My father was sitting in my kitchen; if I didn't know him better, I might think that he was crying. I have never seen him so vulnerable. After spending a day on the road, crossing checkpoints, talking with his eldest daughter and his grandchild, he sat, powerless. His sadness and fatigue, which had been accumulating throughout his life, had finally managed to surface in a tired look.

I couldn't pull myself together to find the words to support him. At the same time as all the possibilities of what to say were whirling in my mind, nothing felt right. So, I kept my head down and dutifully continued to cut the bread for our late-night dinner. Baked potatoes were already on the table.

"I'm sorry we couldn't give you better," he finally uttered. 

My childhood fell in the 1990s in the industrial part of Luhansk Oblast, where the post-Soviet economic crisis severely impacted many families. My dad was a miner, and often in that period he was not paid a salary. Once, he had to quit altogether because the company did not pay the workers for a long time. We lived together, five of us—mom, dad, my sister, me, and our cat, who is no longer alive—in a tiny one-bedroom apartment in a long five-floor building that was constructed in the 1980s specifically for miners’ families.

The surrounding district was full of new things—new kindergarten, new shops, new playground. However, there was an empty space behind our building, and so some residents decided to organize a garden. Our family also had our own patch there. We planted potatoes, beetroot, cabbage, carrots, onions—all the necessary vegetables to survive.

At that time, in industrial Ukraine at least, such gardens were unplanned and illegal. Today, however, cozy spaces like this have been rebranded as community gardens, where everyone has their own piece of land that they care for. Back then, people would organize them in service of their basic economic needs. Today, these community gardens seem more guided towards a desire to bring nature into the city, to care for something and to spend time with oneself. They seem perhaps not just well-groomed or well-organized—I would go so far as to say they look stylish and fancy. For sure, they look like a place to rest, rather than a place for the exhausting work of survival. 

Every spring, we planted vegetables; every autumn, we harvested. Both times were depressing for my sister and me—it seemed that our childhood was on its way out, and we were spending what was left of it trapped inside a tiresome routine. Instead of poking around in the dirt for vegetables, we wanted to run around with our friends. 

I loved to sprint like the wind, play ball, and jump rope. I never sat down. I’ve never had any patience for stillness. My sister, on the other hand, was calm and reasonable. The fact that she would become a doctor was evident when she played with lizards and grasshoppers and tore off their legs (never repeat this, please!). Whenever I remind her of this episode, my sister argues that I have faulty memory, and she did not tear off their legs, but the lizards' tails fell off themselves simply because that is their nature. Yes, of course, I agree with her.

Some days, we caught butterflies together. I remember once, I put one of the big dark butterflies that had fallen victim to our games between the old pages of Ernest Hemingway's novel "The Old Man and the Sea." I did not choose any specific page for this butterfly’s tomb. I just loved the blue hard-printed cover and its small lithographic portrait of the author. The story itself looked appropriately existential to me, even though I did not know the meaning of this word at that time. I wanted to remember my childhood with its texture, smells, tastes, experiences, sensations, and that exact time and space. I imagined creating my own museum collection. I never expected that 20 years later, I would work in a contemporary art field for nearly a decade. But the butterfly was dead, and the book was damaged. Today I am ashamed of that. 

I never created my memorabilia collection, but I still remember my high-yielding and lively childhood around industrial dust and rural nature. And I do remember how my sister tore off the legs of grasshoppers and watched how they live in glass jars or matchboxes. 

The sun would beat down on our backs and the napes of the necks. It seemed that our knees were falling off, and we would die right here in this garden. Our whole bodies howled with boredom. No, they did not howl with boredom; they very seriously protested against the fact that our childhood was being taken away from us.

Standing that day in my kitchen, I would like to reassure a little girl that I was then, saying that time cannot be kept up. It always gets faster. But we are lucky, because, unlike butterflies, people have more than one day to remember.

"No," I responded to my father. My words were as sharp as the blade in my hand. "Potatoes are my favorite food, and they were never tastier than in my childhood."

It wasn’t a lie. 

