Non-Fiction

As an essential grocery store employee in these strange times, I feel a unique connection to the chaos brought on by COVID-19. I’ve had two weeks now of watching fights over hand sanitizer, checking out lines of customers, their baskets full of cleaning supplies and non-perishable food items, and answering phone calls from frantic voices begging for toilet paper from our shelves (we’re always out). Some folks are coming in, fresh off day-long shifts, looking with tired eyes, for essentials that were sold out a week ago and yet to be restocked. Others rushed in before government word started coming down and are now sitting at home amidst a sea of unopened Charmin packages, their pantries brimming with canned goods. My coworkers and customers alike are shaken by the sudden shift in life, something I’m going through as well, but I had the ill luck of moving to Tampa, Florida in the summer of 2017, which placed me smack dab in the path of Hurricane Irma in the fall of that year.

I haven’t been able to help myself noticing the similarities between hurricane preparation and prep for COVID-19. At both times, the world around me was preparing to hunker down for an unknown amount of time, scrounging up as much food as possible like bears approaching hibernation. There’s a familiarity to the madness because of my experience with Irma, and I believe that’s made life under the threat of COVID less jarring so far. The one thing causing me some anxiety is that with a hurricane on the horizon, there are two choices: prepare for impact or avoid the impact by skipping town. I was able to pack up irreplaceable belongings, sandbag doors and windows, and head to my aunt’s house in central Florida. We were still battered by the storm and thought, even that far inland, that it may tear the house down around us. In this pandemic, there is no running, no guaranteed escape except to stay inside our homes for as many hours of the day as possible. Our only option is placing ourselves in voluntary solitary confinement. There is no ETA for when things will die down, when the storm will run dry and dissipate, when the waters will recede and we can all leave our homes and see the sunshine and cease being afraid. When I compare this time to living through a hurricane, my conclusion seems to be that at least with Irma there was an end in sight. It would run out of juice or move along eventually, and we would know when it did because the winds and rain would no longer roar against our homes. Now, as this pandemic is striking down thousands around the world and chaos is taking the reins, I think the biggest difference between this and Irma is that it’s much scarier waiting for a storm you can’t see coming.

When I wake up in the late morning, I reach for my phone on my nightstand and scroll through the newest notifications from news outlets. The headlines announce another historic landmark each day: the DOW plunges in the third lowest point drop in one day, the unemployment rate soars, and the number of infected individuals worldwide reaches one million.

It’s apocalyptic, surreal. Outside, the azaelas still run full riot in the backyard as they do every spring, and the sun still simmers pink behind the Santa Monica mountains during sunset. Yet three miles away, UCLA nurses and doctors in flimsy gowns care for infected patients, as medical professionals worldwide lose their lives.

A week ago, my parents, both physicians, told me that a coronavirus-positive patient had been detected at their hospital. When they leave for work in the mornings, I’m afraid that the virus might slip into their bodies, that like the 245,000 infected in the U.S., their alveoli will harden and thicken: suffocation in a room full of air.

My mom disinfects door knobs, constantly reminds my dad and me to wash our hands, and wraps Saran Wrap around her phone when she goes grocery shopping. Our T.V. is on constantly, bathing the living room in electric blue.

While we’re eating dinner, a man says on national television, “A nurse’s job is literally to take care of people. Why’s everyone saying they’re brave?”

My mom turns to me. “Nurses didn’t sign up to put their own lives and the lives of their families in danger. It’s like making a soldier go to battle without armor, and then making them drag their families onto the battleground too.”

“The best thing people can do to help out is to stay home,” my dad says.

So I sit at home, making playlists, baking banana bread, and Zooming my friends, lulled into a sense of complacancy. I’m technically less stressed, and the nights which used to be devoted to late-night studying are now open for binge-watching Netflix. I’m disgusted with my own compliance, and yet the best I can do is isolate myself.

I try to talk to my friends everyday. They post on their Snapchat stories daily; some are baking, some are dyeing their hair, and yet others are ordering pizzas and driving to Malibu with their friends, racing down empty highways.

While it’s understandable to reach out to friends during a time of stress, it feels selfish to violate social distancing because you’re not only endangering your family, but also undermining the work that first responders have lost their lives fulfilling. You’re adding to the numbers on the T.V. that creep up everyday.

Coronavirus seems like a prolonged test: How will the healthcare system withstand the pressure it faces? How will our leaders respond to this crisis? Who will younger generations choose—their grandparents and parents, or their friends?

