We planned this last August weekend as a “summer in Chicago” thing because, last summer, things ended up so busy that we didn’t have a single beach day together. Also, we wanted to go together to Chalk Howard and create a picture on asphalt together.
We had that and much more, and it was overall a very happy weekend without which the summer would be incomplete.
Initially, we wanted to go to Chalk Howard twice: to draw our own thing in the beginning and then to see what other people had created in the evening, but we ended up doing just the afternoon because everybody was tired by that time.
Some lessons learned: next year, we will bring plastic gloves, wet cloth pieces, and other supplies, and we will plan a picture at home.
Straight from there, we went to the Ukrainian mega march.
It was a rather long march – it started at the Congress Garden (although we joined it at Monro and Michigan), and it ended at the Riverwalk by Franklin. I do not have that many pictures – we were busy marching, and I hope that Igor took some and will share!
Nadia marched the whole way with everybody. (Kira was on Anna’s shoulders – we still need to work on it :)). As with every rally from the beginning of the war, there is a shade of sorrow and sadness, which you usually do not feel at other rallies. I think the girls felt it, even with all the flags, songs, and everything. I hope they felt it was different.
They chanted with us, and they waved the flags. Nadia asked what the “terrorist state” meant, and Anna explained that it meant that this state hurt civilians just to scare people and that there are rules about how the wars are thought, and Russia breaks these rules.
I saw that people who marched alongside us were very happy to see the girls marching and chanting. Pointing to Nadia’s unicorn dress, one woman said: We might need a magic Unicorn to help Ukraine win!
I am glad we went. It was not a fun event, but very meaningful, and we had all these important conversations on the way back.
Hettie's Reflections 