From Somewhere Quiet
The rolling scenery out the window provided an escape from my swarming thoughts of our final destination.
An 18-hour drive took us from Katowice, through the western half of Ukraine, until dropping us off near our village near Boryspil.
Stories of marauders raiding dormant, evacuated houses worried me, even when we confirmed that our neighbors were taking care of our home via messages and security systems.
When we reached the border patrol, the rustling of passports could be heard across the bus; people woke from their short-lived slumber and frantically sought their identification to cross the border quickly.
Thirty minutes turned into an hour, and that one hour turned into two until we received our passports back and started exiting the station.
Everyone was relieved, and the scenery soon changed into a dawn-break of valleys and villages.
Only in the morning did we start seeing the makeshift barricades and troops.
I don’t know what I expected to experience when we arrived. Still, the energized feeling in the air differed from what I had theorized repeatedly in my head.
It was as if everyone was united more than ever, from the youngest children to the oldest grandparents to the men and women on the frontlines.
The villages were torn by battles, most barricades were arranged in a state of emergency, and it felt as if the roads had received the full impact of the war. Yet, the people were strengthened, united, and able to trust one another.
I don’t know what I was fully expecting. Still, Ukraine, as the unified nation in front of me, indicated that everything that had occurred since February 24 happened for a reason beyond my thinking.
