Dear our friends in the United Kingdom,
How you all doing? We entered a fuller lockdown before you guys and we know it’s tough. We know it feels odd and scary and a little bit like the end of the world. We just wanted to say that those feelings ease a bit over time.
Lanzarote has been resting at home for a while now. We accepted that our little businesses would suffer and our normal life would not continue for some time. We’ve been in our homes or in teams, helping the last tourists get the last flights and of course working hard as we must in health, policing, care and ports. We’re sometimes separated from our loved ones but we accept and continue.
Our governments differ a bit on the advice. Your Boris chap is a bit vague and we know people are still going out and about more than we are. Here, the shopping mayhem vanished after only a day. Our people went online and we found ways to help each other remotely. It’s been hard and even the sun has been hiding for these last days. Maybe it’s easier for us having such clear rules?
Taking the Hit
We want to send you our love and our thanks but also we want to say this… We’re all given different advice and regulations depending on where we live and vote. It doesn’t matter, though. We’re all just islands in the big blue sea and must lead by example. No matter where you call home, the world agrees that you must stay in, you must limit contact, you must only buy what you desperately need.
Money just doesn’t matter now. It’s scary not to pay the bills or to think you’ll have to adjust to a much smaller income. We all have these thoughts, we all lose sleep. It’s worrying to think about safety and illness. But you’ve been here. You know the energy here. You know the love here. We’re in this together and we’re alone, together. It will pass.
No matter what other people tell you is right or wrong, you know that if you’re healthy, there is a risk you’re carrying the virus to people who aren’t. Just don’t risk it. One of our first infected was released from hospital today. But another didn’t make it and we cry. It’s the young, the strong, the able who can beat this simply by removing themselves entirely from the street, 24/7.
Your basic needs will be met. Nobody will let you fall completely. But you must fall a little. You must wind down and change your expectations, your needs and demands just for a little while. Because you’re amazing. You’re one of us. You’re part of the Lanzarote extended family and therefore you’re capable of incredible strength where others see only dust and the heat.
We are all just little islands in the scheme of things.
Please…
Stay home. Don’t go out. At all. We’ve been sticking to our (very strict) rules here and we’re so proud of each other. The public shaming of “do you really need to go out for…” just isn’t a thing here. Because nobody goes. Isn’t that wonderful?
Please promise you’ll do the same, you’ll stay in, you’ll fall a little so we can all rise much sooner, so we can all see each other in the near future and be together again?
Be your very own island.
Siempre x
🥰💪🌵
Photo by Ryan ‘O’ Niel on Unsplash, edited by Pat
