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muddweekly · 4 years

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My First Couple of Months During COVID

A joke circled around on Twitter that says future historians will be asked which quarter of 2020 they specialize in. It really has been quite a year so far. If 2020 was a symphony, the exposition (a major and repeated part in a song/symphony) would be COVID. Personally, I experienced the pandemic in three movements so far.

Part I - COVID Hit Asia. Yes, it’s real and deadly.

Back in December 2019, I found buried under a myriad of Chinese news one or two pieces of reporting about this mysterious lung decease. I forwarded it to my family in Asia and a friend from Wuhan. None of them knew anything about it. We all thought it would blow over just like a regular flu. Fast forward to late January, my parents and I were vacationing in Joshua Tree when the Wuhan lockdown news broken. Things suddenly got very serious. I remember whenever we had internet on that trip, we checked news on COVID. The number of cases started in the hundreds, then quickly went through the roof. I could clearly recall the anxiety in the are during that time. We didn’t have enough information on the concerning disease, so we refreshed our phones constantly, hoping to grasp the first piece of new information that’s somewhat trustworthy. Then in addition to medical information, the news also included airport and road closures, as well as Lunar New Year holiday extensions in China. The situation worsened drastically from day to day. To me, not having enough information in this age of info explosion on the internet was a novel and strange experience. At some point, we added mask purchase to our itinerary. We naively thought we would not have problem buying masks in the US. Boy, were we wrong. Only one of the tens of stores we went to had hand sanitizers, and none had masks - people in the LA area acted fast. That was when the panic truly kicked in - whatever we expected, the reality was worse, whether it was the disease itself or the shortage of masks. The mask shopping experience in LA was engraved in my mind and it turned out to be hugely helpful later on.

Part II - COVID was uncovered in New York

It was mid March when COVID hit NYC. It was incorrect to say “hit”, because there were probably many cases of COVID during Feb in NYC already. Global travel went on as usual in JFK, EWD, etc when Asia was battling with COVID. When I rode the subway everyday then, I experienced this delusional sense of peace and quietness before a storm that COVID just wouldn’t come to the US. But of course, as soon as testing started (thanks to the brave doctor Helen Chu), we found the situation was already pretty bad all over the coasts. The night when the Seattle nursing home COVID cases were reported, George and I went to the nearby stores and bought bottles of hand sanitizers. When we learned we didn’t buy enough for friends (they could not find any near them), we went back the second day, and there were none to be found. That night, George and I talked to my parents, who were still under regional lockdown in their home at the time. This was after weeks of city-wide quarantine since late Jan, during which they had to stay in their apartment the whole time and could only get food delivered, and during which they saw ambulances taking neighbors away through the windows. In those weeks, I could hear the anxiety in my parents voices even over the phone. After learning more about my parents experiences with the first wave of COVID in Asia, it became clear to us that we needed to take actions ourselves.

Part III - “I hope you are ready to melt snow for cooking, under this flashlight”

It was 7pm in a mid spring day. It was completely dark and quiet. Snowflakes were flying outside of our window. We lost electricity again. Of course there was no internet either. It had been several weeks since we frantically left New York. Even though we physically left New York, it took much longer to accept it, and even harder, accept the state our world was in. Things just got worse and worse. There was no good news. The US was dealing with COVID, while Asia and part of Europe were dealing with the COVID aftermath - massive hits on businesses and jobs. A sense of impending doom was hanging over everyone’s head. Close friends lost jobs. Doctors and nurses on the frontline fell and some never came back. We felt hopeless and helpless. The ambitions we had pre-COVID to change the world seemed so trivial, naive, and fragile. Feeling the dread for a lasting period of time, I often glued to my computer hoping something online would distract me. Earlier on this snowy evening, I was doing just that again when the lights flickered. I bended down to check the plugs on the floor. Then I saw it happen - the “on” light on the plug extension flashed once, then went dark, taking away everything that emits light and makes noises in the space. Suddenly it went very quiet. It was like a flashback of mid March in NYC with COVID. I saw it happen right in front of me. I knew It was going to be bad but there was nothing I could do about it. The sense of control and ease from the abundance of choices I had were gone. All I could do was staring at the snow with my cabin mates. It was not completely dark outside yet, I could still make out the trajectories of snow dancing in the wind. It was so beautiful. We sat like that for 20 minutes or so until it went completely dark. As I began to accept that we were going to have to melt snow to cook and then put on everything we brought to go to sleep (no heat), I felt peaceful for the first time in month. As I came to terms with the dark snowy night, I started to accept COVID as well at that moment.

Extra: Thank you Conan O’Brien

When we lost electricity, which happened several times, my phone only had enough signals for a podcast. So podcasts were a big part of my life in the COVID spring. The one podcast I have come to love since then is Conan O’brien Needs a Friend. In all its silliness, the messages are loud and clear. For one, Humor doesn’t have to be dark and meaningful to be good. It could just be silly and delightful. And pure delight is important. For example (not a great one), I just realized people in my industry use both “recharge” and “unplug” to describe essentially the same things. To translate them in emojis, they read as ⛔️🔌->🔋. If you really think about it, it’s literally an oxymoron - how could you “recharge” if you are unplugged! But ofc it means to unplug your devices, and to “recharge” yourself. It’s interesting to me that we are using machine states to describe human energy level. This example, like many other trivial but delightful things, is not talking about big important topics like class struggles or racial inequalities, but it is meaningful in its own ways. It reminds me of the joy of metaphors and word plays. And for a moment, I get a break from all the pain in the world. These delights from silly and fun things like this here and there collectively give me enough energy to deal with other difficult and unexpected things in life. Another surprisingly wholesome message from the podcast is that good things, such as quality jokes, come from consistent hard work. Conan, for one, puts in a lot of work to write and create everyday even though he makes being funny seems so easy. Thank you Conan (along with Sona and Matt) for making me literally L.O.L. lots during this dark time, and more importantly, inspiring me to start working hard and creating again.

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