As a liberal arts major and new military historian, I cannot tell you how much I love the story about a Canadian of Ukrainian descent who is painting flowers around the bullet holes left in Bucha. Ivanka Siolkowsky began doing that after talking with a man who had lost his son and his home and pointed to the scores of holes in the fence around his garden. In her efforts, she’s been aided by a four-year-old, painting daffodils, poppies daisies and other flowers in a kind of pivot on the swords-into-ploughshares thing.
There is so much unbearable pain, horror and ugliness in this war; tbh, in the whole world. And it's going to take so much and so long to repair all the loss. I am encouraged that anyone with a heart and a brush (no major artistic talent necessary, as Siolkowsky admits) can help to replace them with blooms, love and beauty. What would it be like if everyone metaphorically picked up a brush and did this?
You know: cultivate a space for beauty.
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