I had plenty of ideas for this week’s newsletter whirling around in my brain, but they all kept getting edged out by the overriding anxiety and horror about what’s going on in the world.
I really appreciated this deeply personal account. At around the same time you were abroad as a student , I was doing my year abroad in America . If my 20 year old self knew that there would be a day when the American Leadership would align itself with Russia , I’m not sure I would have believed it. Much as my 60 year old self found it hard to believe the appalling, bullying, ill informed and vile behaviour televised from the Oval office. I dread to think what we will wake up to next and so, like many of us I suspect, I try to stay informed whilst finding pleasure in the things under my influence and control…. Like a Sunday morning cuppa while reading your substack for the week. Thank you, as always, Jane.
Thank you as always. I am sure you know (or maybe not?) that the vast majority of Americans are as appalled as you are and are trying to figure out how to stop this terrifying train wreck. None of us ever expected to be so ashamed of being American.
I look forward to and always read your Sunday post (as well as your dailies elsewhere!), but this may be the one I will remember best. Your generosity in sharing your life has always been part of why I read your work, not out of prurience (even if that was what I wanted, you never say more than you need to), but because what you do tell always opens new doors for me, and, especially, new windows. Your illustrations are a joy, the weekly Beatles nugget such fun. Thank you.
Jane sends the Persephone Post, which is a very short commentary on an image related to the week’s theme, which I imagine she chooses. Go to https://persephonebooks.co.uk/blogs/the-persephone-post and enter your email address to subscribe. It’s free, did I say?
I’ve always been quite proud of myself for having a working knowledge of current events. That said, the line between informed and overwhelmed with the horror of it all is becoming increasingly blurred. Thank you for reminding that at times it’s ok to be protective of yourself and for once again finding the nuggets of hope that we might creep back from the abyss. It’s happened before, we can do it again.
As an American, I am deeply troubled, sickened, infuriated, fearful and heartbroken by my country’s choices and actions. We have chosen hate, greed and all their attendant behaviors.
I went on a package holiday to Leningrad and Moscow in the mid 1980s. There were about 14 of us in the group. I'm very glad I had the experience. The ordinary people we met were friendly and helpful especially when we were lost and trying to find our way about with no Russian language skills. In both cities we stayed in tower block hotels that were comparable to anywhere in London. Some memories...being approached cloak and dagger by Russians wanting to sell you anything from caviar to icons as long as you paid them in hard currency. The amazing art work in the Moscow underground stations. The total drabness of everyone's clothes. We were in 1980s bright clothes and leg warmers including some of the men. We were the focus of some surprised looks when we walked anywhere in public. Going to the Bolshoi Ballet which was as cheap as chips and seeing the auditorium full with ordinary people many of whom had brought their own food and drinks with them. Going around museums and exhibitions with a guide who told us endlessly about how many things were ' under the restoration'. And seeing loads of badly doctored photos where undesirables had been cut and pasted out of the scene. Everywhere we went was alarmingly clean. No sign of graffiti or litter. The exception was the train we took from Moscow to Lenigrad which was full of soldiers going or coming back from Afghanistan. The train was filthy. It was a long ride across vast, snowy wastes which gave a sense of centuries past. One of the most interesting trips I've ever made.
Thank you Jane for this moving and very personal piece today, so beautifully recollected. It will remain much in my thoughts , together with the poignant image of the lilacs.
It's been a terrible week. We knew what was coming but every time this supposed world leader opens his mouth we're further appalled at the crassness, belligerence, hubris, greed and just general inhumanity of his utterances.
Thank you for sharing your amazing experience of Ukraine.
Thank you for sharing. We never know when or where we will find ourselves, and it can be so gratefully unexpected. I’m at a loss to express how scary and heartbreaking all of this is, to watch this happen as an American and feel like we are trying to scramble up the slippery side of a mountain to stop it. We will keep trying.
Thank you for this post. Often in adversity going anywhere different (even somewhere that objectively is full of constraints) engages mind, heart and spirit, and is enough to find the glimmer of a path out of the situation of personal adversity. It's interesting and powerful to read of your time in Ukraine. I've been drawn to reflect on Ukraine from a more personal perspective very lately for a host of reasons, some to do with my heritage and other to do with a coincidence of current interests. I found your post captured well how I'm feeling.
I love that insight that it was the Ukrainian women's floral fabrics that has informed your own quilting choices. If we were to trace the visual education in our brains! Which I suppose is what you do and why I love your writing.
