Quarantine Diaries: One Word

Voices & Opinion

Quarantine Diaries One Word

If you had to pick one word to describe your coronavirus pandemic experience, what word would you choose? These are ours.

April 27, 2020

noun | [ prox·im·i·ty ]

nearness in space, time, or relationship

I was in Oaxaca, Mexico, when things got bad. A Global Level 2, travel restrictions, exponentially growing panic. I decided to cut my trip short, afraid it would become increasingly difficult to fly back, and knowing that, once back, I’d need to self-quarantine for two weeks.

I picked up my suitcase at the baggage claim and walked outside to where my husband and son waited to drive me home. No hugs. No kisses. An exhausted, sad smile hidden behind the mask I wore. As soon as we got home, I dragged my suitcase up to the third floor. Our guest room; my quarantine. My husband and son would quarantine in our home with me, but I’d do my best to keep my distance and wear a mask in case I’d been exposed. It had already been 7 days since I’d hugged my son; 14 more.

He understood it about as well as you’d expect a four-year-old to understand. I couldn’t touch him, because we didn’t know if I had the virus. Sometimes he took advantage of it, doing something he knew he shouldn’t, yelling, “You can’t touch me!” and being right. There were days he’d trip and fall and I’d try to comfort him from six feet away. Bedtime stories read from across the room. “I can’t see the pictures.” Every once in a while, he’d coyly reach out toward me, testing the limits, and I’d jump back as if he were a rattlesnake, though I was the one who might be poisonous.

I woke up early on that 15th day, 21 days since I’d hugged or even really touched him last, by far the longest it had ever been—21 days of proximity but separation. I waited outside his door, listening for his yawns and the sound of his feet on the floor. I grasped him in my arms as he emerged, determined to hold onto him and this feeling.

— By Janice Checchio

adjective | [ ˈkōld ]

having or being a temperature that is uncomfortably low for humans

I’m working in a basement—and it’s bloody freezing. I have a blanket over my legs, am wearing thermal base layers usually reserved for winter bike rides, and have a little space heater blasting at my back.

Like so many others, my family has had to do a lot of improvising in the past few weeks. Starting with a home office. We don’t have one. With the dining room table commandeered for homeschool, we made an office in the basement. It’s a mostly quiet haven from the bustle of two cooped-up under-10s, but there’s no heat. When I work, it’s in an unfinished former garage with stone walls and a single, spare lightbulb above. My desk is a long-neglected, water-stained table previously used for storing air conditioners. My view is of a snow blower and an old dishwasher.

When I video call with colleagues, I’m invited into similarly impromptu workplaces—computers perched on coffee tables and kitchen islands, back porches, and beds. Dogs, kids, partners, even a rabbit, all roam in the background.

Ours is a makeshift life. Some moments are hard—requiring more practical and emotional improvisation (and heat) than others. But, somehow, we make it through. We switch between our day jobs and our new, unexpected, home teaching gigs. Our children have Zoom calls with classmates; we have virtual nights out with friends.

I admire my partner and kids, how they’ve adjusted and improvised. And our home office now has a bright rug on the floor, an old bookshelf stocked with family photos against the wall.

But it’s still bloody cold.

— By Andrew Thurston

adjective | [ Ə-ˈlīv ]

having life: not dead or inanimate

As in the first grandchild of my partner, Dan. Her name is Cleo. She arrived in New York City just before dawn on February 18, on the cusp of the coronavirus. She has wide-set dark eyes like her mother, who is Dan’s daughter, and dark brown hair like her father.

He’s an ICU anesthesiologist at the same Manhattan hospital where his daughter was born. He’s on the front lines now. He figures he’ll get the virus eventually and since he’s young and healthy, he hopes he’ll be fine. But he’s not about to risk his wife and baby getting sick.

So they’re hunkered down with Dan at their house in Wellfleet, Mass. Dan is teaching journalism remotely to college students—and helping his daughter with Cleo. The beloved person who is missing—Dan’s late wife, grandmother to Cleo—is present in all they do.

Here in Brookline, I worry about my sister and her family in Westport, Conn., a coronavirus hot spot and feel overwhelmed by the data from New York—the number of cases, the deaths, the old people dying alone.

Then last Monday, during a Zoom staff meeting about coronavirus coverage, I glanced at my phone and there was Cleo—and she was smiling. The text from Dan’s daughter: “Cleo is having a big day—first smile!”

