Dear Bermuda,

I write this letter to you from London. I have been following the events of the past few days and I am scared. I worry that we are beginning to hate each other. I worry that we are losing our will to care. I worry that the Bermuda I used to know is not going to be there when I come home.

I am proud to call myself Bermudian. My family, like many of yours, has called the Island’s shores home for generations. I do not need my passport to tell me that I am Bermudian. I do not need an official to confirm that I am. I do not need immigration to verify that I am. I feel that I am. I feel it deep in my bones. I feel that my forefathers have sailed the still vexed Bermuda waters many times. I feel that my foremothers have raised my family on our fertile land for many years.

I’ve heard about their Bermuda. I’ve read about it in history books and received stories about it from older generations. I’ve known it since I was born in Paget in 1986. I did not leave to run from our trouble, it is a small place and I needed something bigger right now. I will return.

I cannot stop myself from reading about it every day on the internet. I cannot stop myself from reading the comments that trail the articles that are written. I cannot understand many of you. I beg that you will stop. Your capital letter writing and exclamation points damage us, truly. They poke mockingly at the wounds of long ago and make them fresh. They tear at our social fabric and cause festering of our sores. But they are your words, and your feelings, and so I cannot tell you to stop, only beg. I do not pretend to know the pain and struggle that many of you face. I do not pretend to be able to contemplate what it is like for you. I do not know what it is like to not have the money to pay my bills or my rent, or feed my children.

I have been truly blessed in my life. I am so thankful for everything I have been given. It would be hypocrisy to say I have had to struggle the way many of you must. I can only read about it. I can only hear about it. Even if I put myself in your shoes, literally, it would still only be a contrived learning.

I have tried to understand it. I have sometimes gone out to learn more about it. A few years ago I went to Thailand to learn about the religion and martial arts of that place. In the north of Thailand I met a Muay Thai teacher, or Khru, who taught me about the suffering that I saw. He told me a few stories that I would like to share. They are from my journal and I have recorded them here:

“October 20th, 2013: The things I am learning now are beginning to resonate with me. We have been doing meditation and also Khru has been sitting and talking to us.

“He tells us about our ability to release our anger and our fear, to replace feelings that bring us down, not by rejecting or ignoring them, but by embracing and accepting that, from time to time, we as humans feel sad. This isn’t a bad thing; it is natural. He told us a story of monks who trained to be able to suffer without pain. He said that we are able to control our minds and that when you don’t feel good, you can close your eyes, breathe deeply, focus on those feelings of suffering and pain, and then remember everything that is right and well with you.

“Some suffering must be accepted but the pain it causes is for you to accept or not. Understand that we all suffer but remember that the pain it causes is transient; it will pass. From there it is possible to bring contentment and happiness into your heart.

“Khru told us another story of a man in India who was very poor. The man could barely afford food and one day was eating tiny pieces of chicken with the little bit of change he had. He ate the meagre meal, sucking the meat from the bone and discarding the scraps behind him. After finishing, he began to despair that he was so poor and that his suffering was so great. How could he be so badly off? But while he was lamenting, he looked behind him, and saw a man worse off than him picking the discarded chicken bones up and sucking what little juice and meat off of them that was left. He realised that even he had it better than some.

“Then Khru said something to me that will stick with me for the rest of my life. As we stood before the mountains, he said, ‘do not despair. You can see, you can smell, taste, hear, feel. You are healthy, you can breathe, you can walk. What else do you need?’

“It was such a simple observation but right there I filled up with emotion and began to cry. It was like my cup overflowed and all the answers I had been looking for had been given to me. There wasn’t the need to want more, but to just be happy. Khru asked us, ‘what more do you want? You have food when you are hungry, you have clothes when you are cold, and a bed and shelter when you are tired. These are the only things that you need and you have it all’. Truer words were never spoken. That memory will keep me happy, and allow me to suffer without pain.”

What we do with what we know is up to each of us. I know we have a painful history behind us. I know that many choose to ignore that the system was built in an unfair and inequitable way. It was built by imperfect people whose self-interest bred a sometimes corrupt and crooked way of life.

I hope the worst of that is behind us now. The wounds from those days are still with us though and, try as some of us might, to apply a band-aid and pretend the wounds are not there does not heal them. Deep sutures are needed to heal these wounds and the application will be long and often painful.

I want to end by saying that I am sorry for any pain that this causes. I am sorry for the pain caused in the past. But I will not pretend that because it was not me, it is not my problem. I do not know what I can do to fix the problem but I will acknowledge that it is there.

God bless you all, Bermuda. I miss you and I hope to find your many smiling faces when I return. Quo Fata Ferunt.

Alex Conyers,

LONDON, ENGLAND