If you have been following along here for a while, you may have noticed something. I have a deep pull toward ordinary people. The quiet ones. The ones history will not write about. The ones who wake up every morning, make tea, show up, and keep the world turning without anyone taking notice.
These are the people I am interested to hear from. These are the people I usually interview for my personal blog.
Because I believe it is us ordinary people who truly drag the wheels of society forward. Even when history forgets to mention our names. How these structures will change in the future, nobody knows yet. But for now, the ordinary ones carry it all in silence. The hustle and bustle of life.
But I also notice that in this digital era we are living in, something is becoming very clear. The old ways of power are slowly starting to crumble. I deeply believe that. Just look at all the turmoil we see around the world, and the dirt rising to the surface. This is the first stage of it. We are seeing more and more clearly how rotten these patriarchal structures really are. How fossil minded the leadership is. How far removed from real life.
And ordinary people? We are the ones paying the price for it. The heaviest price of all has a name. It is called war.
In many places right now, women, men, children, grandparents… all suffering. Not because they chose this. But because those with power and ego rarely ask before they act. And still. The world keeps turning.
For me, war is simply the most awful thing that can happen to a human life. No matter where. No matter who is called guilty.
So I wanted to understand more about what ordinary life looks like inside a war zone. And I thought of Olena. She is a poet and a writer. She was also a participant in my recent online course. This is how I got to know her. She lives in Ukraine. I asked if she was willing to write about what it is like to be an ordinary person living in a war zone. She said yes. And I am grateful for it.
What she shares here is not analysis. It is not politics. It is real life. Her life. And the life of so many ordinary people living inside something the rest of us only read or hear about on the news 🌾
Life goes on
When people from other, peaceful countries ask me about war, I don’t know what exactly to say. Our war goes on at so many levels that there is no simple answer. You get used to it. You have to because as cynical as it may sound, “life goes on”.
You still have to pay your bills, buy food and clothes, work, study, cook, take care of your family, do personal chores and housework. Provided you have a house. Hundreds of thousands of people in Ukraine don’t. Those who lived closer to the borders with Russia or those whose homes were destroyed by a bomb, a rocket, a mine, or a drone.
A 9-story building was almost completely destroyed not far from where I live a few days ago. 24 people were killed. This is our reality. It was a hard, terrifying, sleepless night but in the morning our drugstores and shops opened their doors, public transport was running, hospitals, administrative offices, postal services, everything was working again. Like a hundred days of war before that.
Many of us have lost someone to the war. We mourned our mothers and fathers, our sisters and brothers, our husbands and wives, our daughters and sons. Some lost every single member of their family. The pain stays with us, and to survive we must learn to live with it. One day at a time.
Never be able to return
Thousands of people among us have lost their homes to war and they know they will never be able to return to a place they maybe had built with their own hands, hoping that their children and grandchildren would live there. Now they are lucky to have a room or a bed at a hostel, a shelter or a dormitory. It’s unimaginable how an entire life can be crushed and taken away without any hope.
People from destroyed cities and burnt villages, hundreds of thousands of them had to flee without looking back. Some went as far as to other countries; others moved to relatively quieter towns within Ukraine. Here they must either start again find a place to live, a new job, a new school for kids, if they are young and strong enough, or just to live out the time they have left among strangers in a strange city. One more side of the tragedy of war, thousands of faces of loneliness and hopelessness.
Many young and not so young people, mostly men, will never come back from the battlefield. Our cemeteries are full and it hurts to see all those flags over the military burials. They seem endless thousands of lives lost forever. Some are so young, they didn’t have a chance to see the life outside war, to fall in love, to find a passion, to have kids, to create something. Each one is a lost universe that could have been.
Thousands of strong, healthy soldiers come home severely injured, with post-traumatic psychological problems, deaf, blind, with contusions or without limbs. So many – and they all need to find a way to keep living, and every single day to cope with their losses, memories, experiences, and pain.
Many return to their brothers in arms as soon as they can, even if in another capacity as instructors, psychologists, trainers, just to be among those who understand. This is all very general information, not even a tip of an iceberg. Just consider that about (and this is a very rough approximation) 2500 Ukrainian cities, towns and villages have been occupied, partially, or completely like not a single whole building, destroyed since February 24, 2022, the day the full-scaled war began. It’s nearly 20% of the country’s territory. For us it’s our lives lost, ruined, abridged to survival and pain at the center of Europe, in the 21st century.
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By the way, I am Parisa, the woman behind the blog People, Life, Politics and Bullshit. Wander over. There I write about all that I find amazing and amusing: life, politics, movement and yes, some bullshit too. In my last post I wrote about What we choose to keep human?
I am also the founder of Dhyana and Donya Movement and Health a space where I gather people around holistic movement, body awareness and the kind of work that brings you back to yourself. If that speaks to something in you, come find me.
I am on Instagram most days sharing small reflections and real moments. And when words are not enough music moves what nothing else can. Find my playlist on Spotify under Movement Coach Parisa. Let it inspire you to move wildly and freely. 🌾