Some days I think what we do makes sense. Some days I don’t. I was writing this piece for @systemmagazine sometime mid-May? @sonyakvasha and I just launched @tripolar.ua to showcase the most exciting Ukrainian talents in Paris and we at @vogue_ukraine were day-dreaming some major projects for Fall (it’s all in the works and fingers crossed it should be both meaningful and beautiful). I got my copy of the magazine at a beautiful dinner and never unwrapped it, waiting, for some odd reason, for the essay to go online first. It did, on Wednesday. And then yesterday, in the middle of the zoom meeting, I learnt that my dear friend, an exciting young performer @roxolanas who has been touring Ukraine to support local communities and raise money for the Ukrainian military, lost one of her crew members in the air strike on Vinnytsia. They were scheduled to perform at a venue that was bombed the same night. A 25-year old sound designer Evhen was fatally wounded in the middle of the city square and died in the operating room few hours later. Another team member got severe spine wound and is still in critical condition, two more were cut with glass. Once again it made me think of the trauma and suffering people in Ukraine are going through on a daily basis and how much healing it will take. IF healing is ever possible. To that I have no answer. In this piece I wrote (quite naively I guess) about stoicism and optimism of the Ukrainian people and how proud we are. It is all true. But I can only imagine how much it takes to pick oneself from the ground and to carry on. Because all I see is people doing just that, carrying on. And for doing that I will applaud them forever. Thank you @elizabethvon @mikeobenson @misterwingfield for the opportunity to pull my thoughts together. One step at a time so they say.