Otherwise Occupied

I've been sick all week, occupying myself with the miserable activities of the indisposed—breathing steam, hoarding tissues, brewing copious amounts of herbal teas, deciding between uninspiring medicine combinations—it’s all deplorably tedious. Plus, thanks to round-the-clock frowning, my forehead has aged no less than 10 years over the last seven days. I swear to god it looks and feels like someone took a fucking carving knife to my head and scored the number eleven between my brows, bearing down as hard as they could.

I am tired of coughing and blowing my nose and turning down plans. I'm tired of being hopped up on Sudafed and suffering the NyQuil grog and accidentally mixing Mucinex with too much caffeine. In truth, the only sick activity that I haven’t tired of (c'est impossible!) is watching the dazzling French drama series A French Village (Un Village Français) from 2009.

Still from Un Village Français

Set in a fictional village in German-occupied France during WWII, the show follows the everyday lives, crossed paths, and choices (Nazi collaborator, resister, or lover??) of its townspeople. I am now three seasons deep and am obsessed with every second. It's phenomenal television, I promise. If you do end up watching it, please reach out so we can discuss all-time Gustave and Capitaine Carotte.

Watching a TV show about Nazi capitulation from 85 years ago should feel like ancient history. But it's more relevant today than it ever has been in my lifetime. Growing up, Nazis were bad. Like, them being reprehensible and wicked was a universal truth—“never again” meant “never again”. Now, it's merely an opinion.

Now, it’s “never again” with exceptions, exemptions. Now, Elon Musk and Steve Bannon brazenly throw the Sieg Heil salute on national stages with a twinkle in their eyes. Now, no one dares step in as Palestinians endure their very own occupation, death camps, and systematic murder.

With so much pervasive disinformation, cruelty, and greed, I cannot fathom how things get better; organized; how people begin to discern fact from lie, unity from fake loss. But they will, for the simple fact that all empires fall.