The country of my childhood memories

It's not the country, but it's the spirit that I love, you know?

This is the country where I have lived for many years, where I have spent my childhood, but I still can't say that I love it fully, but then you see...it's all about the country, not about its spirit. I'm in love with the soul! In my mind Ukraine is so different from the real one.

My mind carries me away...Strong childhood memories are appearing and keeping me coming back and visiting my family, which still lives there, every year. Every time before taking the plane I feel so anxious, so happy to see my country and live through its moments once again. I'm packing my luggage, I'm buying my tickets online...Retro images of the hot summer or windy spring are pumping in my head.

I literally feel like I will get out of the airport, take a taxi and....dissolve! I will see happy faces, children licking apricot ice-cream (just like me 20 years ago), grannies selling their herring, wrapped in the newspaper, couples walking on the boulevards, hugging, eating cherries and spitting their seeds on the floor. But everytime I arrive...I see the opposite, something that doesn't match with my illusions. I end up tricking myself, playing with my mind. Ukraine of my childhood dreams no longer exists.


The way I remember, it's a country with a population of 52 million, everyone has a car, apartment or a house, children, a cat, a job, weekends. The chestnut trees are blooming with their white flowers in May and spinning your head around with all these aromas. The little red trams are happy to carry you away to the corner of your first kiss. If everything would be real, I would take one, number 18 and go...Probably, I would appear somewhere in Odessa, the city, where I grew up. It would be hot summer and the last stop would be somewhere near the beach. Then, I would get off, buy a little pack of tiny shripms, some mineral water with gas ("sharp" water, as I used to say, when I was a child) and walk around the neighbourhood, that would be exactly the same. No changes, no new buildings, everyone is young, healthy and alive.


Odessa is actually very different from all other Ukrainian cities. Even its citizens don't want to be called Ukrainians. They are Odessity and there is nothing else to add. Odessa has this spicy mix of colors, cultures, tastes and accents. Until nowadays I hear the famous Jewish melodie "Hava Nagila" and it makes me feel so nostalgic...It has nothing to do with Ukraine of course, but as I have already mentioned, Odessa always stands out, when it comes to music, people and even the language, their personal slang.


Ukraine itself breathes with its legends and tales...And every time, when I hear "Ukraine" somewhere, the first thing that comes to my mind is my grandmother. She was just perfect representation of the country. Her typical clothes, her shawl on the head with bright-red flowers...her frightening stories, that made me be covered under the blanket all nights long. Grandmothers in Ukraine are very important in their grandchildren's lives and sometimes it's just difficult to imagine all these traditional things without her in that picture.


Also, I really wanted to tell you about those fields. If you are driving your car, somewhere in the countryside of Ukraine in the mid August and all your windows are open, you would understand what I mean. You would probably drug yourself with all these flower smells and the only wish that would pass through your head will be: "I wanna drawn in this juicy grass, dive in the sunflowers, chicory, lavender, sagebrush, dandelions...! I just wanna be a part of this honey coctail of this very heart of the universe."


And that's the answer I guess, why do I always come back there, even knowing that everything is nothing else but an illusion, the product of my own imagination. It's just because this way, I can enjoy this pleasure of utopia, even if it's just for few minutes, but it feels so good, so right. I prefer lying to myself, creating a different reality. So the moment I close my eyes in the airplane, that is rushing towards my motherland, my own fairy tale starts...

                                                                                    Sunflowers by Nelson Mineiro