Today, we made a sacrifice to the god of cleanliness.

Luba builds different games out of Lego, then brings them to Dasha for her to play. She herself returns to building new ones and keeps one eye on making sure that mom continues to play. If Dasha is not actively playing, she reminds her: "Maaam, are you plaing?" I hide in the sofa so that I'm not forced to play. Dasha quietly sneaks away, warning me not to tell Luba about that. Yesterday was cleaning day.

Yesterday we stayed up late and started reading to the children closer to 9 PM, first Dasha read comics, then I read about life in the forest, then cosmic music, and finally around 10:30 PM the children fell asleep.

My eyes were already closing, but I wanted to idle a bit more, so we watched two episodes of "Fresh Off the Boat". In general, we love TV series / movies / anime about Asians. They have very characteristic expressions. Sometimes you can recognize yourself and your culture there.

I was almost falling asleep, just no energy left. But Dasha suggests, "Hey, let's go to McDonald's if it's still open" (because in our small town nothing else works at night). The offer was so unusual and tempting that I quickly woke up. We set up a camera to watch the children. And we got dressed and jumped in the car.

Halfway there, a police car stopped us, turning on the flashers. It turned out that one of the rear lights. I was savoring my encounter with the traffic police. But I was a little nervous. The policemen studied all my documents for a long time, especially the expiration date of my license. And it still has 15 years until expiration! They sent us off in peace, wishing us all the best!

The thing is, for the last two and a half years I had been driving with an expired license, which I couldn't replace. And during this time, I was never stopped. Every time I drove past a traffic police car, my heart would skip a beat, cold sweat would break out. The fines are big. And when I drove with a kayak on the roof, when I saw traffic police cars, I would stop and turn around to take another road.

My story with the driver's license in Poland is just a huge legal dead end. They couldn't change my old one, and they couldn't allow me to study for a new one (because the old one was in the database). And I wrote many letters, and a senator stood up for me, and various lawyers, and about 3 months ago they finally told me - we can't do anything, just go to Belarus.

But a month ago I flew to Georgia to get a license there (no need to study, no residence permit required). Pay and take the test. It didn't work out on the first try, so I had to fly again, which was a successful attempt.

I'm grateful to God that He somehow protected me all this time.

And I'm even more grateful to Him for teaching me to live by breaking rules and laws.

Because life doesn't always fit into them, and breaking through these barriers can be difficult.

And Dasha and I celebrated our encounter with the policemen well at McDonald's and went home. We slept until 11 AM, but it was worth it.

I love you, dear, it's interesting to live with you!

I have some small reflections about Jesus Christ, and how the Gospel story about Him changed my perception of life.

I understand that I lived by the Rules of the Law for quite a long time. And these Rules always spoke of condemnation. Only the perfect man could avoid condemnation. If you break the law, you are guilty. Fear of the law, fear of mistakes, life is measured by inaction. The way out of this state is death. No man - no mistakes. No man - no violation of the law.
But who is that superhuman who strives not to violate and does not violate?
In my opinion - a fanatic, a pragmatic idealist. A man who put one single desire at the core of his life - not to make mistakes and not to be condemned. I'm writing now and I'm trembling all over. That's how I tried to live, such reactions and patterns of behavior I developed within myself.

The alternative that Jesus Christ brought to me:
Be free from sin, stop putting it first. If your eye is only on this sin and looks - then this fills your whole life.
And here Jesus walks the earth, talks to "sinners", without paying attention to their sins. Not dividing people by this criterion. He seems to say - it doesn't matter. This is not life itself. He says Be Love. He Loves.

And in my life, I sometimes face a choice - to break the law or to love.
To fulfill a duty, or to go play with the children. To focus on the bad or on the good. Or to refuse the good, because with the good - sin.

Because with every good deed, with every act of love, evil and sin go together. And I think that I should not stop love, because of a sin next to it. But we must fight against sin, so that there is less and less of it in our love.

Here's a man lying drunk on the grass, we came to him, lifted him up, helped him get home. He come into the house and beat his wife, swore at the children.
Did we become accomplices to the crime?

A couple of weeks ago there was a very lovely winter.
We spent our time going for walks and tasting it.
And Ksyusha brought and gave me a Turba gum out of the blue. I found it in my pocket, and it was as if I returned to childhood.
The same taste! It was magical.
But now, you can't find snow anywhere, which is why I made a 2-minute video.
Enjoy watching everyone!

And you know, I went into the woods. I just walked. Then I just hugged a tree. Then my memories took me back to childhood and, full of joy, I made a snowball, threw it at the tree, then another one, and another. And not a single one hit. I calmed down and went to shake a spruce branch so that the snow would fall. Then I hugged the tree again. And in the end, I destroyed a pile of snow. I really liked it. One hour in the woods, but so much warmth. So much simple and joyous.

A lot, a lot of different events.
But I will share with you my journey on a kayak under the snow.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
I will be happy to share my impressions.

And here is a 2-minute video about our reboot in the forest.

A three-minute video.

Today I still have a minute-long video of Ksyusha and I kayaking, and she was rowing.

And I finally made a video about our trip with Lyuba at sunset. 1.5 minutes long

Today I had my first Self-Retreat
Lake is 10 minutes from home, the entire journey took 2.5 hours.
The video I edited is 2 minutes long. Many wonderful moments had to be expressed.
Enjoy watching.

The darkness is impenetrable, I'm swinging in the hammock trying to fall asleep. Although the darkness is only in the sky. On one side, a projector lamp is shining, and on the other side, the neighbor's window acts as a projector. The neighbor probably wakes up at 4 in the morning and prepares for his farming. And I lie in a hammock and am glad that it's +16. And he (the neighbor) probably brushes his teeth and coughs neatly. Yesterday, there was a superb fog and sunshine, but I overslept. Today I woke up every few hours, interrupting various dreams about Belarus. In the last dream, I was walking around the neighborhood thinking where to hide for a few days. Wanted to start a sole proprietorship and go for a medical examination. Ahh continuing... In short, I wanted to kayak in the morning fog. But today is not such a day, unfortunately. The sky is heavily overcast, and it rained overnight. Will try again tomorrow.

P.S. Finished writing this, and went for a kayak ride.

Emigration is like love. "An immigrant will detach from the land of their father and mother and attach to an unfamiliar place. And the two will become one."

It's a joke, of course, but there's some truth to it.

Throughout the history of our life in our homeland, we've managed to fall in love with many things. Much has become familiar, close, our own. Not just people, but scents, places, sounds... We belonged there, and what surrounded us was ours. This love wasn't an empty space. It inspired, filled, and supported us every day.

... and then suddenly, everything changed....

Welcome to emigration! There's much that's new, unknown, alien, not yours... Looking around, you don't find what you dearly want. You don't find what you love. As Sasha said, back in my homeland, I was a flower growing in the soil, but here I'm a flower uprooted and placed in a vase. They water me, and I can live. But I yearn for more.

On my journey of emigration, I've longed for, searched for, and found a lot. The story of relocation/emigration is a love story. I wanted to write a few short sketches about how it happened, but once I started, I couldn't stop. There turned out to be many stories!

This endless cosmos, with its incredible scale, makes our entire human life seem like a mere speck that flickered for a moment and then faded away. All external actions, achievements, creations, and discoveries seem entirely different in the context of the universe.

How do you perceive the cosmic insignificance of what's happening?

How does your business, the matter of your entire life, look within the confines of space?