“한 두명 같이 타던 엘리베이터를 굳이 여러번 넘기면서 혼자 타고 싶고 슈퍼에서 줄 서서 물건 계산할 때 좀 불안하고 마스크 썼나 안썼나 살피게 되고 재채기라도 옆에서 하면 심장 떨어질 것 같이 놀라고……왠만하면 엄마들 만나서 수다하는 것도 굳이 내가 나서서 만나자고 하고 싶지 않다. 원래 그런 성격도 아니었지만… covid-19이 빨리 끝나기를 바라지만 이렇게 핑계김에 집에 있는 것이 편하고 좋다.”
“I have donated to a couple charities, but that didn’t even feel real – I have been so isolated in my house that I don’t really know what’s going on in the outside world now. It’s sad that so many people have died, their lives turning into a number on the death count. What’s even more sad is that I don’t even feel anything anymore. I just want this to be over…”
“The things I had written about – campus life, relationships – all felt part of a world that didn’t exist anymore. This new world of strange memes, my Mother’s purchase of Zoom stock, and the misery in the country was a lot to digest. I’m sure in a few months I’ll write about the absurdity of all of it.”
“This has been a time of deep self reflection and […] has made the Buddhist teaching of impermanence immediate and ever present. The dharma has allowed me to be open to what is the evolving and ever fluid circumstance. The recent protests over the George Floyd murder are just another aspect of this truth…”
“Medusa-like will we turn others into stone // In our self-isolation seeking our own blight? // Or in the tide of ripened self-reflection // Will we find our place beyond inequity?”
“I’ve been turning to historical accounts forged and recorded by AIDS activists to process my feelings about current events and keep the faith about the political challenges that turn a virus into a plague.”
“This election was different though. COVID 19 was here and everyone was urged to vote absentee.”
“This quarter was supposed to be my graduation quarter. I anticipated spending these months completing my dissertation. Instead, I have become a ‘chaser’ of egg lorries and fish tuk tuks.”
“I asked one guard in the dining-hall why he refused to wear his mask, in light of the death which he could be unknowingly introducing into my community, and he smiled as he responded:”Man, I’m just trying to spread the love.”And I was thinking: Oh yeah, they don’t view us as human. Why would they care if they kill us?”
“Of course those on high incomes feel like their throats have been cut, but it’s been a godsend for the low paid, young people and typically marginalised.”
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.
Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA),
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