-old two full-sized meals a day is not going to "teach him to just take what's given." A quote, btw.