“Now, that may seem selfish considering thousands of people are dying, and what I care about is the ‘high school experience,’ but look it from my perspective. Isn’t it scary enough, that in four years I have to decide what to do with my life, and now I have to find out whether I’ll get a chance to do anything? “
” think I felt the virus’s presence sooner than most Americans because I have family in Taiwan. When my aunt, uncle, and little cousin came to visit for Chinese New Year in February, just a month before widespread US lockdowns, my aunt spent the entire time in self-imposed quarantine. She only smiled once during her visit: when we gave her a collection of cloth masks, gifts from Taiwanese relatives that we never needed to use in the clean California air.”
“There’s a virus in the air, but I can’t see it.
People are dying around me, but I can’t save them.
There are spikes pierced in my back,
spasms, but I can’t touch them.”
“This year stopped me from living my ultimate potential in my career. I’ve struggled to make it this year, I picked up warehouse jobs and driving jobs just to pass time. My life hasn’t been the same and I’m constantly changing my path of work because of the pandemic.”
“I have always been a person who has plenty to do to keep busy and haven’t minded being alone. However, being 76 years old and married to a man with a chronic lung disease has caused me to be extra careful with whom I spend time.”
“We sat together in couples
patting each other’s shoulders as we passed,
leaned across the table listening, looking carefully,
taking each other in. Your absence is breaking me.
The descending darkness brings home the loss
of all your warm and present bodies, all your arms
that held me in the doorway and all the little ones
we carried to their beds. “
At the Sound of Tsuzumi Share on facebook Share on twitter Share on linkedin Share on whatsapp Share on reddit Behind the masks are eyebrows,
Life in Quarantine: Witnessing Global Pandemic is an initiative sponsored by the Poetic Media Lab and the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis at Stanford University.
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