The Truth is in the Road

The days of April are quick and fidgety, like the squirrels on Santa Monica bluffs. Three weeks have gone by, fast and unnoticeable, leaving behind a tickling furry memory. According to the Ukrainian calendar, the spring is already halfway through, and more and more hints of summer are filling the air. After a brief chill, Los Angeles temperatures once again began to approach their July levels. This makes it even harder to believe that only a few days ago it snowed in eastern Ukraine, and my home town in the west of the country had to turn the central heating back on. Nevertheless, the summer is inexorably taking over the Northern Hemisphere, invincible and undeniable. It seems that nothing has particularly changed within the last few weeks, yet as I am going through my phone pictures, I realize that April has brought about all kinds of events. We have celebrated Oma's birthday and Easter. For the second time in my life I’ve made Easter bread, and it’s vanished from our table...

A few weeks before Easter, California turns into a playground for countless Easter bunnies.    The latter appear literally everywhere: on book covers at Barnes & Noble, on coffee shop gift cards and at the most prominent places at the markets. They are sneaking away in candy boxes, receive a personal greeting cards section at the stores and jump at you from the display windows of bakeries. They are joyful, colorful and at times even sweet. One such bunny, made with incredible Swiss chocolate and wrapped in festive golden foil, has recently found home on the top of my bedroom cabinet, and its solemn appearance alone builds up an anticipation of the holiday. The first time I saw a bunny like this was seven years ago, during a tour of the Museum of Chocolate in Cologne. At the time, it cost about two euro, a fortune for a vagrant Ukrainian student, but it had a tiny golden bell on its neck and a promise of something sweet and memorable inside, and that was how the first ...