Reflections on Love for Ukraine

I absolutely love this song by Katya Buzhinskaya. When the kids sang it at graduation, we were almost in tears.

I never thought I would feel such a strong sense of nationalism. In recent years, my love for Ukraine has grown immensely—its beautiful, rich lands, its vast spaces, rivers, everything… Sometimes I look around and can’t get enough of it. I breathe in and feel like I can never breathe in enough. This beauty is intoxicating. I’m grateful to have been born in Ukraine. I’m glad to live here. Yes, there are many things wrong in Ukraine, and I can’t deny that, but those issues have been brought upon us by ourselves—by people. Sometimes I look at our lives and I’m amazed. The true wisdom is: “Everything genius is simple,” and in life, we need so little to live well and to be happy… yet we complicate things so much, striving for something that ultimately makes our lives harder, damages the environment, and yet we spare no expense traveling the world in search of “ecologically clean zones”… It’s sad. It’s disheartening how officials “grab” land for themselves, simply for profit… while the people who truly love that land are left with nothing.

But even just loving is a lot! It’s important to look and see the good, to find joy in the little things, and if we are to look, let it be with love. Sasha, when she was little, would kiss the leaves and stroke them in the spring when everything was blooming, out of sheer joy… it was so childlike, so sincere. We have so much to learn from children.