Category: reflections

A New Life Formular

I’ve changed the way I speak about time and the lack of it. For the longest time, I used to say: “God does not give me more than 24 hours a day, even though I absolutely deserve at least 30!!!” On Friday, when I was talking to one of my fellow escorts, I came up with the follow-up: “However, God does give me 24 hours, and I am determined to use every minute of it!”

The early morning Friday shift was unusually intense; five antis were out, and there were just three of us, so we didn’t have enough bodies to escort patients and shield them. And that was the first time I was the shift lead (why am I taking on more responsibilities – don’t ask!). But while there is a need in the morning shifts, and while it’s warm enough for me to survive these morning shifts, I will be there. That’s one of the meaningful ways to use these minutes :).

And summer in Chicago continues! It was the upper 80s today! I was finally able to meet with my friend Y; we had been trying to meet since June, and had to cancel for either her or my reasons. I was sad that she didn’t have a chance to visit me in the summer, but we got a summer day in October! We went to the beach, and sat there in the lounge chairs, and I swam in the lake (she didn’t). This time, it almost didn’t happen again because she was afraid to be out while the ICE agents were terrorising the city, but then she decided she would make it, and I am glad she did.

I do not know a single person who would be happy with what’s going on in the city these days. My hairstylist came to do my hair on Friday, and with all her being “neutral” and “not wanting to talk about politics,” she couldn’t keep it to herself.

And on the ICE/Trump topic, there was another shooting, although this time not lethal, and also, Trump quietly deployed 300 National Guards, and now the whole city is mad that police is not protecting the citizen from ICE, and they also mad at the Governor, although it’s hard to tell what he could do in the current situation (except for there are multiple lawsuits filed). Also, he froze the Red Line extension money, but to be honest, I had no doubts it would happen.

Keeping fighting, and keeping doing good whenever I can.

***

My mom’s caregiver and her husband are Ukrainian refugees. They ended up in Chicago because their son and his family had been living here for a long time before. They just never thought they would move here themselves, and probably wouldn’t for many years if it hadn’t been a war.

However, before they moved to the US, they spent several months (almost a year) in Tampere. I recall how I felt when I first came to Finland after the war had started. The war was in the air; the posters calling to donate to the Ukrainian refugees-supporting funds were all over the place, and half of the conversations I overheard on the public transportation were about refugees.

Remembering all that, I can understand why my mom’s caregiver is so thankful to the family that hosted them in Finland. Since the first time they learned that my husband lives in Finland and I go there often, they have wanted me to meet their former host family, and this time it finally worked, since I was going to Tampere!

When the husband visited me before my departure to drop off the gifts, he asked me whether I could do him a favor and ask these people whether they are scared about possible Russian attacks (in light of recent events). I told him that I believed Finland had been “always ready” since 1918, but promised to ask.

So when we met, I asked. They told me that many people in Finland were very much afraid, to the point that some people they knew couldn’t fall asleep without sedatives, but they were fine because they were sure everything was in God’s hands. They told me that they even started building a new house, which should have proved that they indeed believed they would be fine. And yes, they confirmed, it was always like this since 1918, “we just do not talk about it.”

I have nothing to add to this conversation. I believe in Finland, in her people and her Armed Forces, but why in the world does it have to be “always ready”?

RIFENSTAHL

I just exited the Siskel Center after watching “RIFENSTAHL.” I missed the first screening (with director-in-person) last week, because I hosted the Prairie Postgres User Group at the same time. Today was my only chance to see it, because I am leaving tomorrow and the last screening will be on September 26, before I return. Well, there will be more screenings later, but I will be travelling again, and also – I didn’t want to wait!

I just saw the movie. For the past several months, I was reading my friend’s blog about Riefenstahl’s memoirs, and I wanted to know more, so I queued a couple of books about her in my future reading list. But let me tell you that: it’s one thing to read what she says about herself, and a different thing to hear it, in her own words, with her facial expressions, with her intonations. To see the immense pleasure on her face when she watched the “Triumph of the Will,” conducting the screen music.

Starting with her cynical phrase: The movie was commissioned by Hitler. If Roosevelt were to commission a movie, I would also try my best. If Stalin were to ask me to make a movie for him, I would do my best as well. And all her screams: no, it’s a lie! What people disappear?! There were no such people around me! We didn’t know! No, I didn’t see! And: I would never make a movie about cripples! And isn’t it in all cultures that we admire beautiful bodies?

Oh, and there is footage of how she was making these pictures of Nuba! How she treated them like animals. I will never buy her albums.

Evil, evil, evil. No shades. No “buts”.

About ICE Raids

I have a little bit of breathing room today, after working non-stop and resolving different conference-related issues, and I want to go back to what happened a week ago.

To be honest, I am shocked by the lack of public attention to this incident. I wouldn’t expect a lot of international attention, but domestic silence alarms me. For those who haven’t heard what has happened: ICE officer stopped a car driven by a person they wanted to arrest. This person was in the US illegally (i.e., without a proper visa). He didn’t have any criminal charges on him, but he had several speeding tickets (as far as we can tell). When he was stopped and realized that he was going to be arrested, he tried to flee the scene. It’s hard to tell what exactly happened because the body cam recording was not released (and I am not sure whether it is available).

DHS claims that this person, Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, “dragged an officer a significant distance with his car.” There is no way to prove or object to this statement, but what we know for sure is that this ICE officer shot Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez dead. He shot an unarmed person with no criminal record.

