What COVID taught me about community

I wrote the following essay in April 2020, just 1 month after COVID-19 had been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11th, 2020. At the time, I was still a student attending Columbia University School of Nursing, when it and many universities in the United States were suddenly forced to make sweeping decisions about student life in a matter of days.

What transpired during the pandemic taught me about how institutions will not save us, but that meaningful human connections with those around us can support us through tough and uncertain times. This is a lesson I also learned when I was stranded overnight at an airport due to a Southwest Airlines computer systems failure that cancelled dozens of flights. At that time, I formed an alliance with a few other disgruntled fliers, allowing us to simultaneously buy pizza, stand in line, and strategize on how to get to our final destinations. As we enter a new era of mistrust and isolation, my hope is that we can find the courage to deepen relationships with others and offer a helping hand. Humans have always been stronger together than apart.

A photo I took at the local Rite Aid after classes, showing near empty shelves in the cleaning products section.

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I don’t like change as much as the next person, I thought, as I picked out the makeup items I deemed “essential” out of my standard makeup bag and dropped them into a second bag. I categorized them as essential because perhaps I would need to participate in a video call in a future job interview as a potential Certified Nursing Assistant, and therefore, have to dress a little professionally. This is because the 6-week internship for my nursing program was cancelled, leaving me and many other students high and dry in terms of the expected extensive hands-on nursing experience that we were promised from our education. I would have to sort that all out on my own, I thought. I placed a mild tinted lipstick into my smaller bag. It was a worry for the more ambiguous future, not the immediate future.

I had ended up in the suburbs of Ohio, after I was told to “de-densify” my dorm on March 17th with essentially 2 days of uncertain notice. I had been careful, thorough, and level-headed in deciding to call the Office of Student Affairs, the Dean's Office, and a representative of some sort of University Committee, after meeting with staff members in the Office of Housing with 3 other peers who were as confused as I was about whether they were getting evicted or simply relocated to alternate housing, and whether classes would continue to be in-person. Despite all the efforts we put into in-person meetings, phone calls, and contradictory emails, none of us got any answers from any of these sources. I started a message thread for our little group and we began to brainstorm what was going on. I learned from a Chinese friend in the public health program that many international students had just been placed into emergency housing, and out-of-state students would likely be placed next - though nobody knew exactly when.

Days pass by, and I'm forced to acknowledge that perhaps, I wouldn't get any answers in time before the move-out deadline. My partner was visiting me at the time, and helped me pack one-fifth of my personal belongings from New York City into the trunk and backseat of his car, so we would be able to drive to his family's house in Ohio. I had been careful, thorough, and level-headed in scoping out friends and acquaintances who lived the closest walking distance from me in the local neighborhood, writing their names down in a list in my paper planner, then contacting them methodically to determine how much space they had for storing my stuff in their closets and corners. From close friends, to mentors, to classmates, those in my circle graciously opened up their apartments to me and allowed me to bring some of my personal belongings over for them to store for an indefinite amount of time. I took pictures with my phone and labelled the items that I left with each person with tiny text boxes — from my brand new vacuum cleaner that I never used, to the vegetable oil, salt, and soy sauce that I cooked with, to the comforter and pillows that I slept on and didn’t get to launder, to the mouse pad for my computer. Then, we said goodbye to the city and departed on an 8-hour drive.

My partner's parents graciously welcomed me into their home for an indefinite period of time, I felt like an interloper, but they gave me a room to stay in for an indefinite period of time, cooked for me, and supported me as I completed my classes not in-person, but virtually, while sitting upstairs in a sunny nook at my laptop.

Me learning about Brudzinski's Sign for meningitis by pre-recorded video lecture at the dinner table.

Now, one month after my original eviction, I’m leaving again, condensing 1/10th of my life into 1/100th of my life as I decide what to leave in Ohio and what to bring with me as I fly back to where my parents lived in California. I had finished my online classes and taken my last final computerized exam for the semester. At this point, I still had no idea when in-person classes would resume in New York, and it seemed most reasonable to leave the majority of my displaced belongings in Ohio until some point in the future when I could drive it all back to Manhattan and move into a new apartment there. I decided that I couldn’t stay with my partner’s family forever as a permanent house guest, and booked a flight back home so I could be with my family. I had thought the flight was booked for April 23rd. I opened my Inbox and discover that I had in reality, booked a flight for May 22nd.

