Long Wander

This is a personal and unfinished project in which I live and illustrate my life away from the home. Like many people, I followed my boyfriend after mobilization was announced in Russia. And now we find ourselves in different countries, living as guests of kind people, moving from city to city. Only it doesn’t feel like an interesting journey. Everything new makes us long for for what’s been left behind. Other cities evoke dear places and spaces that we can’t take with us. All the time there is a hope inside that we will return, that a normal and loved life can continue, that it’s all temporary. But the days go on, turning into months, and it’s not clear when we’ll be able to return home safely. It’s a hard thought, but I’m slowly getting used to this reality. I often feel sad for my elderly grandparents that I can’t take care of from afar and can only see via video link, saddened for my close friends with whom distance inevitably chills relations, saddened by the realization that I didn’t want to move and had to choose to do so to be near the person I love. This is the first time in my experience that there has been such a break from home, from family, from friends. I’m trying to see new possibilities, to get used to a different life and learn to bring to it what I had what was valuable in the old one. But the images of my lost home flicker in my mind, imprinting on everything I see along the way.