It's Friday... I'm home, taking a kind of rest day... and so there's time and space to write.
Since March 11th, I've written and talked a lot about our situation at the Gold Shop, about closing, worry, longing, and sadness.
It has been the most challenging time I have ever experienced, and it is by no means over.
Around us in the world, there are vastly different scenarios regarding infection spread and illness, and I readily admit that I count myself lucky for the development we have been fortunate enough to have here in the country.
So where are we now?
Well, we hardly know, because the big opening might also affect the spread of infection here.
Therefore, we still take care of you and us when you are in the shop with us.
We still only want two groups of customers, with a maximum of two people at a time, in the shop.
We still ask you to sanitize your hands when you enter.
We keep our distance as best we can, and generally do our best, while also trying to maintain the feeling of closeness and time that we believe is so important when helping you with jewelry.
This is our Corona approach. Still taking care.
So how has it been?
And how has it been since that infamous day in March, when I sent everyone home except my oldest apprentice? Maybe you'll need tissues, I certainly do.... Because now you'll hear what else happened.
In one of my first Corona updates on Facebook, I wrote:
I have never had a day like this. Never. And God knows I've been through a lot. Given birth to two children, and managed the shop after a week of maternity leave, with a child on my hip.
Crises with employees and apprentices, although not many. A shop in Aarhus that never yielded anything but expenses. Closing that same shop in Aarhus, after I had given it every chance, for six years. Oh yes, and then the financial crisis, need I say more?
Then I got breast cancer, and in many ways, I think my beloved, beloved gold shop gave me wings that summer, in more ways than one. The shop was the setting where I felt everything was normal, even though I had just received intravenous poison.
Here I was hugged and cared for. Here were gifts when I stopped by. Here was the center of the world, right where everything felt fragile and on the verge of breaking.
After illness and other minor problems, I was finally back at full throttle, and life was beautiful, more beautiful, most beautiful.