Every year for more than a century, over 100 countries have celebrated March 8 as International Women’s Day—a time to celebrate women’s strength and endurance. In the US, if you ask most men, and yes, most women, what is celebrated on March 8, you will get a blank stare. I asked my husband, Richard. His immediate response was, “I don’t know.” Then after several seconds of deer in the headlights, because he could tell this was something important to me, and he should damn well know the answer, he smiled, and ventured, “It’s our anniversary?” I shook my head, “No, that was 3 weeks ago.” He shrugged and confessed, “I don’t have a clue.” I informed him, “It’s International Women’s Day.” Richard blurted, “Not fair. I never even heard of that!” Apparently after almost 40 years of marital bliss, I’ve not done a good job of enlightening the boy.
So, you try it. Ask your husband or significant other, wait for the shrug, then have them look it up, while you praise your own patience, strength and resilience.
In Ukraine, where I have now booked over 200 nights at The House of Swans since the war started, March 8 is a national public holiday, like Christmas and New Year’s with one big exception. On this day, women get to put their feet up and watch their husbands and sons wait on them (take note, Richard). Ukraine also celebrates Valentine’s Day, so women get two days to be appreciated in rapid succession. Feb. 14 a day to show love and affection and March 8, a day to honor the value and achievements of women.
But nothing is the same since the war. Martial Law cancels all holidays. People still celebrate in the privacy of their homes, but there are no public events, no time to luxuriate in well-deserved adulation. No time to march for Women’s rights and dignity when basic survival is a full-time job.
There’s another reason Women’s Day is in danger. Public sentiment is growing in Ukraine to cancel this public holiday. Not because women are any less revered, but because many Ukrainians see March 8 as a Soviet-imposed holiday, established to popularize the Kremlin’s view on the traditional role and place of women.
Last week, Ukraine’s parliament reintroduced a bill to replace International Women’s Day with Ukraine Women’s Day and move it to Feb. 25 the birthday of one of Ukraine’s most celebrated literary figures, Lesya Ukrainka, the brilliant poet and playwright, who died more than 100 years ago. She spoke, wrote and translated books in ten languages and was a leading political, civil and women’s rights activist.
Ukrainka was sick with bone and kidney tuberculosis from age 10 till her death at 42. She was in excruciating pain most of her life. She wrote, “My health is fragile, a crowd of images keeps me from sleeping, and then I get up and begin to write.”
As a child, I’d sometimes fall,
And though it hurt deep in my soul,
I would rise up again, quietly.
“What hurts?” they’d ask —
But I wouldn’t say.
I was proud even then —
I laughed, just so I wouldn’t cry.—Lesya Ukrainka
Lesya dreamed of freeing the Ukrainian people from the shackles of Russia’s domination, where Ukrainian language and culture were suppressed. She wanted to teach them to “touch the clouds with their hands.” Today, her phrase, “I laughed, just so I wouldn’t cry,” is a mantra of this proud country as Ukraine enters the 5th year of the invasion.
I asked my friend Leona, a poet who owns The House of Swans, how she will celebrate Women’s Day. She wrote back, “We don’t celebrate like we used to, before the war. But my son always tries to surprise me with something – a luxurious bouquet, a theatre ticket or pancakes with raspberry jam.”
That is the idealized version of the day. The reality will be much starker. Leona will wake to a freezing apartment. Like most mornings, she will see her breath in the air. If the electricity comes on long enough, Leona’s son will make the pancakes, but raspberry jam is a long-lost luxury. If the bombs are quiet and the snow isn’t too deep, they might walk to the park and look for crocuses, vibrant splashes of purple, lavender and yellow, pushing through the snow—a sign of resilience and renewal.
“We have indeed lost so much during these years. But we have also found within ourselves new depths of resilience, courage, and quiet strength. The war has changed everyone here — our priorities, our values, our way of seeing the world and each other. Some show their bravery on the battlefield, others carry it every day in civilian life, simply by continuing to live, work, and hope.”
I asked Leona if she would send me her latest poem. It was almost 2 a.m. her time, but she wrote back within minutes. Just another sleepless night in Kyiv.
“How are you?” they asked me.
“Like everyone else, thank you,” mine answer.
The most dangerous words are “like everyone else.”
Without meaning. Without hope. Without a precursor.As if life were rolled up into a shared scroll.
Where not a single line is written by me.
Where every day resembles a pale cast,
And the heart learns to be more silent.But still, beneath the familiar “everything is fine.”
A stubborn, warm light still burns —The desire to create and live – literally,
Without dissolving into the nameless everything.—Leona Veremeieva
I called my friend Galina, a compassionate Russian woman who moved here over 20 years ago and was the au pair for my children. She had read Leona’s story in The House of Swans series, and it brought her to tears. I told Galina I was sending a box full of poetry books to Leona and I asked if there was anything else I should include in the package. Galina immediately said, “Send her coloring books. Ukrainians and Russians love coloring books because that’s what we grew up with. We didn’t have a lot of other entertainment. Coloring takes your mind to some place beautiful, and you can use all the colors. So that makes your world a little brighter.”
Then I asked Galina if there was anything she wanted to say to Leona on Women’s Day. She thought for a moment, then her voice cracked as she answered, “Stay strong and believe that everything changes and this will also change, and the war will end and maybe you can come to America and we can celebrate Women’s Day together. The three of us—a Ukrainian, a Russian and an American.”
As I was packing the box of books for Leona, I saw a thin, dog-eared book of poetry on my desk—Mary Oliver’s, “House of Light,” my touchstone when the world breaks and it hurts deep in the soul. Inside this treasured collection from the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Oliver asks the piercing question: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Lesya Ukrainka wrote 20 plays, 270 poems and translated Homer, Shakespeare, Byron, Hugo, Dante and Turgenev into Ukrainian all while suffering from chronic, debilitating pain, loss of mobility and permanent disfigurement. Leona struggles to stay alive, without heat and jam as Putin’s hell rains down. She finds a way to house and clothe war widows and orphans. And for her soul, Leona writes hauntingly beautiful poetry so her stubborn, warm light may burn.
How will the rest of us answer that question?
I place the Oliver poems atop the poetry and coloring books and pray the package takes Leona’s mind to someplace beautiful that makes her world a little brighter.
The next morning, on Women’s Day, I awoke to this message from her: “May this Spring bring peace, hope, and beautiful new stories for both of us.”
Happy International Women’s Day to the four billion women in the world. May your lights burn bright.
In the next column, we’ll honor Iranian women: a martyred literary icon who lived more than 200 years ago, a young woman in Tehran arrested by the morality police for revealing too much hair, and a beloved Santa Barbara business owner who came to the US as a teenager on vacation with her brother. Her father called them from Iran and said, “Don’t come home. Stay and make your lives in America.” She’s been here ever since—for 50 years.