The steady stream of photos from Wellfleet is the highlight of my days, connecting me to Dan and Team Cleo, as he calls us. I think of Cleo’s dad, battling the lethal virus in New York, watching his daughter’s life unfolding in moments on his screen. All that joy and promise: Cleo holding out her arms to her mom. Cleo’s first fist bump (or so Dan claims). Cleo tapping Dan’s size 13 foot.

Cleo, alive.

All of us, alive.

— By Sara Rimer

noun | [ ˈgrās ]

unmerited divine assistance given to humans for their regeneration or sanctification

The last, and maybe only, time that I’ve feared what might enter my home was a year ago. We had just brought our newborn daughter back from the hospital and I felt woefully unprepared for the responsibility ahead. Why’s she crying? What if she gets sick? How do you change a diaper? One of the few ways to seize control was to ask guests to scrub their hands before holding her. Was she really that vulnerable? I don’t know.

The three of us spent all our time together. She grew stronger. I got more confident. We returned to work and dropped her at childcare. Those germs we’d avoided before came flooding home. We spent this past winter sharing colds, then the flu, emerging from the latter just as the pandemic exploded. Now we’re back where we started: together all day, every day. Again, we’re sheltering her from germs, scrubbing anything that enters the apartment.

We juggle work and childcare in an endless cycle. NPR plays in the background, fueling our anxiety. But one thing continues to change daily: Grace. She started walking, started dancing, started paging through books and building with blocks. She said “dog” the other day and giggles when she burps. We might’ve missed all of this if we weren’t sheltered at home.

I’m glad she doesn’t know what’s going on outside the house, that we can explain 2020 to her years from now. Yet she seems to understand more than we realize. When one of us gets down on the floor with her, Grace waddles over and pats us on the back. She knows that our aching bodies desperately miss the standing desks collecting dust back at the office, or maybe just that we need a little comfort.

— By Marc Chalufour

adjective | [ ˈhek-tik ]

characterized by activity, excitement, or confusion

I was feeling major mom guilt the other day when I saw a humble brag InstaStory of a button counting game for toddlers. My first thought was, who the hell thought to acquire hundreds of large, colored buttons as this pandemic started? But then I felt like a bad parent for not engaging my one-year-old and three-year-old daughters in similar educational crafts throughout the day while we are quarantined inside.

So that afternoon, while simultaneously trying to answer emails and write a profile of an alum, I made a “sensory sand box” of sorts by pouring sugar onto a cookie sheet and asking my three-year-old to draw shapes with her finger. It worked fine for the first two minutes, but before long, she was inadvertently spilling sugar over the side. And then came the whining for me to draw with her, defeating the purpose of this independent play exercise, which was really an attempt for me to get some work done. In order to get done what I had to get done for my job, the iPad came out.

There’s a color-charted schedule that keeps going around Facebook. It starts promptly at 8 am, with a full curriculum of reading, math, art, movement, and creative play. It sounds great in theory, but it’s impossible with two full-time working parents, as is the case in our house. Some days we are doing work before they wake up and after they go to sleep, because it’s the only time we can focus.

My morning pep talk normally goes something like this: “Girls, Dad and I have meetings at the same time, and so here’s your third straight episode of Daniel Tiger.” The other day my husband was leading a very important video conference, unaware that the one-year-old was across the room quietly splashing in the dog’s water bowl. She probably had a few pieces of dog food, too. Parents of the year!

We are consistent with as much as we can manage. Meals are at the same time every day (not going to lie, frozen chicken nuggets are a staple right now). We get outside every afternoon, regardless of the weather. We build Lego zoos for our mini animal figurines, and my husband and I try to never say no if the kids bring us a book to read with them. It’s not perfect, but for now, it will have to do.

— By Amy Laskowski

noun | [ ˈgrēf ]

deep sorrow, especially that caused by someone’s death

A year ago this week, my father lay dying in a hospital less than three miles from my house. My siblings and I took turns sitting with him, holding his hand, talking to him about his life, even though he was often unconscious, telling him that we loved him.

Now, my mother lies in that same hospital, seriously ill with a disease (not coronavirus) that will most likely take her life, and soon. But neither I, nor any other family members, can be with her. Every hospital in Boston is on lockdown because of the pandemic. We can only call her on the phone. We try to reassure her that she’ll be able to leave the hospital soon to return to her assisted living facility and, of course, we tell her we love her. We are unable to meet with her doctors in person. Consults now take place via conference call or Zoom.