My mother was sure that choosing the right type of potato was important. We tried to plant different ones—red, white, brown with thick skin, and even blue with round and oblong "eyes"—but the one we liked most was yellowish with a smooth, thin skin. This type had almost no "eyes." You can imagine the contrast of such golden potatoes with Ukrainian black soil, chornozem. It was not gold, but it could definitely be exchanged for money or something else. It did not have the crumbly taste of many other types. It was perfect for being fried and boiled. 

For some recipes, Mom used salo instead of butter. I didn't like that lardy substance because of its wrinkled, ugly look. That day, when my father was sitting in my kitchen, a particular "fat episode'' came back to him and touched him deeply— a hard time when a parent couldn't always buy meat and butter. It was the same time for me and for my parents, but our memories are different. That fat gave the potatoes a delicious golden crust, and the smell of baked food spread throughout our 20-square-meter apartment and gathered us for an all-family supper as if by magic. My cooked potatoes never have such an effect. 

If someone collected all the recipes for cooking potatoes, it would obviously not be a thin book. Mom had many recipes. Dad never cooked. 

No, wait. This time I lie.

Once, I remember, my sister was in the hospital, and my mother had to stay with her all the time. So it was just Dad and me at home. Every day, he cooked breakfast, lunch, and dinner for us. Of course, I do not remember every meal, but, one morning, he made fried potatoes and scrambled eggs. It was the most delicious dish ever. That day, Dad used butter, so the simple country-style potatoes were covered with a soft, creamy smell. But it wasn’t that milky taste that touched me, but the fact of Dad's natural care even for things like cooking. 

This particular style of fried potato constantly pops up like a boat in the ocean of my memory. For me, the smell of butter ​​is mixed with the scent of childhood, comfort, care, and a feeling of home. 

Today, my parents live in a different house. They finally bought a bigger place, still in the very same district as when I was 14. Getting there is incredibly difficult. The comfort of home has been displaced by the discomfort and anxiety of moving and the ongoing Russian war in Ukraine. Since 2014, my parents have been living in Russian-occupied territory. The road to them is blocked by dozens of checkpoints, active brutal fights, and ruined cities. 

Each day the front line gets longer. Each occupied territory and bombed-out place in the Luhansk Oblast has a very bodily effect on me: eyes always sad, pounds lost, and a smile that has become heavy. Everyone’s minds have become anxious and weighty. Now I know how many steps and years have separated me from the place where I harvested potatoes. It's just incredible how many. 

While fried potatoes are inextricably linked to that breakfast my father made me, baked potatoes remind me of rainy autumn evenings when my mother would call us home for dinner. My sister and I would arrive at the door, tired and wet. Some days, my mom asked us to buy bread on the way. We liked that she trusted us with such severe tasks as buying something from the store. 

We would run to the local deli—since the farmer market at that time was already closed—and buy brick-shaped white wheat loaves that we called “Brick-Bread.” On the way home, I always ate exactly half of it. Mom, of course, cursed. But it was very difficult to resist. The warm, soft bread was too tempting and tasty, especially when you eat it on the go, pinch after a pinch.

We didn't need anything else. Our carefree childhood ran through, and we wanted to run faster.

"We wanted you to have the most. But we couldn't give it," my father continued.

I don't remember a single day before this when he has shown his sensitive side. My father was always severe and strict with me. But, in his words and gestures that day, I saw an exposed person. A man who survived hardships. 

A grown man with a family and children, patriarchal society and traditions wanted to see him as purposeful, strong, determined, earning money to feed his family—and he did it all. But behind all these limits, stereotypes, and requirements, there was always a just person who faced problems, worried, and suffered from the fact that something might not work and he might fail as a son, husband, father. He wanted to make everything right. But the thing is, our expectation of “right” and living life sometimes does not cohere.

My tastes in food changed a long time ago. Now, I rarely eat bread, especially wheat ones. But I want to add, I have never seen “Brick-Bread” as an adult in other shops I have lined up at. For my father, bread was always important; he believed that bread was "the head of everything" and that it was impossible to eat food without bread. 

My parents still live in the occupied territory. They harvest potatoes in the very same garden. Today, they told me, they are going to sow a second crop, to have seeds for the next year. Their life rhythm is directly subordinate to the potato, and mine is entirely shaped by war.

I finished cutting the bread and carefully put the knife down on the table. 

“Please, take it. The dinner is ready.”

Today, I don't know when I will say these words to my father again.