I wonder: how do you imagine the blackout in Ukraine? Is it stunned stillness washed over the dark buildings? Sunken faces in trembling candlelight by the windows? People and cars shocked into silence? Figures flocking to sources of light like moths to share their woes in sobbing whispers and charge their phones to read about new distractions to their homeland?
Because it's not like that.
It's coworking spaces and cafes filled to the brim. It's faces lit by computer and phone screens as they keep working, keep studying, keep volunteering. It's students cursing the world and spamming memes, but stubbornly doing their homework and writing their thesis in candlelight. It's cafes with generators where people try to scooch father from the noise and closer to coffee makers. It's bars totally embracing the noir candlelit vibe, it's the invincibility centers where you get swept into watching Footbal World Cup with a group of loud men, laughing, slapping each other's backs. It's small businesses posting signs saying "Yes, we are working". It's bobbing lights in a park where people with flashlights are walking their dogs. It's ladies weaving masking nets in dim light and sharing stories. It's all the taxis I took over the past two weeks being electric cars somehow??? (That one even I don't understand).
But most of all, it's not silent. It is a furious roaring of generators in every street, the new music of our resistance, like the sound of greeted teeth, when we persevere and growl "Without you!"
As you can see, my mood has picked up a little. I have a whole new regime, for I had to readjust my sleeping schedule depending on whether I do or don't have power. I volunteer more, I do art more, I read (I work less, though), I go for walks and visit my parents and friends. And it doesn't feel so bad anymore. It's the new norm, and now that I know I can survive this, I feel even more unbreakable and determined than ever.