Our distress at not being able to be with our mother is something that is being played out around the world. Thousands of critically ill people are dying daily in hospitals, isolated from their family and friends. It is, perhaps, the cruelest element of this pandemic, a stark reminder of how a virus that we had never heard of five months ago has completely upended our lives.

My mother will most likely be able to leave the hospital later this week. But the path ahead is uncertain. Before the pandemic, she would have been sent to rehab to regain some of the strength she has lost. That is no longer an option. Those facilities now pose a high risk of infection, so she will return to her assisted living facility, which is on lockdown. When we can see her again—and how often—remains unknown.

— By John O’Rourke

noun | [ ˈdȯg ]

a domesticated carnivorous mammal that typically has a long snout, an acute sense of smell, non retractable claws, and a barking, howling, or whining voice

We named her Tessa when we brought her home in the spring of 2019. She was nine pounds of black and brown cuteness. As much as we loved her and spoiled her rotten with toys and treats her first year, none of us truly appreciated how much she meant to our family until the coronavirus pandemic started to coop us up for days and weeks on end.

Sure, we get sick of each other. Every day. Sometimes every hour. But you know who none of us ever gets sick of? Tessa. And (incredibly) she never gets sick of us—or so we think.

The sound of her bounding up the stairs and barging into the kids’ bedrooms with the energy of a cartoonish Tasmanian devil to wake them up makes us smile as we quietly sip our coffee in the kitchen. When the kids are being especially annoying, one of them takes her for a walk. When my wife or I need a break—together or alone—we clip on Tessa’s black elastic leash and head out the door. And when we insist on family time, we all hop in the car to drive to nearby Cutler Park to walk the 1.5-mile loop, where Tessa, now a solid 30 pounds of dachshund, beagle, and hound, can roam and play with other dogs and we can laugh at her joy—forgetting for a few minutes the scariness of the world. At home, just when it seems a little too quiet inside, Tessa’s bark breaks the silence, yelping at a passing dog or the mailman or Amazon delivery person from her perch on the family room couch.

The best time of day is the evening. Huddled together on the couch, we wait and see whose lap Tessa will choose to rest her tired head on, while we bicker over whether to stream another episode of Modern Family, watch a movie, or play a game of Rummy 500. What must she be thinking? I’m so happy. Life is good. Why are they arguing over such silly things?

Good question, Tessa. Good question.

— By Doug Most

noun | [ ˈkär ]

a vehicle moving on wheels

I miss my car.

I don’t even like my car—a blue-gray, low-to-the-ground, all-wheel-drive hatchback. But I spend a lot of time in it, and I miss it.

It’s trivial, really, to miss your car when a killer virus is roaming the planet. I should be counting my blessings—and I am, every day. I’m also relieved that my carbon footprint has shrunk since I’ve been working from home. And I don’t miss the soul-squeezing, gas-guzzling commute, which drains so much time from my day it invites pity.

Still, I miss getting behind the wheel. My car is always ready to go, loaded with the stuff every extreme commuter needs: jumper cables, rain boots, wiper fluid, water, an old down jacket, window scrapers and a shovel, utility gloves, tote bags, various cleaners and wipes, two screwdrivers and electrical tape (long story, not as creepy as it sounds), an umbrella, and, like the oversized purse-on-wheels it’s become, reading glasses, sunglasses, pen and paper, snacks, tissues, two phone chargers, loose change. My car is where I can catch up on the news, learn a little Italian, and listen to a new audiobook or podcast. It’s where I’m trying to develop an ear for jazz.

We’ve had our differences. Once, it broke down in a cloud of grayish smoke on Route 1 around Saugus, at the height of rush hour. It rattles softly, a sound that mysteriously disappears whenever it’s in the shop. It’s got crummy dashboard controls. Its hubcaps go missing. Its acceleration is more Ford than Ferrari. But for the most part, whatever the weather and road conditions, it gets me where I need to go.

Now, it sits.

Every once in a while, I’ll peer out the window and spy it in our lot. Backed into its spot and gleaming in the sun. Packed to the gills. Ready to go.

— By Cindy Buccini

noun | [ ˈgra-tə-ˌtüd ]

the state of being grateful; thankfulness

When asked, initially the word that came to mind about the experiences we are all having through this pandemic is “community.”

