Why am I still taking care of this apartment? Ortega leaves me mundane tasks while a war is brewing outside. A war we're more deeply involved in than we allow ourselves to believe.

But the work is comforting. Rinsing dishes in warm water, ironing clothes, and straightening the place up. It grounds me.

Beyond the windows, the spectacle of fire and chaos is not a real existence. Reality is living day to day, tidying up, mending things, and sitting down to write in a journal. It's eating and sleeping, taking pleasure in the sun on your face as you walk past the food market. It's hearing a song through a neighbor's window and following along with it for a while.

Only when things begin to burn or are torn apart by explosions do we realize how essential those things are, in the true meaning of the word. War turns harmony into a luxury, and makes us all wide-eyed and desperate, creatures scurrying through rubble, hearts and minds full of discord.

How we turn back from that, and give everyone in the world those mundane, essential moments is exactly what we should all be fighting for.