For now, the notifications will continue to accumulate on my phone each morning, and I wait in fear, for my grandparents and parents.

 

Dear Reader,

I’m Shan a South African girl living in Saudi Arabia, stuck in London.

I never could have imagined this situation that haunts us all daily in these past few weeks and weeks to come. I’m not writing this to inform people about the dangers of not self-isolating, or what covid19 is, by now we all have basic knowledge on the subject from our government and the wonderful NHS. This is me, a girl trying to make the most of her time being stuck 3,894.2 miles away from her home, which she might only see again in May.

Taking it back four weeks, I hopped on two different planes from Dammam, Saudi Arabia, leaving my husband and two cats, to fly to London Heathrow to visit my family. This was a trip booked two months before my departure and was meant to be a two-week vacation and weekend trip to Rome, Italy. We were checking daily for updates on the virus— if it was in Rome, only proceeding with the trip when we were sure it was not. Much to my husband’s dismay, we still went to Italy and it was a great family getaway since the last time we had one twelve years ago.

It was also very hard to hear about the impact the virus created on businesses, especially in the tourism industry. On the last day, we stopped by the Colosseum around seven am, stepped out of the metro into a ghost town. Not a soul was there beside the waiters and some other workers around. We stopped, got a coffee and pastry which cost next to nothing since they’re trying to make some cash. Many employees told us they were worried they would lose their jobs since many people cancelled their trips. We returned to London on Monday, and Tuesday Italy shut down its borders. I can’t imagine the mourning the entire country is feeling from the loss of work, family and friends. Yes, we did self-isolate for two weeks. None of us had any symptoms, besides the occasional sneeze – to which you would be consumed by worrying looks from family members.

If you’re wondering what life is currently like in a house with nine other people, here is a preview: four people are working from home, three are doing online school and I have just started my own business. This means daily fights for the best Wi-Fi connection, arguments over who keeps using all the hot water, and who keeps eating all the snacks! Lest we forget the amount of coffee we are going through since our-ever-so-loved coffee shop is no longer picking all the coins out our wallets for that delicious flat white. Deciding who will be the sacrificial lamb to find the essential groceries.

I’m going to end this by saying my reality is what I create it, amidst all the panic and sadness that the world is feeling, I need to decide for myself. Am I going to sit in bed all day because I can (but still stay at home), or feel consumed by the world’s panic and fear or am I going to try to do something for myself and believe that my God is bigger than every fear and anxiety that I am feeling? In a time such as paranoia and pain, choose to be the blessing of God, spread His love and be considerate.

Stay safe, stay well,

Shan

 

I had a mini stress-meltdown almost every day during the first week of online schooling. Teachers suddenly were assigning more work than the usual and without their guidance, I was forced to teach myself the same material with the threat of failure from my lack of skills in this department still looming over my head. All of the “fun” parts of social distancing were nowhere to be found. An attendance email had to be sent each morning before a certain time so there was no sleeping in and work somehow took up all day, eliminating the hope that I could use this corona-cation to catch up on Bojack Horseman. Even though I was no longer in the physical building, the exhausting routine made the transfer into my home as well. There was something inexplicably mind-numbing about waking up early each morning, spending forty minutes in class for eight classes a day, then finally going to bed with the knowledge that I would do the same thing all over again the next morning. As days drifted by, my anxiety continued to escalate with no hope in sight for a cure. Then it hit me, maybe the school routine could be the key to reducing my anxiety and finding some normalcy during a time that could be described as anything but.

Starting the next morning, I awoke at the same time as I would for a normal school day, ate breakfast, changed out of my pajama pants and took a seat at my makeshift dresser-top desk. I set myself up on a timer, only forty minutes, no more no less, could be spent on a single subject each day. Not only did my stress levels drop, but there was plenty of time in the afternoon for bingeing Bojack Horseman.

The one thing I hated most about school wound up helping me to stay sane while social distancing. Not only that, I learned how my brain achieves its best productivity and how to work in unstructured time for as long as I must do it.

 

 

COVID-19 is many an ecologist’s dreams come true. A crude hyperbole perhaps, but given the size and depth of the hole the human species has dug itself, perhaps not so.

I can only speak for myself, coming from a place of privilege (haven’t been evicted, no one I know has the virus, more or less financially stable, etc.), but these are exciting times. Truly. Beyond this pandemic, being alive in the 21st Century is a unique and exciting time, an inflection point in history.

