People say you can never go back. I say, that is not true. You absolutely can go back, and there is magic in knowing that memories actually existed, and that the people you feel in your heart are real.

Going back to a place where people you love changed your life is like going home, to a place that is older now and maybe weathered a little bit, but still part of who you are forever. It is both true and unbelievable, that part of the past is brought back to the present like it was yesterday. Like the uncertainty principle, of memories.

The train was just as I remember from a spring many years ago, when Mike and I made this same trip in a sleeper coach from Kyiv to Lviv. The difference, of course, was that it was bustling and full of people back then and the country was not at war. This time there was nobody on the train except myself, and a small group of others like me. The swaying of the cars throughout the night and the smooth clicking of of the wheels only added to the sense of a dream. The women train attendants brought tea and coffee, and smiled with me at the sunrise.

The city of Kyiv was as striking as I remember, with most of its wide boulevards, parks, and golden domes surviving the attacks from the east. Brilliant blue towers of St. Sophia’s and St. Michael’s still stand like Wedgewood china over the square, only this time, instead of couples posing for wedding photos, I took pictures of tanks. It’s hard to understand how things have changed so much from those short years ago.

Inside St. Sophia’s garden, I was inspired to find this mobile carillon resting beneath the trees. I have never see a carillon exist outside a tower in this way, with all the strings and pulleys and levers on display! It was a little strange to be standing so close to it, like being up close to priceless artwork? I hope this means the bells are safe down here, away from the bombs and the towers.

Down the street from the hotel, past the University gardens and Shevchenko Park, the shopping district along Kreschatik is still alive and busy with people and flags waving with Ukrainian pride. I may or may not have had a motorcycle ride along this street one afternoon. We spent so many Sunday afternoons here on Kreschatik with our friends, eating soft serve ice cream and listening to music and watching the kids splash in the fountain. The energy of Ukrainians, even in the midst of this war, is a humbling reminder of what resilience really means.

The Meydan Nezalezhnosti is different now. Instead of music festivals and kids splashing barefoot, it’s become a memorial lined with photos of young men killed in the war.

Just like old times, I walked past the Golden Gate….

And through Schevchenko Park to the Red University, where the boys used to play on the swings. It all looks mostly the same, except the statues are all wrapped up now to protect them from being destroyed by bombs.

This is the park in front of the Embassy, where Masha used to bring the boys to play and walk me home from work. Then, and now…..

I’m a sucker for monasteries and any rituals that treats candles as prayers, so I walked in the warm evenings through leafy streets to my favorites, hoping the air raid sirens would stay quiet. During Soviet times, when religion was pushed underground, monasteries were hidden behind blocks of apartments, so you wouldn’t know to look for them if you didn’t know they were there. Our apartment on Artema Street hid a breathtaking complex of monasteries, where Masha would take Jake and Eli on walks and teach them to light candles in front of the icons. I used to stop on my way home from work when the choir was singing, thick with incense and invisible behind the wooden iconostasis.

Our old neighborhood has changed a little bit but not much. The beer kiosks on every corner have been replaced by coffee kiosks, and the inside of Silpo had a major glow-up. Kyiv has electric scooters! But the park and the trees and the crumbling yellow sidewalks still look the same as they always did. Trees can be counted on to weather many storms, firmly by our side.

This is the green market I used to visit on Saturdays, a 10-minute walk from our apartment that would burst in all seasons with melons, tomatoes, cucumbers, cherries, potatoes, and mountains of berries. There were stalls selling meat, fresh milk, salty cheese, along with underwear, garden tools, and school supplies. It’s also were I learned how farmers keep their vegetables from freezing in the winter cold. Sadly, I learned from a friend that the Lukyanavska Market was bombed a few weeks after I was here. It doesn’t exist anymore.

War is never the answer, is it? And yet.

Sixteen years later, everything and nothing has changed. War and aging are as sure as death and taxes. But it’s also true that a lot of good has happened, and we can choose to notice the good details, to find the common threads and hold onto them and remember not everything is falling apart.

There are people in life who are with you on the whole journey. Sometimes the threads get interwoven elsewhere, but the part that you shared is still firmly entwined, at the base of the rest of the story. I suppose if we’re lucky, the base of our story begins with people who are like bedrock. And even 15 years later, teach us lessons about strength, resilience, and the purpose of it all. Thank you Kyiv, my friends, for that ❤️