Part 1. Following the novel.

It happened at the end of September 2003, I was moving again and this time into my own house. Actually it was the house of my future husband George Makowiec, who lived then in Seaford, Virginia. Now we live here, in Virginia together as one happy family near the historical places like Yorktown, Williamsburg, and Jamestown.

This same place was described in the book “Gone with the Wind” by the great American writer Margaret Mitchell, a novel that has become classic since. At once I was captivated by this genius creation of the famous American writer, as well as by the autobiography of that famous woman. When the movie was made based on that same novel, I was trying to see the movie every time I had a chance. It was only natural the book “Gone with the Wind” became my favorite, and still is, even today. I brought a copy with me when I came to this country from Ukraine, though it was a Russian translation.

At that time, even in my dreams I never hoped I would be able to visit the United States, which seemed so far away. The United States of America, that vast and unreachable country for us, people of the Soviet Union, was, as you may say, taboo, though every young student knew that people in the United States lived much better than in the Soviet Union. That’s why every piece of knowledge about the United States was so desirable. And then everything changed…

And now, it has been thirty years (though it’s not such a long time for the human history); now I live in the United States of America! How could you not believe that “God works in mysterious ways”? But not only that I moved here, I also found here my love and soul mate (like in a fairy tale – in the far and away land). Having moved here, I settled at the place that I’d been dreaming about; I was walking down the streets so artfully described in the novel of my favorite writer, fantastic Margaret Mitchell! When I found out about that I could hardly contain my excitement! Was it a true miracle or a gift from God? When I visit the historical places where the United States of America were born, I feel like I am meeting the famous American writer.

But again, more and more often I feel certain that nothing happens in our life by random; everything, as they say, happens for a reason. Some people prefer sit and wait for the “its highness chance” and they shouldn’t do that because, as they say, “Seek and you shall find; knock and the door will be opened…” The main goal of one’s life is to find your road and follow it till the end. And so, my winding road brought me to the USA, and as soon as I got settled, at that time in New Jersey, somebody appeared in my life, willing to share my road with me. Who do you think that was? My future husband, George. I am not going into all the details of our very romantic meeting, as that deserves to be a theme of the separate novel in the future.

So it happened, Virginia was inviting me to live there now. The Commonwealth of Virginia, the southern state, with the new and different ways of living, with new people to meet and friends to make. Even at first site, it was rather different from New Jersey, with its slower pace and conservative views. In short – South. Though I came here not from the Ukraine (which is so far, but still is so close to my heart), but from the North of the same country… The hardest thing for me to deal with was that in that area the Ukrainian population was not anywhere close to the size of the Ukrainian Diaspora in New Jersey: there was no Ukrainian school or Ukrainian church, where I enjoyed volunteering so much. All my new friends were now too far away from me and my son. I had to look for a new job and get used to “our new place”. But here in Virginia, I had with me, side by side, my only one, my love – George. He helped me as only he could. As a gentleman, he took my burden to “carry on his shoulders”. So he deserves not just a short story, but a whole novel and not in prose, but in verse which I promise I will write for him very soon…