Christmas is behind us, and New Year's Eve is also in the past. I know and perhaps I am late with this.
You know, I remember this colorful kaleidoscope of holiday posts, it is always vivid and colorful season, with greetings, NY resolutions, summaries and achievements, and all such. But there is one post that I clearly remember. It is post by @ericvancewalton - What Do You Want to Do Differently?
Some things take time for something good to come out of it. This is how we get aged cheese or prosciutto or wine. Even Borsch - it is our favorite national dish and officially intangible heritage - even Borsch tastes better the next day.
I am saying that a couple of weeks later my slow brain, tired due to constant insomnia, once again was searching for a meaning of my day... Because I haven't felt satisfaction from life, from work, literally from anything for a long time, I seem to live by inertia, which is the further the less. And suddenly I clearly realized - I must finish all my unfinished business. I don't have a vision of what my future will be like, will it be better or worse, anyway the future makes me feel helpless and therefore useless as I cannot influence it. But at least I can live in the present and ... the past.
Unfinished business is like stones that you carry in your pockets. Like hidden guilt. It is something from the past that you have already lost in the future.
I traveled, took pictures, wrote notes, and never looked back, I always looked forward, beyond the horizon. What was the point of taking photos if I never looked at them again or shared my experience or my memories?
What was said, was done.
Botanic Garden. Kyiv, February 2021
A year before the invasion. This was an incredible experience. Being in the midst of a tropical garden when it's the coldest month of the year is a great influx of energy. But also it was a rare opportunity to get where very few strangers go - under the very roof of the 32-meter climatron! To see the (most likely) last blossom of Livistona Palm which is 200 years old. It was said that it is the highest in Europe. Isn't it cool?
This picture reminds me of mask mode in all public places because of Covid. Now it feels like AGES AGO. I still have no clue where the covid gone when the war started? The whole country at one point completely forgot about masks but we survived somehow. Those who didn't were not killed by Covid.
Anyway, my face under the mask looks indifferent or even boring. This is because I haven't yet seen all this from the very top!
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Nick is wearing a New Year mask 😅 We are trendy!
Out passionate guide. Actually, she works in the scientific part of the Botanical Garden and she accompanies tours not often so it is more like a hobby and extra money. Anyway, her story was so fascinating that people kept asking more and more questions.
I found these photos occasionally, and they surprised me. Some are so nice and I was asking myself why I didn't even edit them or convert them to JPEG? Why didn't share with anybody? I wrote a short post about Livistona and that's all.
I miss that life...
However, time is passing and it is kind of getting covered by fog, a mist of time. When I browse my photo archive, I have a dual feeling, like I know it's me and my life but simultaneously it's like a kind of fiction. I remember and don't remember at the same time.
If only I knew. Why I didn't live while I could? What did I save myself for? I need to sleep, do household chores, prepare food, do something for people who are merely using me. Or I am too tired, too hungry, too cold. Why didn't I go to the theater, to a gallery, exhibition, new bar or restaurant every night? Why didn't I spend the weekend climbing the mountains, didn't sleep in a tent, didn't sit up at midnight, staring at the endless, immeasurable depth of the night sky far from the big city? If only I knew. What if that life I miss so much will never return? You can't enter the same river twice...
This sheet resembles Braille.
But if would you ask me what do I miss the most, except the feeling of safety of course, I would say THE SEA. I miss it badly. Sounds of the sea, hundreds of shades of color and sounds. Just sit and listen with my eyes closed.
Except that, right now I really want to look at greens of various types, juicy, blooming greenery. And this unfinished album is just about that.
The most popular part of the Botanical Garden in winter is the one with lots of flowers. Experienced (or knowledgeable) people come here specifically for the flowering of certain species. This is the place where the species are selected so that when one finishes blooming, another begins to bloom. And so from late winter until summer.
The idea to create a Botanical Garden in Kyiv on a wasteland arose in the first half of the 18th century. This garden was supposed to be adjacent to St. Volodymyr University (now Shevchenko University).
But the idea did not come out of nowhere. After the Polish Uprising of 1830 (the November Uprising, the national liberation uprising of the Poles against the Russian Empire for the restoration of the independence of the Polish state), it was decided to disband the Higher Volyn Gymnasium, which was a higher educational institution for the Polish nobility. The gymnasium had its own observatory and botanical garden. This is how their collection of 513 plants got to the capital of Ukraine in 1834. [1]
During the Second World War, the barracks of the German fascists were located in the Botanical Garden. They used local valuable trees as firewood. While fleeing, the fascists took away rare orchids.
War changes the assessment very much. What appears to be barbarism in peacetime is called military necessity in wartime. One death in peacetime could affect more than thousands dead in wartime.
But still... it hurts me when I'm thinking about the Russian fascists who killed rare animals in the Askania Nova reserve, just for fun or to taste their meat, took Kuindzhi's paintings out of his hometown Mariupol, even stolen fire trucks from Kherson when they left the city. So that there was nothing to put out the fires after their shelling. It hurts me, so I have not lost my humanity.
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So. I promised myself to finish what I can and don't regret the rest.
Among my reflections on before and after, in the context of Hive, there is one very important point. The present ME is much more integrated into the Hive than my past ME. I received perhaps more support here than from people from the "other world". I was going to say "real world" but! I saw this support and these people in real life at HiveFest and HiveBeeCon. So Hive is no more a "virtual world" for me.
There is some luck in this misfortune.
But still, if you read this far... I'm really curious
What Do You Want to Do Differently?