If anybody wonders how the DHS reported on this incident, the link is here. I don’t know what else to add. I don’t know how we can have no respect for a person’s life. I don’t understand how anybody would dare to say “but he was here illegally…’

About Politics And Violence

I didn’t want to write anything about Charlie Kirk, but several people asked for my opinion, and I thought I should write a blog post.

On Friday morning, during my escorting shift, other escorts seemed to be overjoyed and almost celebrated the assassination. I would never do that. Yes, there is a cruel irony in the fact that Charlie Kirk mentioned at least in one of his speeches that the right to bear arms can’t be taken away from the American people, even if that means some lives will be lost. It happened to be his life, but honestly, I do not want to build anything on that.

I still maintain that nobody has a right to take other person’s life away. I was always against the death penalty, and I always will be (this does not include the time of war).

Another theme which was circulating during the first couple of days after the assassination was a conspiracy theory (like Trump had organized it all). I understand why people want to believe in this conspiracy, but I find no ground in it’s support. I do not think it’s right that the Minnesota political assassinations went pretty much unnoticed and uncommented by the White House, and at the same time, the flags ran half-staff for the Kirk’s assassination. I do not think it’s right that the killing of Villegas-Gonzalez didn’t make headlines except for the Chicago local news.

And I hope that these events won’t become an excuse for any political opression. We’ll keep watching.

Chicago Is Staying Strong!

It’s old news now, but I still want to celebrate Chicago’s victory last week. I know it sounds surreal that the city had to defend itself against the president, but that’s not the first and not the last surreal thing happening these days. However, it proves that it is possible to resist this administration, even without lengthy court battles (although the governor clearly indicated that he was ready to go to court), and also proves that when the city and the elected official are united to achieve their goals, they win.

On a more sober note, the Friday killing of Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez by an ICE officer. Still, I do not think this tragedy annuls what Chicago did last week.

ODS

Yesterday, I was going to make dinner at the ODS, but then it turned out that the current volunteer coordinator had put in their notice, and forgot or didn’t have time to purchase supplies for making dinner. I went to the shelter anyway, picked up some sweets from Vanille, and spent two hours in conversations with staff and residents. There were too many private moments in these conversations, so I am not sharing them except for one thing: I was thinking about taking a break from volunteering for the Night Ministry, but I am not going to do it.

Even though I am not there often enough, I still can do something good. And a little bit is better than nothing.

Yesterday was a very emotional and a very long day, and the whole week seems to be long and emotional. The fear of the National Guard’s appearance dominates the environment and touches my life in many different ways. Between escorting, which I did twice this week, ODS volunteering, and conference attendees coming from abroad, and all the conversations I have with people, it’s almost too much.

However, I have a hope (maybe too soon) that Chicago’s readiness to fight back stopped the worst that could happen. We’ll have to see, but I really hope…

Unfortunately, Yes

On Tuesday, I was making dinner at the ODS, and after the dinner was made, and everyone who was around ate, we sat down chatting in the common area. One of the newest residents asked me the usual “where I was from,” and then whether I ever go back, and what part of Russia I was from, and whether I had even been to Moscow. And finally, he asked: what’s the best time to visit Moscow? I paused for a moment and replied: When the war is over. And when Putin is out. To his credit, he immediately understood why I replied that way, but his questions perfectly illustrated the fact that the war in Ukraine is completely out of sight for most Americans. People do not think about Russia as one of the parties in the war. And they do not understand that when I reply, “I am from Russia,” I feel it as saying, “I am responsible for that bloodshed.”

In my mind, that’s somehow related to another story my friend told me. She was at a store, where an older Pole with very limited English was trying to communicate something to a store clerk. Later, after my friend and her daughter left the store, that person left right after them, and upon hearing them speaking Russian, he said: Well, I should have asked you for help in the store! My friend turned to him and asked him in Russian: “Oh, do you speak Russian?” He looked at her with a deep pain in his eyes and said, “Unfortunately, yes!”

My friend told me that she will never forget this person and a pain in his eyes.

About Imperial Mindset – Again

One of the topics of our conversation with my friend, who visited me on Saturday, was how we both strive to break away from the imperial mindset we had for most of our lives, and how the war in Ukraine has forced both of us to re-examine our beliefs and our “defaults.” She told me about a project she is working on with the Chicago Kyrgyz community, and how she knew virtually nothing about Kyrgyzs before that. She feels a great deal of respect and admiration for this community, and she regrets that she was once clueless, following the “younger brothers” shortcuts of Soviet propaganda. I understand her very well, because I feel the same way, and I am ashamed of the younger me looking down at the “smaller nations.”

One particular story she told me, struck me. When she was teaching a gymnastic class in a Russian-speaking daycare for pre-schoolers, she noticed a girl, sitting by herself and not coming to participate in the gymnastics activities. She encouraged the girl to join, but the teacher, who herself was a Ukrainian refugee, dismissed the move: “What would you expect from aul?” The aul is a word for a small rural village, and the whole sentence was a diminitive reference to the girl being from a “small nation.” My friend was appauled by the fact that a person who just experienced the Russian agression would say this, but she said nothing and still encouraged the girl to participted. Months later, that same teached approached my friend and said: I was thinking about that episode and our conversation, and I am sorry I said that. Now I realize how wrong I was.

I do not think there is much to comment on that, but I shared both my friend’s respect for this person who came a long way to realize that her believes needed some corrections, and also my friend’s deep regret about how deep inside each of us this sense of superiority was rooted.

***

Boris turned seventy-five on Thursday, and that was the first time ever that he allowed me to wish him a happy birthday on the social media. And from what I can tell, he liked the result 🙂