I know myself as someone so detail-oriented, and painstakingly deliberate when it came to proofreading and large purchases such as plane tickets. At first glance, I could not imagine that I made the mistake of scheduling a flight one entire month later than I meant to. Two rounds of tears and a phone call to customer service later, I was booked on a flight leaving April 23rd, with no fees charged for changes or cancellations due to the pandemic (and likely, availability of open seats on tomorrow’s plane). Having consulted with the most recent news article I could find via Google search about the “safest place to sit on a plane during coronavirus,” I decidedly selected seats 18A and 26F, the window seats in the least densely populated areas. I chose the shortest flight with the fewest extra stops — turns out, there were no direct flights from Cleveland to San Francisco within the week, and I had to settle on a 1-hour layover in Charlotte, North Carolina. I wondered if that might present me with a higher risk of experiencing a hate crime, especially as a lone Chinese-American woman sitting in an airport with a mask on. During times like these, I instinctively prioritize having as much control as possible, because so many risk factors are at play.

Unfortunately, the earliest flight I could find for tomorrow and the next couple of days was one that would land at 10:52 pm PST. That was a far cry from the 7:17 pm PST that I originally told my parents with the May 22nd flight.

I gingerly picked up my toothbrush, thinking I ought to get ready for bed as well, then realized I accidentally grazed the surface of the water in my cup with my finger, unwashed after handling and packing so many things into my suitcase.

Am I sick?

Am I sick?

Am I sick?

Yesterday, I began noticing a small, swollen bump on my ring finger that had appeared not long after a painful bump appeared on the second toe of my left foot. The day before yesterday, I went to check my email and a headline on Yahoo News about “COVID toes” caught my attention: apparently, frostbitten and discolored fingers and toes were often found in asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19. Research was still being done on that front, as it was on every other front pertaining to the novel coronavirus. I questioned whether I should even travel at all. I wondered if I had gotten my significant other sick last night. I feel a slow wave of irrational terror that somehow, I got his Indian parents sick, and I was to blame for spreading the "Chinese virus." I feel disgusted and ashamed for something beyond my control.

I range from being disembodied to feeling tightly wound up and needing to be in control of all my surroundings. Perhaps that was why the flight time snafu had been particularly disturbing to me — aside from the complaints that my mom would make about how late the pickup time was, and the fear of being abducted by an Uber or Lyft driver should my parents be unable to pick me up, and the fear of catching coronavirus from the last passenger in the car. I have been finding that more traits that I had previously thought immutable and representative of my personal identity are changing. I am unfocused, slow, sleeping 12 hours per night, not quite passionate about anything. I sift through my belongings I planned to leave in Ohio a little longer. The paper box of assorted necklaces and earrings will stay. The worn purple North Face backpack with a beagle keychain will stay. The vast majority of my outerwear, already hung up in the walk-in closet, will stay. The tiny blue binder of business cards will go. The dusky blue purse will go. A pair of exercise leggings will go.

Am I selfish?

Am I selfish?

Am I selfish?

Surely, I don’t have it quite as bad as everyone else. I was not let go from a job. I received the stimulus check. I have no pre-existing conditions. I have loved ones to stay with and no obligation to be exposed to COVID-19 without proper protection, since I cannot feasibly stay in New York. Plenty of my classmates are working on the frontlines. I have strange mixed feelings about being unable to do what so many have done -- to suddenly get drafted through an outside staffing agency and praised as heroes. I donated to a small business’ fundraiser. I encourage my partner’s parents to take pocket hand sanitizer with them whenever they go to the grocery store. I tried connecting jobless folks to someone who might know of some jobs. I signed up as a volunteer to set up patients on a video conferencing platform for telehealth appointments, but technical difficulties continue to impede my progress. Protestors in swing states come out in hordes, some exclaiming that COVID-19 is a hoax and that the imposition of social distancing is an overreach of state government power.

It is Earth Day. I thought I was a minimalist, but my partner says that I have a lot of stuff. I disagree. A little stuff looks like a lot when you’re being kicked out of a one-unit dorm. A littler bit of stuff looks like a lot when it comes out of the backseat of a car and sprawls against the far side of the room for only a temporary stay. Whatever sense of security and personal identity I find in the things I own and the places I reside seems to dissipate with the wind. I hope that I reach my destination in one piece without being verbally or physically assaulted, without contracting any illnesses, and without spreading any illnesses to my family. I look forward to taking a long steaming hot shower at the end of the night, and finally being able to rest my head in peace in the twilight hours of the morning.