Today was a chill rest and housework day. I debated going out to see what Paris might be doing in terms of the, as it turns out, 105th anniversary of Armistice Day, but I opted not to, considering that it would be just that – a momentous occasion with the Elysées packed to hear the President’s address, and then to hold the 45 minute vigil for the French Unknown Warrior, le soldat inconnu, who lies under the Arc de Triomphe. The crowds would be vast, and transport impossible. Today is another bank holiday, where in France all fallen soldiers are remembered.
I think, beyond the poppies that I recall seeing popping up everywhere, and especially on war memorials, when I was a wean, my first proper encounter with Armistice Day was at an event that Dad took my siblings, Mum, and I to in Hamilton, or Kirikiriroa, on the banks of the Waikato, when I must have been 10.
What I remember about this event was that there were reenactments of armies and battles everywhere. There were so many tanks. There was even a medieval battle where they used bows and arrows. My one aim at the time was to possess a quiver and bow. Dad and I asked on of the warriors where she got hers from. I still have the contact details of the bowyer written in my big turquoise notebook, but sadly I never used them. I would later get a very benign quiver and bow (where the arrows had to be fixed so many times with cellotape – oh joys) from the Waikato Waldorf School Mediaeval Fair. My initials were burnt onto them, though. After that I would don my Gunn tartan scarf, a shirt and green skirt and led my siblings as my Celtic insurrectionists against the Romans, as Boudicca. I was a warrior maiden of Arthurian legend. I was one of the Swallows and Amazons. I was a bushwoman. I was the main character of my novel. I could ambush people from behind bushes, or high up in trees. I was so unbelievably cool, you have no idea. Just thinking back on the memory fills me with so much pride. I need to get me another bow.
And talking of Arthurian legend, it’s my birthday in three days, and I have decided, if there is one thing I want, it is The Squires Tales series by Gerald Morris. It sadly seems to be out of print, but, man, those books were SO good. I discovered The Lioness and Her Knight when I lived outside Kaitaia, at the public library. It may have been my mother who brought it home, though. I had studied Yvain ou le Chevalier au lion by Chrétien de Troyes only a year or so before – I thought, Someone actually translated and adapted this obscure French Arthurian mediaeval fanfic? SIGN ME UP. I read it, and I was so hooked. They are so beautifully told, and so fantastically funny. Morris’ Sir Gawain is eternally my literary crush. I actually love all the characters. Guys, I urge you to get your hands on a copy somewhere. These books are both very real, and also very wholesome. This world would soon feature in my siblings and my make-believe games. We explored so many places and fought so many enemies, undertook so many missions, found so many kingdoms, sailed so many seas, defied unjust powers, fell in love, intrigued, fell sick, spied, and came back ever victorious, as kids. Could I go back and talk some sense into 14 year old me, who one day just decided to stop playing, I would. It was a sad day for my siblings, who I don’t think understood that I no longer heard the call of Neverland, and just desperately wondered where their Captain had gone.
And then I spend most of today listening to, and dancing to, the songs of my teenage years, I look back on old screenshots of memes and conversations, I recall the battle that was highschool. I had just moved back to the UK for Sixth Form after 6 years in NZ, leaving all my immediate family behind. It was really tough. Like, truly the toughest thing I ever underwent or did. But I made it through, not without scars. I find it odd that I look back on these battles and think, yes, but I was young, and I had my friends around me, and these memories are located in specific songs. Youngblood was top of the charts that summer – how was I to know that eventually that song would reflect my own tumultuous relationship with a classmate. Promises with Sam Smith I recall playing in a Boots after I had left a beautiful stage production of Shakespeare in Love at the Oxford Playhouse. 5SOS’ Teeth and Easier pick out the time I spent in Cambridge for the Open Days, getting over Lower Sixth, my affections pulled three ways, a headcold, and how my ex and my House at school were treating me. I was Head of Drama, and the Head of Performing Arts (a new role, taken by a rival, a queen bee kind of girl) was making it really, really hard for me to prepare for the upcoming House Drama competition. Walk the Moon’s Shut Up and Dance talks of school discos back in Kerikeri, my trying to seduce my then-crush through dance. No, my music taste wasn’t very evolved, but for a kid who had spent most of her life listening to classical and folk music at home, anything outside of that was so refreshing to hear, to take in my hands, to create a pocket for. The songs themselves are pockets for moments: they are a sign I have lived, and survived. The French talk about this concept of lieux de mémoire. These can be cultural practices, monument, expressions, objects, coming from a collective cultural background. Well, there is nothing collective about the individual, but songs are my lieux de mémoire. Armistice Day is a lieu de mémoire for those countries who fought in World War I. Today is a day about memory, of sacrifice, and battles, so that we may be as we are today.
I made ANZAC biscuits today, with lemon instead of coconut, which oddly worked. I read some more of The Prince under the grey Champigny sky. I shared my ratatouille with my landlady’s daughter and her friend, who is fighting a battle against her own affections (how much do I know about that myself!). However, I observed my moment of silence alone today, at 11:11 am, hands clasped. I tried to think about the soldiers who died. My mind occasionally strayed to my own inner turmoil. I made two minutes of silence without knowing. I remember how those minutes lasted an age in school.
Which reminds me – if you want to see what 16 year old me was up to on the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day, check out my school’s student-written, student-researched play, Reflections. I was fighting my own battles backstage, and fighting one long past, that hopefully shall never happen again, onstage.
The world continues to suffer, and suffering breeds more suffering. We must be more compassionate. We must stop, think, and then feel, feel for our fellow person, for within them is a bit of us, and within us their is a bit of them. Our hearts all beat, save those who are dead, and the hearts no longer beating serve no one any joy. We must learn to love one another, to see each other’s humanity. For, in killing a fellow human, a sibling, we only kill ourselves.
Lest we forget. Let us remember ourselves.
At Least Afloat 