These days I live with a broken heart...
An "eye blink" was my trip to Lviv, a city in western Ukraine, a few months before the pandemic. I promised to go back. 48 hours were enough to fascinate my reality. In Ukraine, you meet women of wisdom. The way they walk, talk, think, envision is truly unique. I met about 100 women there, some of them, I had the honorable opportunity to get to know them better, to hear their stories, to feel their burden or love, and most importantly to get exposed to the soulful wisdom. All of them are highly educated. Educated by all means. Ukrainian women carry deep human knowledge. You can sense that in every single bit of their existence in everyday life.
But I got to know them earlier than my trip to the magical Ukrainian land. Because I have met K. in the sunny state of the USA. She was fierce, full of life, and full of inner wisdom. We became friends, we became distant and then we became better friends. It was her intelligence that I always appreciated. Her thirst for living and learning is always staying in my heart as an admiration.
My phone rings... behind the WhatsApp sound, the message comes from my other Ukrainian friend A. who I met during our MBA studies in Boston. She reported what was happening. She was stoic and wise on her words too, like all Ukrainian women.
All these days I try to find the right words, the right thoughts, the right actions. Everything seems little in front of the cruelty of war. I feel little. How can I write about what is happening? Something that I do not know or cannot understand. But then I thought to myself that I owe to report what I know.
I know that Ukrainian women are incredible, wise and I feel blessed that life brought me to paths that gave me the opportunity to get to know them.
In Lviv, I learned more than I taught. Stay strong Ukrainian women we stay always by your side!
Slava Ukraini.
xoxo Elpida
PS: My ladies, just a note that I did not post our pictures together or mentioned names out of courtesy to privacy. You know who you are...