Can You Dress Your Way Out of Heartache?

Can You Dress Your Way Out of Heartache?

Photographs by Olga Engibarova

Ms. Synenko wrote from Odesa, Ukraine. Ms. Engibarova is a photographer based in Odesa.

At 74, Anatoliy Paduka hardly leaves his home in Odesa, Ukraine, except to walk his little dog around the neighborhood of blocky 1960s apartment buildings and produce vendors. As he passes by, people often follow him with their gaze. His whimsical hats and patterned neck scarves stand out against the backdrop of gray hopelessness and dull fatigue — and the familiar wail of air-raid sirens — that permeate our city in southern Ukraine.

“Sometimes I think you need two hearts to survive this, because one human heart could explode,” Mr. Paduka told me, speaking about the emotional toll wrought by four years of war.

Members of Mr. Paduka’s generation started their lives during or in the aftermath of World War II and are now living their sunset years amid the largest conflict that Europe has known since. The thought that it takes a span of only one human life to forget a catastrophe and sleepwalk into another one shakes my hope for a better future.

But then I see Mr. Paduka and many others his age who dress up in the face of this horror, showing their determination to carry on despite all the blows of history they have endured. It’s as if they are mocking our hopelessness and daring life to surprise them with anything else it can throw their way. As long as you look fancy, you are not recoiling.

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