Dispatch from Ukraine: Romance doesn't stop during war

My day starts at Blagodatne, a large country farm estate owned by three brothers and their families. I slept so well here that I never heard the Shahed drones flying overhead, aimed by Russia toward some other Ukrainian town or village. Here, the peace of the expansive fields, tamed rows of wine grapes, the smell of freshly tilled earth and a cacophony of barnyard animals remind me of farms in the Skagit Valley. So much so that it makes me quite homesick as I puzzle over how to send a Valentine to my husband and daughter. I settle on a heart-shaped selfie I took with a jovial resident donkey. This, of course, is an inadequate gesture in light of my two month absence from home.

It will be hard to leave Blagodatne and our attentive and persistently cheerful elderly hosts. I wonder what comes first, being good natured or becoming a farmer, but the correlation seems universal across nationalities.

My day ends in the city of Dnipro, named after the large river it straddles with countless bridges. My evening walk through the city’s central district takes me past candle-lit restaurants and cafes packed with well dressed couples, lovers strolling hand in hand, teenagers smooching in doorways, young couples toting their over bundled toddlers to delight in the glow of light strings festooned on doorways and between buildings. Traversing park-like boulevards, cobblestone streets and open squares, I pass by warmly illuminated and lovingly restored 19th century buildings, ghastly soviet-style apartment blocks, beautiful new condominiums and bright storefronts of brand name labels. Many buildings are intact, some have particle board slabs replacing recently blown out windows. Some have gaping wounds from missile strikes and boast a radius of darkness reminiscent of black holes.

I linger at a rocket and missile display at the edge of my city block. Jupiter, the Moon and a relic Soviet-era 8K99 intercontinental ballistic missile align in a macabre arrangement against an indigo sky. In a kaleidoscope of war time irony, Ukraine offers a music-pumping club on the same block as a children’s bomb shelter. Acres of freshly plowed fields next to acres of untended land cordoned off with scull and bone signs indicating live mines. Spoiled city dogs in fussy outfits and mangy muts hungrily roaming far flung gas station outposts. Large, well stocked stores that grind to a halt with each aerial alarm and scrappy little beer brewing start-ups who continue to pour pints through all of the alarms and some of the explosions.

Standing under the missile, I watch scores of men rushing to brightly lit flower shops to grab last minute bouquets before martial law curfew begins. Love and romance must go on, blaring air raid sirens be damned.

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