The unfortunate reality of having only been to Ukraine a handful of times as a child, on jam-packed itineraries is that only a few photographs from that time exist in my possession. By this logic, my memories of my grandparents’ physical presence, and of their house are few and far between. I do, however, know that there is a chicken coop. I snuck out there once just before nightfall. It was a splintery shack with a half-broken door wedged into the dirt of the yard in the back of the house.
The coop, which in comparison to my miniature size, appeared to extend vastly into the unknown. My grandfather threatened me and shouted that I was not allowed to go inside after dark, because the chickens needed rest from my rough handling and because the roosters would peck my eyes out.
I don’t remember being scared.
The photograph related to this semi-opaque memory feels more unreliable than the memory itself. The images that I hold onto dearly, simply dance around the memory, clipped from my mother and my’s trip to Ukraine in 2004, and dwindle in the sticky summer air. My earliest memories only loosely parallel the images, and at times, their dreamlike qualities feel fabricated whenever I try to recall them. Especially since I don’t remember my father coming to visit my mother’s parents, and he is nowhere to be found in the pictures, even though the composition and use of flash feel familiar. I have learned to decode his photographing and to distinguish it from my mother’s by going back to our photo albums over the years.
Past the infinite yard of my grandparents’ disintegrating house, through the gate, my mother and I venture into a luscious field. It is a humid day, but there is a strong gust of wind cooling off the top of my head. The sun is high up in the clouds, dispersing as we wander into a Slavic Eden. The trek overwhelms my eyes; I blink repeatedly to adjust the curious abundance of green. We walk through the tall grasses to an awning in the field where the edge of the woods trickle into the open land. A sparse herd of cow’s graze in front of us. My mother warns me as I approach the gentle beasts. Tiptoeing, tiptoeing, I stretch for a touch. The cow’s hide is warm. My mother beckons me towards the bushes by the woods. To protect my shiny blonde bob, she weaves a crown of flowers, those of which I have never seen before. She crafts the crown quickly, recalling her own childhood to remember the ins and outs of the stems intertwining. She places it on top of my head, and I marvel at how strongly the flowers are held together.
The memory is still silky as I embroider it into the corners of my mind, fastening it tenderly to guarantee its immovability, but I am afraid it will split off from my consciousness. It is a memory that feels so fragile, like a wilting houseplant that no amount of water or fertilizer will save. My mom and I entertain ourselves with memories during most of our conversations, and sometimes it feels like all we can talk about. Yet somehow, it is the most protective measure I can take.