Stay Strong World

While Manchester is uniting and healing at the One Love Manchester benefit concert, it seems there's no rest for mourning these kinds of tragedies, as several incidents in London occurred--stabbings and van plowing. On top of that, bodies of children, women, and men found shot by IS as they tried to escape Mosul. This is the world we live in.

Having recently returned from the Cannes Film Festival, where security was heightened to the point of snipers on the rooftops and numerous policemen carry rifles scattered throughout the city center, I wonder...is this to be our norm? Nowadays, you can't even go to a concert to enjoy your favorite artist without worrying about what might happen. Every time I'm in an airport, a train station, or just a crowded public area I find myself on high alert observing everyone and everything around me. As the plane takes off, I always cross myself and say a quick prayer to God and Saint Christopher for a safe and successful journey, and then I do the same thanking them, once we've landed. It's a little habit I picked up from my grandmother; however, nowadays I'm practically superstitious about it and pray extra hard. Yet, we can't hide. We can't stop living our lives.

Every time an attack happens it makes me think of the bomb alarms that would sound during WWII to warn the city that a bombing was coming or taking place. Here in the US, it seems we even have to worry about crazed Nationalists, Fascists, White Supremacists.

How do we fight and defeat terrorism and radicalism? What's happening in London is still unfolding as I'm typing this, and after sending a couple messages to friends in the area, I noticed that I'm sending the same message every few months now. Even when I'm fairly certain that they're not in the areas affected, you just never know.

I get so angry, because I cannot understand why these attacks are the answer for some. How does it make sense to take lives, to cause pain, and to cause fear? I get so angry, because I know some will use these acts to try to further divide us. As questions keep swirling in my head and I try to channel my anger into positive energy, I come back to one thing I'm sure of, one thing I have to be sure of: A Lesson in Love From Little Miss Foo Foo.

Stay strong world. We've got to stick together, now more than ever. Being divisive, imposing things like travel bans, actually only hurts us rather than protect us. We're stronger together, and divisive acts only weaken us and provide the hateful perpetrators their ammunition.

BIG LOVE & HUGS

Love,

​Justine