War diary

8 March 2022

A woman on twitter invites you to share “war coffee” with her in Kyiv. She’s abandoned make-up, but still drinks coffee each morning, sharing occasional selfies, without the selfie smile. The soccer player who died by suicide smiled for hers up to the end, for which her parents said there was no warning. It’s our obligatory happiness. Her mother wears a sweatshirt that smells of her daughter. Smell is presence, not pretense.

I took pictures of a black & white photo of my father. When I turned the photo around and put it at the window, I could still see him, along with the name of the studio in Alexandria, Virginia. There’s no sentiment to the image; it was a head shot for work, I suspect. Mid to late 1960s? He’s not smiling, and he’s wearing a suit and tie. But as I carry him from window to tree and from tree to blue bowl and from bowl to the orange-speckled chair on the porch, I talk to him about war. On the Washington Mall, a plane flew over, low, and he imagined how it would feel were the plane shooting at us.

I placed him on the reflective silver ball in the crook of a hapu`u fern, and pushed the shutter. His image appears to melt into ferns, taffied by memory.

When I took a photo of his photo, showing just one eye and the edge of his mouth, he looked like Eisenhower.

President Zelensky speaks to his phone in a square full of sand bags. He talks softly, so as not to alert his enemies. It’s the beginning of Spring in Kyiv, and he’s outdoors in his drab green shirt and jacket. He repeats words. This is how we know he’s rhetorically brilliant. And then he winks.

Is that a selfie? Or a war-time speech to one’s own device, held out for the benefit of Instagram, Facebook, our corporate warlords (a different war)? A grandmother falls by the train tracks and two soldiers pick her up.

We each have a war diary; it’s the new democracy of affect. A friend vomited in her sleep, she’s so troubled by her television. Another friend wants to volunteer with Sean Penn, doesn’t know that Penn left his film behind. To watch is to act, isn’t it? Saner to stop watching.

The man in gray pony tale said he laughs at tourists because they wear watches, and consult them frequently. My empty wrist assures him I’m not a tourist, to say nothing of my dog. Says vaccinations should be the individual’s choice, and besides don’t people still get covid?

My father’s on the coffee table now, staring up awkwardly in his suit and tie. I walk past him many times a day. My photo project’s done, and he was well received. May his memory be a blessing.