November 11 helps us reveal what we have bottled up inside.
A little like the full moon brings out the werewolves in us, the energy portal that opens each year on November 11 reveals the emotions that have been suppressed and hidden from the surface.
This journal is called Masks Down for a reason. I wanted to create a space for me to express myself freely and safely. That day of November 11, 2020, I also let myself express what was trapped in my heart in public…The rehab center had asked us to bring Velcro shoes to my mum which was such a nice change. I prepared a suitcase with normal clothing for her. After having spent two months in a hospital dress, my mother was finally going to be dressed like a normal person and was going to be wearing shoes again to learn to walk as best she could. The problem was: did she have Velcro strapped shoes at home? My dad looked everywhere and all we could find was this old pair of fancy shoes, not exactly the sporty supportive type I had in mind to help her do the activities at the center.
I thought: no problem. We simply go to a shoe shop. That would sound logical to anyone at any other time on the planet or at least in a civilized so called advanced and developed country like France. Except that ended up being the trigger for me…
Ironically, we were November 11, Remembrance day. And what are we supposed to remember on that day? We are supposed to remember a day when a peace treaty was signed between Germany and the allies, remember the brave soldiers , our ancestors who have fought to free us from the oppressors of the Nazi regime and bring us back the right to live in a free country. Our grandfather died for this. They were killed, imprisoned in concentration camps, or tortured.
A lot of lives were sacrificed to ensure the children of France would have a future of peace and freedom. Whether I was feeling all the frustration and anger of my ancestors on that day or simply my own, I lost it in the supermarket… We entered one of the only shops opened on that day, not only because it is a holiday but also because of Covid restrictions. I thought it would be perfect, it was the biggest shop in town and it had not only food but all kinds of other things such as shoes. I was excited to choose a pair of shoes for her.
As soon as I arrived I knew something was wrong. On the right hand side there was red and yellow tape crossed over many items, like the police tape you would find on a crime scene… I hurried to the clothes and shoes department and of course, it was barricaded in the same way…I said to my dad: you go ahead and buy what you need, I am going to ask for the manager.
I reached the control person at the entrance, and explained the situation: My mum had a stroke; she had just entered a rehab center and needed special shoes. So I confidently asked:
Now I understand that you do not want everyone to touch clothing and shoes under the circumstances, so could I have someone accompany me to the shoe section so I can buy a pair and you can check that I am not touching everything?
How naïve I was… The person in charge explained that since the local shops had to close under the confinement rules, they had protested and got that, if they could not sell their shoes, then the big corporations should also not be allowed to sell them either. Reality hit me hard. I asked: "And, so right now, in the whole of France there is basically nowhere to buy shoes? So basically, we are supposed to spend the winter bare feet in the cold?"
I was thinking for all of us now…The two guys seemed genuinely sorry as I was looking at them with tears in my eyes still waiting for them to come up with some kind of solution… Nothing…
I started walking away a few meters…That’s when I lost it. Out of anger, frustration and despair, it came out of me. At the top of my lungs I shouted all kind of horrible rude things about the French president. Call it the werewolf effect of 11/11, it had to come out. All the repression and frustration I had been feeling regarding the situation with my mother, my own sense of being trapped in France, my anger and frustration at a world I see going further down into the dictatorship of globalists, all this had to come out and that’s what I did…
I was only a few meters away from the security guards at the entrance and yet, they did not arrest me and they did not move an inch… They had heard my conversation. People around hardly looked at me.
Did they all agree with the injustice?
Was I expressing what they were feeling inside?
In retrospect, I’d like to think so. And, I prefer to think so. Please tell me I am right. Tell me the reason nobody reacted is because they agreed and only were afraid of speaking up themselves. Do not tell me they did not react because they did not care, because they had reached the point of zombiness that they were immune to anything around and had already turned into the perfect obedient citizens that the authorities are expecting us to become.
I do not recognize my country. I so wish I was still in my new home in British Columbia where the lock down is not happening right now. Here I am in a country that birthed the French Revolution, guillotined the snobs who were exploiting us. Fast forward a bit more than 200 years, and here we are…
I guess I should feel grateful that we are able to make an appointment to visit my mum once a week for 30 minutes. However…Isn’t France’s motto Liberty – Equality – Fraternity?
Where is the liberty when I am not able to see, touch and hug my own mother?
Where is the Equality when small shops are forbidden to open their doors and risk bankruptcy and extinction while big corporations can still open their doors and online stores are flourishing?
And where is the fraternity where a human who needs a pair of shoes and sees it in front of their eyes is being refused them by his fellow patriot because he has no choice?
I had to explode… even if at the time, it didn’t bring any solution, it gave me great relief!
I taped how I felt that day in the supermarket and I will keep this video as a testimonial of a time when humanity had lost his senses and power and I - like many others - lost it in anger and frustration...
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