What a moving account Jane, thank you. We have just returned from a whistlestop tour of four Balkan countries, and have been very interested by how each different state has dealt with its young freedom.
Your line about learning to take and live with difficult decisions—I read you every Sunday with utter pleasure but this really moved me (no small praise in an overall stunning piece). Echoes of “on self-respect” by Joan Didion, but all your own.
Please don't judge all Americans by the actions of one deranged oligarch and his wealthy (unelected) cohorts who have repeatedly violated the US Constitution since seizing power.
Past history could not prepare anyone for what's taking place, because it's unprecedented. It is indeed terrifying. Especially to those of us who have to live here and feel the immediate effects of his unchecked, unlawful, actions in our everyday lives. Our hearts are breaking, and the most vulnerable among us--and there are many (the disabled, those living in poverty, children, the elderly, those who are ill and need medical care)--are suffering.
I am grateful that people like you, Jane, exist in this world. Your generous and always fascinating newsletter is a very bright spot for me in an increasingly bleak world. Your writing is wonderful, honest, and full of treasures to discover. Thank you!
I am as bewildered as you are as to how the USA president, for want of a choicer word, can align himself with a former KGB operative. I was a small child during the Cuban missile crisis and remember, later on, watching short films of how to protect oneself if there was a nuclear attack. How the world has spun on its axis…
Our daughter studied Russian at school & uni. We joined her in Moscow for her 21st in 2009 and returned the following May when she was in St Petersburg. We found it a fascinating experience. Sadly in the end she hated the Russians, finding them barbaric.
I read Bill Browder’s books about his experiences with the Russian state & Sergei Magnitsky, his lawyer. To my horror I discovered we stayed in Pokrovka St, the same street that Magnitsky lived on, just as he was dying in prison. It rocked me to my core.
Ukraine has a much longer history than Russia. Slava Ukraini.
Thank you so much for this Jane. Your posts are one of the highlights of my week in these dark times. One of the few regrets I have in life is that when I was at school in the early 80s I had to turn down an opportunity to visit the USSR. But I went on to study languages at university and well remember the dislocation of my year abroad.
I love the illustrations, and especially loved your description of the Black Sea sunbathers, full of patriotic zeal.
I really appreciated this deeply personal account. At around the same time you were abroad as a student , I was doing my year abroad in America . If my 20 year old self knew that there would be a day when the American Leadership would align itself with Russia , I’m not sure I would have believed it. Much as my 60 year old self found it hard to believe the appalling, bullying, ill informed and vile behaviour televised from the Oval office. I dread to think what we will wake up to next and so, like many of us I suspect, I try to stay informed whilst finding pleasure in the things under my influence and control…. Like a Sunday morning cuppa while reading your substack for the week. Thank you, as always, Jane.
Thank you as always. I am sure you know (or maybe not?) that the vast majority of Americans are as appalled as you are and are trying to figure out how to stop this terrifying train wreck. None of us ever expected to be so ashamed of being American.
Amen
I look forward to and always read your Sunday post (as well as your dailies elsewhere!), but this may be the one I will remember best. Your generosity in sharing your life has always been part of why I read your work, not out of prurience (even if that was what I wanted, you never say more than you need to), but because what you do tell always opens new doors for me, and, especially, new windows. Your illustrations are a joy, the weekly Beatles nugget such fun. Thank you.
Oooo please tell me about the “dailies” else where -it’s a long week between Sunday Substacks :)
Jane sends the Persephone Post, which is a very short commentary on an image related to the week’s theme, which I imagine she chooses. Go to https://persephonebooks.co.uk/blogs/the-persephone-post and enter your email address to subscribe. It’s free, did I say?
I do choose the subjects and love writing the Post!
Thanks for the information on the Persephone Post - I've just subscribed. A lovely way to start the day!
I’ve always been quite proud of myself for having a working knowledge of current events. That said, the line between informed and overwhelmed with the horror of it all is becoming increasingly blurred. Thank you for reminding that at times it’s ok to be protective of yourself and for once again finding the nuggets of hope that we might creep back from the abyss. It’s happened before, we can do it again.
As an American, I am deeply troubled, sickened, infuriated, fearful and heartbroken by my country’s choices and actions. We have chosen hate, greed and all their attendant behaviors.