Right now supply chains, economies, healthcare, and countless other aspects of society are being exposed as fragile constructs, unable to cope with shocks to the system. Akin to taking The Matrix’s red pill, many individuals are being thrust into an unpleasant reality amidst these disruptive times. But from my stance, the current status quo or “reality” is much more unpleasant.

With COVID-19, there is a scramble to keep our GDP-driven world afloat through financial measures. But are these solutions novel? Or merely a move to maintain the status quo? If anything, with everything being turned upside down, now seems to be a great opportunity to rethink how our society is structured and REstructure ahead of future shocks. We all thought climate change was going to end us, but a global pandemic struck instead. What does this say about the future? What does it say about our understanding of the present?

At present, our world/economy runs on cheap fossil fuels. It powers transportation, manufacturing, political leverage: nearly everything is dependent on hydrocarbon energy. A barrel of oil is equivalent to 4.5 years of human labor. This should be common knowledge. Even renewable energy requires fossil fuels to build, so a more apt name is “rebuildables.” With travel bans, work/school from home, and trade restrictions, oil demand has plummeted, resulting in ridiculously low prices. A good pint of beer in Canada costs $5 — you can get a barrel of oil for less than that now.

So. With less demand for oil to power society, a recession impending due to stagnation from COVID-19, and a host of other existential issues, one is led to believe this nightmare will never end. Wrong! While this pandemic will pass, I believe the implications of it will stay for some time.

Ecologists often talk of the carrying capacity and natural disruptions to species. While I am no Malthusian, I think COVID-19 is a sort of primer for humans, a natural disruption, a wakeup call for us to realize our limits to growth.

While we might not change the world from our couches in quarantine, the circumstances do allow for some reflection on what society can look like and how it can function in radically different ways. You may call me a dreamer, as John Lennon would say in his iconic song “Imagine,” but these are the times to imagine a future with less pollution in the sky, widespread government aid, un-institutionalized education models, and more.

 

When schools were cancelled last week for New York City, many of us felt liberated because the day-to-day hassle of homework and exams disappeared, at least for a week. As a junior in high school, I have realized that time is finite and being an efficient manager of time can sometimes be difficult. However, some of the teachers at my high school, and throughout the country, perceive that we now have unlimited time due to school not being in session.

Remote learning takes place over different platforms, depending on the school and the state. For example, my brother, a high school freshman, is using Google Classroom for his assignments, and his work is made available in addition to his being able to connect to his teachers for office hours. By contrast, we are expected to attend online “classes” at my school from 8:00 am until 12:50 pm. While the day certainly is manageable, and even preferred to our previous schedule where classes spanned from 8am until 3:35 pm, I am finding that I am short on time. In particular, I seem to be unable to get my homework done in a timely fashion, as we are online for hours and then have hours more homework, all while worrying about the health and safety of the outside world, a crashing economy, and our mental sanity.

I feel expected to complete everything, whether it is academic, social, or even just getting in a jog around Central Park. Because of this extra “time” many activities have organized times to “hang out” over Zoom calls. Additionally, our academics are expected to stay “stellar” even though the quality of learning is very different over distance learning. We are missing both academic and social cues and clues, and we are trying to focus in “small” apartments that have been adequate for sleeping, but not studying or working. On top of this, we are expected to stay as active as we initially were because of all of our “extra” time. How do I do aerobics in the living room when we are always told to “go outside” if you want to make noise or jump on the floor? After all, we need to respect the family with the young kids downstairs.

I have noticed the inability to separate my “school” life and my family life over the past few days. What makes Monday different from Tuesday, and what makes Saturday different from Sunday? We walk like small clusters of grapes around Central Park for exercise, making sure to stay in our own lane and in our own quarantine circle. And we watch our plans being cancelled like a house of cards. To compensate, we opened our shades as much as possible, giving us a view of the lifeless world.

Because remote learning takes place over a computer for a number of hours and we have “homework” after, I am spending most of my time in front of a screen,something that we always had been told not to do. The “maximum leisure time” in front of a device should be at most two hours. Instead of talking about our new normal, and about how we might not go back to school this academic year or even have a true summer vacation, we are required to keep track of all of our physical activity (as our grade in gym might be adversely impacted if we fail to do so).

In one of my “go to” songs on my quarantine playlist, Lizzo asks “Baby how you feelin’?” I want my teachers to say “how are you all feeling?” I want to say “feeling good as hell,” but, honestly, I’m feeling a little disoriented. Spring has sprung, and I keep thinking…how do we measure the weeks that go by? Maybe we can use this time to modify our expectations and find our common humanity.