Sunday Dispatch: Moscow

My heart is heavy this week, dear reader. Never in my life have I thought that I would be talking to a friend about having coffee and a cigarette when the war is over and peace is restored. What in the 1930s is going on? Why do I feel like I’m weeks away from sending letters to the front? That’s the conversation I had yesterday with a dear friend in Moscow. We were both sad that this war had started. We discussed nuclear weapons and what that might mean. I asked her if she needed American dollars to combat inflation. She’s ok for now. She’s afraid that Russia will become like North Korea: isolated and alone. My mind is still processing these things. In what world are we living?

In my lifetime I have lived through multiple terrorist attacks, changing weather, a pandemic, a financial crisis, and the first European land war since my Nana was born in 1939. It has been a long 33 years. Anyone under 40 has seen a great deal of life. We’ve had to bear up under the stress of a world gone amok and ever decreasing resources to deal with these challenges. Even so, we are better off than anyone trying to leave the war zone or the people in Moscow, who will surely be facing some difficult days ahead. Back to my friend in Russia, she is an interesting character.

My friend has been in my life for several years. I met her back in 2013 when I was active in the Boulder spiritual scene. I often gave her rides to various events, and she ended up helping me with much of my trauma. We spent many an afternoon smoking cigarettes, drinking her homemade kombucha after a healing session with her tuning forks. I was in good hands, not only was she a proper medical doctor, she was also a therapist.

Her story was fascinating. She came to this country in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union with her husband. They worked together at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland. A few years ago, she decided to go back home to Russia. She was post kids, post divorce, and needed to take care of her aging parents. Since then, we’ve been communicating over Facebook. We used to do video calls, but the internet in Russia isn’t as good as it used to be, so it’s been calls and texts.

I’ve long dreamed of visiting her in Moscow and seeing the beauty of the city. Yesterday, we shared that dream together. There’s no way for her to come here. US visas are impossible to get, and her residency has expired. I can’t go there either and the way this war is going, it seems like my dream of visiting her in Moscow and seeing the city seems ever farther away than before. Today, EU nations closed their airspace to Russian planes. Soon, I don’t even know if I could get to Russia for love or money. Russia is plenty far away, but with this war in Ukraine, my friends seems farther away than ever before.

I love her dry Russian sense of humor. In the standard tradition of her people, she always reminds me that things can always get worse. Her dry wit makes me laugh constantly. No matter what happens, she has a distinct remark that always brings me joy. She smokes like a chimney, and so we sit, we talk, we smoke (I vape) and we bring up family, the world, and things. Every so often, we talk for an hour before she has to go. Occasionally, we share just a few minutes.

She hoped that the war wouldn’t happen, and I did too. Now with Putin rattle the nuclear saber, it seems like things could become dire. Our best hope is that the proposed talks near the Belarusian border will result in something. When will I ever get to see my friend again? That remains an unknown at this time. This is the cost of war. It’s not only lives but possibilities, friends, and the freedom of movement. So far, 100,000 people have been displaced by the conflict in Ukraine.

She gave me one plaintive message: “tell all your friends that the Russian people don’t want this war.” I believe that. I hope you do too. Not only that, but I reminded her that friendships like ours can bridge gaps. It is not like the other days. We have the means to let people know what the folks on the ground are thinking.

This war has been live-streamed to everyone’s pocket. That changes the face of war. On Friday, Rachel Maddow had a restaurant owner who was zooming into her show from the basement of his building. This is not Walter Cronkite and Vietnam. We’re seeing the war in real-time without the filter of media. This human connection changes things. Hell, word on Twitter is that Russian troops are trying to hook up with local women on Tinder and getting catfished. Putin once declared that there were no gays in Russia. However, locals are tracking troop movements using the popular Grindr app. Imagine, invading a country and thinking someone is going to swipe right or meet for a cheeky gay hookup behind a tank. No one local can host the gay hookup as the tank just blew up their house. However, perhaps local gay men can stop the invasion by keeping the troops busy. We have to consider all possibilities these days. Again, we live in very strange times.

Think of the world and my friend in Moscow. Think of the Ukrainians whose lives have been uprooted due to this unnecessary war. Let’s hope for peace in our time, sooner rather than later.