The community of the Global Programs team as we work to maintain the quality and continuity of our programs abroad, get our students home safely, and support many of our other students and colleagues here and overseas. The broader community of Boston University as we try to ascertain the extent of COVID-19’s disruptive reach into higher education. The neighborhood community as we look after one another during the stay-at-home advisory. The community of my family and good friends, at home and throughout the world, connecting regularly through Zoom or in person, and reminding us that some things never change. The community of old friends reconnecting remotely and reminiscing to ease the burden. The community of strangers on the street, at the local grocery store or pharmacy, with a nod and a smile, reminding us that we are lucky. The healthcare community, including my sister in the ER, who risk their lives caring for others in need; we wish them well and to stay safe. And the community that has supported, and continues to support, my oldest son after his tragic accident, for 396 straight days and counting.

However, the word that stands out even more at this most extraordinary moment is “gratitude.” The communities I’ve mentioned have sustained me during these trying times; they have made a profound impact. For that, I am very grateful.

— By Willis Wang

adjective | [ Kən-ˈflik-təd ]

having or showing confused and mutually inconsistent feelings

COVID-19 is an unqualified tragedy. So please don’t misunderstand when I say that these mournful times nevertheless have left me conflicted.

I’m blessed that my family remains healthy (fingers crossed). But I’m sorry for the family across the street, whose husband and father, the one coronavirus case we know, awakens nights, struggling for breath.

I’m grateful that working remotely allows more family time and tiny pleasures (watching neighbors out with their dogs, walks around my town’s hilltop reservoir). I’m grieved that a fight with my teenage son and hurt feelings linger longer, perhaps partly from being cooped up on top of each other.

I don’t miss the presunrise sprint for the bus that working from home has eliminated. I do miss the peace of mind from before the University’s forced grappling with this unforeseeable punch to its budget.

I’m hoping to donate blood to bolster the desperately pinched supply during the pandemic. I’m embarrassed to lack the bravery of exhausted healthcare professionals who are risking martyrdom to save others.

I love Easter and its rituals, religious and secular (watching The Ten Commandments). I lament losing in-person church services and that the movie’s biblical plagues are too close to the bone in this moment.

Finally, I’m angry at incompetence. We’ve seen it in heedless travel by potentially infected Floridians, who re-earned the Boston Herald headline from their botched 2000 presidential vote: “Flori-duh.” And we’ve seen that even in a pandemic, the American president’s incompetence never sleeps.

But I’m also rooting for people to keep healthy despite their incompetence, and for Donald Trump to overcome his and get this right.

Because if he gets it wrong, we all lose.

— By Rich Barlow

adjective | [ ˈlakiNG ]

not available or in short supply; missing or absent

When I asked my girlfriend what word she’d choose for this project, she mentioned that, above all, she felt a lack of control about everything unfolding around her. The virus is in control. I said I’d felt the same, along with a tremendous lack of self-control about how much beer I drank when cooped up inside.

We then tried, unsuccessfully, to Google a word that meant “feeling a lack of control about things unfolding around you.” (There’s always some cool German word for those abstract emotions.) But soon I realized “lacking” itself was really the word I was looking for.

When the pandemic started, a world away, we were missing much-needed information about the seriousness of the illness, as well as numbers on cases and deaths. When the virus hit the US, we found ourselves wanting for national leadership, test kits, and financial support to help some of us (though not me, personally) get by when everything shut down. When public panic set in, essentials—PPE, food, household items—were suddenly stripped from shelves and in short supply. We were at a loss for how to get things we usually had no trouble finding.

In short, the pandemic made America look and feel like a place that was lacking in many areas. When I think on it now—and probably when I reflect later—this is my overwhelming feeling about this crisis. For now, we sit tight until we regain some control of our lives. Until then, I’ve created my own word for “feeling a lack of control about unfolding events due to an outbreak and so you drink beer”: gefühmangstreufaltungausbriebierken.

— By Rob Matheson

noun | [ /bē/ ]

an insect of a large group to which the honeybee belongs, including many solitary as well as social kinds.

It’s probably safe to say that we could all use a little magic right now. At least that’s the case in our home, which is what made the arrival of the honey bees so clutch.

I ordered them late last fall, inspired after talking to members of BU’s Beekeepers Club, and the shipment arrived on March 29, two weeks into our COVID confinement. My box contained 10,000 eerily quiet bees, hanging like a beard from the top of a screened cage about the size of a shoebox. The queen traveled inside in a separate screened compartment with two attendant bees, as well as her own supply of fondant sugar.

