Tic, tic, tic...could be my cat licking a plastic bag. She loves to lick plastic bags. We think she's a closet druggie. The sticky tabs on envelopes are a favorite with her too. But I stretch and finally get up on this cold, rainy day that is the very epitome of dank, and see the rain dripping in through the open fortechka and between the double windows. Ick.
Out to the balcony to hang up the laundry still wet from last night. The dripping is louder there. Another, larger fortechka propped open all night means wet windowsill and floor and who-knows-what inside the bench-cupboard. Foo.
I'm SO glad I don't live somewhere where they have a rainy season!
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Slender white trunks with vibrant leafy spray form an elegant veil wrapped around dark evergreens. For miles and miles, the layers of living green are fed by a wet Spring day.
I sit in a rumbling metal box. Stale, human smells remind me I'm not in the forest. As does the plasma screen overhead, flashing the latest weird sci-fi scenes, complete with loud, murmuring Russian synchronization.
A withered little grandma moves up to the front next to me. Keeps bumping around too much in the back, she says, and I understand. A tiny village begins to pass on our left and grandma comments on the simple little houses and blooming white of cherry trees. Can't get used to Kiev, she says. Lived in the village all my life.
We long to be out of the rumbling metal box and somewhere far in the forest, among the pillars of pine and birch. Or in a hata, tending a little garden, cheered by cherry blossoms.
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Out of the tunnel, up from the hole where thousands mill and press, around the corner and ...
Glorious white accompianed by magenta hands folded in prayer. Smug yellow grabs your eye, tucked in against the stately light pillars of the station. And the warm blessing of sunshine. You can breathe now. Take it in deeply. Even the background noise of the city doesn't take away the pure pleasure of this garden.
Women in long coats and stilleto heels stroll along the alleys. Girls in heels climb even the dirt shortcuts, giggling as they try not to slip. Vivaldi's bright notes stream from a student's mobile.
It's the best place to get a picture of yourself wearing Mother Nature's spring line. And even men are taking pictures with their phones. Even women are taking pictures without themselves in the frame. There are no greater words of praise for a sight in Ukraine!
Metropolitan man begins to breathe again in wonder at the simplicity of a tree in blossom. No oligarch, no architect, has bought or built anything better in this city.
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