{"data":{"id":"8cd1fd3a-d535-4808-a7e8-e979648369e3","updated_at":"2024-04-07T23:06:39Z","template_id":"73046548-86ec-431a-aca0-75b53bc936f3","localized":{"blocks":[{"id":"6a025525-07ed-46d8-9c51-5a99b568b7a0","kind":"richtext","content_html":"

The headlines scream:

Putin Exploits America’s Fear of Nuclear War
Russia’s Bombardment Grinds On
U.S. Sends Soviet Air Defenses to Ukraine
United States Will Welcome up to 100,000 Ukrainian Refugees
Putin is Targeting Civilians and It’s a War Crime .

My routine, however, continues uninterrupted:

8:40 AM: I wake up. Roll over. Grab my iPhone and listen to Tamara Levitt on my Calm app talk about the importance of gratitude.
10 AM: I sit drinking a perfectly brewed cup of coffee from my bright red coffee machine.
10:22 AM: I set up my computer on my screened porch – pausing to notice more blooms on my geranium plants.
10:32 AM: I begin pounding out my weekly column.
2:10 PM: I run a few mundane errands. Check in with a few friends about lunch plans for next week.
4:00 PM: I turn on MSNBC or CNN to catch the headlines, while I plop a frozen chicken into my Instant Pot.
5:20 PM: I go for an hour-long ride on my tricycle, circling the bay.
6:30 PM: Dinner with my husband, discussing whether to add solar powered lights to the front yard shrubs.
7:30 PM: Facetime with my delicious grandchildren.
9:00 PM: I snuggle in front of the big screen TV to binge watch The Gilded Age.
11:30 PM: I take a very hot, very long shower and afterwards I slather on some fabulously smelling lavender body lotion before slipping into my king size bed in my air- conditioned house.

I don’t know Darya Peshkova, but her routine has not gone uninterrupted.

As reported by WSJ, one morning Darya Peshkova hears Russian forces shelling her port city of Mariupol. A few short days later, her heating, electricity and water go out.

Her food and water supplies dwindle dangerously down. Her burning question is not what errands to run or what to make for dinner.

Her dilemma: Should she leave the city she has lived in for 37 years or steadfastly cling to the hope that “this too will pass”?

She and her husband decide to flee the city with their two young daughters.

They join a convoy of cars leaving the city on “safe routes” agreed upon by the Russian forces.

Twenty-five miles later, sixteen rogue gunmen surround their caravan, saying they will only let women and children through - no men.

Darya Peshkova and her husband turn off the engine of their automobile.

And wait. And deliberate.

Around dusk, the mayor of a nearby village offers them a place to stay. Is this a trick? It isn’t.

The whole neighboring village shares whatever they have with the refugee convoy and the next morning the fleeing men find an alternate route to avoid that prior check point.

They begin driving once more.

Potholes litter the road, as do rotting corpses, burned-out vehicles and unexploded munitions.

The day wears on - interrupted by Russian war planes opening fire on Ukrainian targets too close for comfort.

Just before nightfall – right about the time my husband and I would be pleasantly finishing up dinner - Darya Peshkova and her family come to a checkpoint sporting a Ukrainian flag.

They have made it to safety.

The only difference I notice these days that disrupts my placid, secure routine is the ever present, intermittent drone of fighter planes overhead at random times of the day.

It’s a reminder that even though Ukraine may be 5667 miles away, MacDill Air Force Base is literally at the end of my street - 3.1 miles from my driveway.

The air base is home to 15,000 workers and is the US Central Command and headquarters for the US Special Operations Command. Its presence among the stately homes and old oaks of South Tampa is a vivid reminder that in today’s global world, war is never far from our own backyards.

And from our minds, thoughts and hearts.

Keep Preserving Your Bloom, in spite of it all.

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About the Author;

Iris Ruth Pastor has published more than 800 columns on everything from bad hair days and unruly children to reinvention after the nest empties in newspapers and magazines. She is an author and her most recent book, The Secret Life of the Weight-Obsessed Woman deals with her personal journey of overcoming addiction - specifically an eating disorder. She has been featured on NBC News, CBS News, Fox News, and many others. You can find out more about Iris on her website.

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