While the bees were getting to know their queen, to see if they should accept her or kill her, I had apprehensions. Here we are in the midst of a pandemic, suddenly eyeball to eyeball with a creature whose numbers have dwindled in a pandemic. The honey bees’ plight is well known and caused by a combination of disease, pesticide poisoning, and industry mismanagement. But as a first-time beekeeper, what do I tell my eight-year-old if our hive fails? The bees’ story was suddenly a little too close to home.

But it’s not like you can return a box of bees. So we installed them in our hive and watched with binoculars from our own hive. We saw bees begin to come and go, rising as the sun warmed the hive and the trees burst with pollen. A brief visit inside the hive showed that the colony had accepted its queen and that she was laying eggs. We felt relief. (A rejected queen is stung to death by bees who drop her body outside the hive.)

Almost a month later, the Game of Thrones saga inside the hive continues, as its population of bees swells. There are always more questions: how do the bees create nearly perfect hexagonal honeycomb? How can they fly three to five miles from the hive and still find their way home? Why do they operate so well collectively, producing enough honey for the winter, as well as extra just in case? Certainly, it’s a model of preparedness humans could learn from.

I’m sure experts can also explain the biological and chemical reasons for bee behavior. Right now we’re content watching the rhythm of the bees from our kitchen perch. Where we marvel daily that the bees’ magic occurs at all.

— By Megan Woolhouse

noun | [ ˈdrēm ]

a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person’s mind during sleep

You’re standing at my kitchen sink doing dishes. I walk toward you and wrap my arms around you from behind, resting my head against your back—as if it were a normal thing to do. I notice the sauce residue you left behind on one of the plates, but I keep it to myself this time and close my eyes. My head rising and falling as you continue…

My eyes open. The peaceful moment fleeting. I stare out of my bedroom window through the crack in the blind. The giant, glowing snowflake on my neighbor’s house across the street is still on, my peace flag these days. Normally I would be annoyed that they still have this up in March, but it’s been luring me to sleep like a lullaby. I resist looking at my phone to check the latest news or Instagram and drift back to sleep.

I’m holding his tiny hand as I watch our shadows following along the sandy pavement. Crashing waves and animated voices, they start to run ahead of me until their bodies disappear into the dunes. “Mommy!” I hear muffled through the ocean sounds.

My eyes open abruptly, heart racing. He’s not here tonight, I reassure myself. I crack open his door as the hallway light illuminates a stuffed dinosaur sleeping on his Spider-Man pillow. I close the door gently behind me and return to bed, relieved to be welcomed by the morning twilight, the diffused line that distinguishes dream from reality.

— By Jackie Ricciardi

noun | [ ˈrāj ]

violent, uncontrollable anger

It’s not a healthy emotion, and it gives way to fear and sadness at times as I hole up at home, listening to John Prine and Ellis Marsalis before donning a mask and gloves for my weekly odyssey to Market Basket. But all that handwashing means lots of time to think.

Rage is what I feel.

We would be facing serious problems from the coronavirus no matter who was president. But even our nation’s frighteningly diminished press corps digs up evidence almost daily that the deaths, the sickness, the economic devastation are all much worse because of who occupies the White House and his enablers. Greed and lies and incompetence derailed our nation’s response to this threat. There is no empathy in the White House for those suffering. We need leadership desperately, but it’s all about him, his deranged inner needs. It makes the blood boil.

I used to know what to do with my anger. I was a rabble-rouser in my youth, spoke up for my beliefs, protested, even spent a few nights in jail. But the coronavirus prevents direct action. I can write an email or send a donation, but I can’t even talk politics with my friends at the coffee shop…much less join a crowded vigil in the local square…much, much less travel to Washington to join hundreds of thousands marching for what is right.

Social distancing has forced me to stay home with my emotion. It’s not nice, not pleasant to feel, but…rage.

— By Joel Brown

noun | [ krē-(ˌ)ā-ˈti-və-tē ]

the ability to create

It’s MacGyvering a desk from a stack of plastic bins and a small tower of books. It’s figuring out an egg substitute for the cookies I want to make because I’m running low on eggs and want to conserve them. It’s finagling a mask out of a sock. It’s coming up with an at-home workout using a chair and a yoga mat.

