Ukraine with Love

I write regularly, more than appears on Medium — challenging as that might be to imagine. But lately, and I’m referring to the timeline commencing with the Ukraine/Russia war escalation, Medium has become my place to get educated.

It has been my sad experience to have met only people who agree with those holding favorable opinions to my own, and pitiful that I should learn at a late stage how wisdom is acquired. It is listening intently and patiently to views that differ from my own.

We can all agree that nothing I’ve written serves as educational. It is, at best, frank opinion — opinion filled with factual flaws and ideological scenarios.

Readers have been kind to me, not accusatory, not trying to prove one way or the other that I’m wrong or right, but referring me to books for deeper information, allowing me the grace to learn where my opinion stands against reality. Frankly, it’s more leaning, about to topple over.

Politics is a dangerous sea to navigate. It would have been a remarkably uninteresting voyage if I had given it more attention when younger. I would have found myself wrecked, gone to the bottom. Today, listening to differing viewpoints, I’m on a different learning voyage, knowing the ferment everywhere. I’m in awe of those who had the grit to undertake such a voyage.

I’ve wondered if such a political sea is brutal for the young to venture. Had I applied my knowledge of the oceans to that of other matters, I would have a certificate of knowing something.

The sea’s education does not lend itself to romantics. It can be cruel. The ocean will occasionally demand a head to bash against the rocks.

I am pessimistic about where America is heading. Talk of decline is easy to grasp. But there’s also a thing called perspective. I want to believe that we, collectively American, can make progress farther than some fixed point.

Our politicians smile at us — as we smile at our children when they show us their favorite toys. All the sleight of hand, false smiles, earnestly given solutions to complex problems never enacted. Isn’t the touchstone of our culture in modern America that we learn to outgrow disputes between the classes, sort out the division of wealth, impervious of skin color, religion, and inhabit the idea that we are all Americans.

And at this point, people with kind hearts and more excellent knowledge step in to halt me. The above is fantasy. It is beyond this nation to accomplish such an ideology.

This country does not tend internationalism, toward unification, towards creating one human family. The war in Europe has taught me something. I should not shine my eyes on what I hope.

It is in every one of us to fail. I do it over and over and over.

I remind myself of being the same child who always believed a part of the orphanage was haunted and how fearfully frightened I felt — and yet I wanted to dare myself to explore and manage my fear.

I have the greatest difficulty today in understanding how to overcome the hope I feel. The hope that is always in my writing must today read monotonously.

In the real world, hope is lost, and maybe that’s a good thing. But look, as it has been generously explained, hope achieves nothing. It is an illusion. It is a belief in Heaven.

I’m reminded of my father, tears upon his cheeks, hearing about the possibility of nuclear war with Russia on our valve radio. As close as tomorrow. It is a memory that has never left me, the way dad held my mother, pulling me in between them.

I was too young to consider what nuclear war meant. It didn’t matter. I had the mountain between me and the rest of the world, and nothing got past its shadow.

Older, I wonder how many tricks are played upon us by people to whom we entrust our trust and faith? In the Ukraine/Russia war, we find ourselves threatened by a type who seizes on an opportunity, striking boldly out, like a child finding new things with which to play.

Let me explain this about myself, not because I carry the weight of self-importance, but because a view of the world through my eyes is the only one I can speak to. I never cared much for childhood education but was smart enough, at twenty-one, to fly fighters for the RAF. It was simple enough. There are no grey areas in flight. It can be done, or it cannot. Needing time to think will get me killed.

Friends tell me, from a distance, that this same childhood fault of never thinking about consequences plagued me through the years. But the spirit of adventure diverted me from studying. I remember Mrs. Braebrook, English teacher, telling the class that we’d all come to a crossroads when we finished school education. She said that whatever we choose at that crossroad will influence the rest of our lives. I must have run that light.

Wanting an association with the ocean was a gift my father gave me, not his genes, but picking up on his devotion to the child of nature. So I set out my sails, but it never took me across the ocean, only sky-high. I was putting my trust and faith in what my flight tutors taught me. Listen or die. It grabs your attention. Mrs. Braebrook only said to stop looking out the window.

Democracy, what is it? We get to elect people who we believe will do the right thing. We have a constitution. We have laws. We have a congress and a senate. One imagines that we elect a president, a man or woman beyond reproach. To a great extent, the people running for our vote have a successful background in business ventures. They have a proven track record.

What is the reality? Many, if not all elected men and women learn methods of polite robbery, dishonest acquisition and manage to, on their political adventure, forget the art of truthfulness. Lining their own pockets for favors betrays the trust of the electorate.

America put trust in a man with no good traits. Did we find faith in ignorance, stupidity, and brute-mindedness? What was there to gain? Where were their principles?

How can we elect men who turn dark, inspire mutiny, sow discord, share falsities, and not care that a country like the United States will fall into widespread despair?

The only way I can think about it is this: we are adrift on a storm-torn ocean, flying mists, reefs of lies, and the world is flat.

We have managed to trust and put our faith in the wrong people. Glaciers eventually break, and democracy is fragile. Ukraine will cease to exist. Nevertheless, we have been subtle enough not to turn our back on a friend, and I’m happy that my lack of a good education prevents me from understanding.

The wind has shifted; Ukraine will have nothing but oars to stop it from drifting east. Our hearts should be sorely bruised.

We have a say in the direction Ukraine drifts with our vote.

Imagine the world is flat, vote with a heart full of compassion and rescue.

Thank you to the many Medium members who have helped educate me on matters too important not to understand.

Special thanks to:

Jack Herlocker Dennett JoAnn Ryan Bebe Nicholson Joe Treadwell LM Whye Waite Rev. Sheri Heller, LCSW Bridget E Weber Geoffrey Gevalt Rip Parker MJ Flood Patrick OConnell Author, D. Denise Dianaty Audrey Clifford Sorina Raluca

And to so many more. Thank you.