Since the beginning of the war, I closed my eyes, imagined and drew. Once in a safe place, it became a kind of therapy and a way to cope with feelings. Later I realized that I was drawing exactly the nature that my inner child remembered. I was drawing those plants that had been growing in my places of strength, where I felt happiness as a child.
I am coming back to those places and times in my head, I know all about these plants. I close my eyes and see myself in a field of sunflowers with my grandfather, plucking tansy on the banks of the Dnieper and smelling its bitter aroma. I touch the thistles with my baby fingers, I am interested to explore how prickly they are. In the summer in the country, I pluck the flowers from the phloxes and bite off the sweet white part of the flower, small children's treats. I'm little and happy.
These memories give me strength and solace, something that is needed so much these days.
