05 -- Rodnyye, svoi

‘And how long has it been in such shape?’ — ‘Oh, since I was a kid.’ — ‘It never grows back?’ — ‘No, never. It has a broken root.’

The convo is about a disfigured toenail and yet it is not. Is this a metaphor I am having right now, here at this lady’s home salon in the local Bristol suburbs, lying on her makeshift massage bed/pedicure sofa? it is true i picked her because of her name and surname of eastern european origin. if somebody is doing her job perfectly it’s eastern european women, frightened into not being less than. i am this woman. i grew up like that. frightened.

in today’s news, the capital of the soviet union is burning in dark apocalyptic smoke. the year of the fire horse, they said. the summer will be hot, i replied.

her name is Nastja, and she is Ukrainian, as i intuitively suspected. i am so glad to meet her. so is she — the room that had a warm, caring feeling, is even warmer now that we have established, more in feeling rather than words that come out in broken language, not being sure that it is safe to use our common extractor’s tongue, that yes, we are rodnyye, svoi, the people with ongoing trauma in common.

Today I think about girls who weren’t cherished by their mothers who weren’t cherished by their mothers who weren’t cherished by their mothers who weren’t cherished by their mothers and grew up with broken roots.