It feels like Caribbean temperatures here in the lowlands of Holland. Summer is here, BBQs are lit, and it seems like the whole ocean made the great step over to the ocean.
Nothing of all that for me. I am taking it easy today because weekend work (so yeah weekend is on different days for me than for most other people), and I know from the past how to deal with tropical temperatures. You just take a chill pill and do nothing until the temperature sets normal again. Follow the rules of mother nature. Get up early when the temperature is normal. Do what you got to do. Start your relaxing session with staring above a little bit. In the afternoon when it is scorching hot, find water or a place in the shade. Close your eyes, the rest will come later.
I was talking to a friend of mine about a mutual friend who is spending this summer in the Caribbean working there. What she normally does is take the whole summer of and just not work as she works as an indepent entrepreneur. Fill in the schedule as you please and in the summer when life is good do nothing and travel for a long time. Currently there isn't much to travel ofcourse, so she decided to go to a holiday island and just work from there to still have the holiday feeling.
Awesome idea ofcourse, one which make us all envy her because all of our own travel plans are down the drain ofcourse. But the other side of this story is asking yourself where you want to be in this world when stuff pulls into lockdown again.
The Caribbean has and is still dealing with Tropical Storm Isaiah, which is dumping loads of rain on all of these islands. A lot of people are seeking shelter everywhere often sheltering with multiple people in a house. Not really a sweet social distancing setting.
Throughout Europe all kinds of orange spots as in Covid-19 negative travel advises are coming out. Not a proble if you aren't going anywhere. But if you decided to live and work in one of these places for a couple of months for the sake of enjoying life. Life can also turn a lot less enjoyable all of a sudden. And yes, this naturally can also happen at home just as well. But there you have your family close, you understand the rules proper, you know the go-to places. Abroad this isn't always the case.
Which brings me back to the discussion my friend and I were having. She was telling me that she really is mentally is getting ready to make a move again somewhere abroad for a couple of years. One of the reasons was life was a bit different last year with getting pregnant and learning to live with a fresh new baby. And now when they were ready to take this youngster to the other side of the world, Covid-19 was there. And now she is feeling itchy to leave. I get it.
When I was on my strechter this morning staring at the trees with the awesome blue sky in the background, when it was already warmer than the normal average temperature here in summer, I imagined being somewhere next to the sea. I imagined that the sounds of the leaves which were blowing in the wind was the sounds of the waves rolling in. When my mind drifts off, it drifts to the ocean. It drifts to the sun burning on my back, and the salt prickeling my skin under water and the view towards the horizon where no end is to be seen.
There is my travel. It is all in the mind