I went on a package holiday to Leningrad and Moscow in the mid 1980s. There were about 14 of us in the group. I'm very glad I had the experience. The ordinary people we met were friendly and helpful especially when we were lost and trying to find our way about with no Russian language skills. In both cities we stayed in tower block hotels that were comparable to anywhere in London. Some memories...being approached cloak and dagger by Russians wanting to sell you anything from caviar to icons as long as you paid them in hard currency. The amazing art work in the Moscow underground stations. The total drabness of everyone's clothes. We were in 1980s bright clothes and leg warmers including some of the men. We were the focus of some surprised looks when we walked anywhere in public. Going to the Bolshoi Ballet which was as cheap as chips and seeing the auditorium full with ordinary people many of whom had brought their own food and drinks with them. Going around museums and exhibitions with a guide who told us endlessly about how many things were ' under the restoration'. And seeing loads of badly doctored photos where undesirables had been cut and pasted out of the scene. Everywhere we went was alarmingly clean. No sign of graffiti or litter. The exception was the train we took from Moscow to Lenigrad which was full of soldiers going or coming back from Afghanistan. The train was filthy. It was a long ride across vast, snowy wastes which gave a sense of centuries past. One of the most interesting trips I've ever made.
Thank you Jane for this moving and very personal piece today, so beautifully recollected. It will remain much in my thoughts , together with the poignant image of the lilacs.
It's been a terrible week. We knew what was coming but every time this supposed world leader opens his mouth we're further appalled at the crassness, belligerence, hubris, greed and just general inhumanity of his utterances.
Thank you for sharing your amazing experience of Ukraine.
Thank you for sharing. We never know when or where we will find ourselves, and it can be so gratefully unexpected. I’m at a loss to express how scary and heartbreaking all of this is, to watch this happen as an American and feel like we are trying to scramble up the slippery side of a mountain to stop it. We will keep trying.
Thank you for this post. Often in adversity going anywhere different (even somewhere that objectively is full of constraints) engages mind, heart and spirit, and is enough to find the glimmer of a path out of the situation of personal adversity. It's interesting and powerful to read of your time in Ukraine. I've been drawn to reflect on Ukraine from a more personal perspective very lately for a host of reasons, some to do with my heritage and other to do with a coincidence of current interests. I found your post captured well how I'm feeling.
I love that insight that it was the Ukrainian women's floral fabrics that has informed your own quilting choices. If we were to trace the visual education in our brains! Which I suppose is what you do and why I love your writing.
What a moving account Jane, thank you. We have just returned from a whistlestop tour of four Balkan countries, and have been very interested by how each different state has dealt with its young freedom.
Your line about learning to take and live with difficult decisions—I read you every Sunday with utter pleasure but this really moved me (no small praise in an overall stunning piece). Echoes of “on self-respect” by Joan Didion, but all your own.
Please don't judge all Americans by the actions of one deranged oligarch and his wealthy (unelected) cohorts who have repeatedly violated the US Constitution since seizing power.
Past history could not prepare anyone for what's taking place, because it's unprecedented. It is indeed terrifying. Especially to those of us who have to live here and feel the immediate effects of his unchecked, unlawful, actions in our everyday lives. Our hearts are breaking, and the most vulnerable among us--and there are many (the disabled, those living in poverty, children, the elderly, those who are ill and need medical care)--are suffering.
I am grateful that people like you, Jane, exist in this world. Your generous and always fascinating newsletter is a very bright spot for me in an increasingly bleak world. Your writing is wonderful, honest, and full of treasures to discover. Thank you!
I am as bewildered as you are as to how the USA president, for want of a choicer word, can align himself with a former KGB operative. I was a small child during the Cuban missile crisis and remember, later on, watching short films of how to protect oneself if there was a nuclear attack. How the world has spun on its axis…
Our daughter studied Russian at school & uni. We joined her in Moscow for her 21st in 2009 and returned the following May when she was in St Petersburg. We found it a fascinating experience. Sadly in the end she hated the Russians, finding them barbaric.
I read Bill Browder’s books about his experiences with the Russian state & Sergei Magnitsky, his lawyer. To my horror I discovered we stayed in Pokrovka St, the same street that Magnitsky lived on, just as he was dying in prison. It rocked me to my core.
Ukraine has a much longer history than Russia. Slava Ukraini.
Thank you so much for this Jane. Your posts are one of the highlights of my week in these dark times. One of the few regrets I have in life is that when I was at school in the early 80s I had to turn down an opportunity to visit the USSR. But I went on to study languages at university and well remember the dislocation of my year abroad.
I love the illustrations, and especially loved your description of the Black Sea sunbathers, full of patriotic zeal.