One thing this time of quarantine has shown me: I must be creative.

Every day is a reminder of the power of creative thinking—it’s what’s getting me through this time of being cooped up in my apartment. I’m sad, anxious, and scared—I think we’re all cycling through this mix of emotions right now. My daily routine has been upended, luxuries I took for granted snatched away, but I feel a little bit of power in exercising my creativity.

This pandemic thwarted an opportunity I had to go to a conference I had been looking forward to for a long time and a chance for a weekend visit to my brother who lives in Washington, D.C. When the weekend that I would have been there rolled around, feelings of resentment and disappointment bubbled up. I knew I couldn’t let those feelings take over, though. So I picked up my phone and started a video call with my brother, who proceeded to dial in our parents in Florida and also managed to get our notoriously video chat–phobic grandmother on the call. Win. Sure, it was a nontraditional family reunion, but at that moment I was filled with warmth and comfort. Take that, coronavirus.

I’ve also immersed myself in one of my favorite creative pursuits: drawing. I reached out to my friends and offered to make each of them a drawing based on a photo of their choosing, which I will then send to them digitally. So far, all of the photos I have received were taken on Really Great Days, when we were able to hug and be close to our friends—one friend sent a photo from a day on a pier with their significant other, both of them posing with a towering Ferris wheel in the background; another sent one of them standing with a group of friends in front of a lake on a sunny day. I get lost in creating my artistic interpretations of these photos. I, too, am longing for these halcyon days.

And I’m inspired by the creative responses I’ve seen from my friends. From organizing game nights over Zoom, to responding to tragic moments: when a friend lost her relative to COVID-19–related complications, another friend organized for a group of us to record video messages of love and support, which she then edited into a longer surprise video for our grieving friend.

Creativity, I think, keeps us going.

— By Mara Sassoon

noun | [ ˈre-sə-(ˌ)pē ]

a set of instructions for making something from various ingredients

I have always considered dirty dishes my greatest enemy in the kitchen. That is, until I entered my third week of quarantine cooking, and discovered a new adversary: recipes.

On an overcast Sunday morning, beads of sweat forming on my face, I rolled out a fourth sheet of homemade phyllo dough for spanakopita, and wondered, why wasn’t I having fun?

I love to cook. Back in February, I daydreamed of four, obligation-free hours to make doughs, pastries, and pastas from scratch. My classes had picked up, so most of my culinary escapades were confined to short spurts of time and moments of intense hanger. With a woefully understocked fridge, half-eaten leftovers, and a hungry belly, I never had more than an hour to throw something together. Every night was a new gastronomic challenge to put my skills to test. At the time, it seemed stressful and unruly, but now I can’t wait to escape the structure of quarantine cooking.

I don’t regret making spanakopita last Sunday. I feel no remorse for making pierogi, ramen, lavender scones, focaccia, brownies, and pretzels from scratch during this time of social distancing. COVID-19 cooking necessitates lengthy, recipe-following endeavors: a set plan, with set ingredients, purchased at a very specific time of the week, under limited circumstances, and plenty of time to kill. But as the initial fear wore off, and the panic-buying subsided, I have realized quarantine cooking is just not my taste. I actively resent how much food, and time, I have on my hands—every extravagant recipe a reminder of the global crisis outside my door.

All I want is a half-used jar of tomato sauce, (possibly) expired eggs, and the weariness that follows a day of work, school, and biking up Prospect Hill. I want to cook dinner, no recipes required.

— By Dana Ferrante

adjective | [ Kə-ˈlek-tiv ]

done by people acting as a group

As I sit at the kitchen table of my mom and dad’s house, I can’t help but think about how I got here. Not the drive from Boston to Long Island; the fact that I am here on a Thursday morning because of a bat, presumably. We know the coronavirus pandemic was caused by a spillover of the virus from wildlife to humans. And now, I am here.

When I pulled into the driveway, I was heartened to see groceries delivered by a store employee waiting in my parent’s garage, and grateful for the neighbor who picked up medicine at CVS and left it on the doorstep. Right alongside the grocery store workers, delivery drivers, nurses, EMTs, and others on the front line, I have been astounded watching my friends, family, and communities come together in the effort of protecting each other from an invisible killer. It has reminded me how powerful our individual and collective actions are, even if that action is simply staying home. It has reminded me of the beautiful yet invisible threads we have to each other and the natural world that are too often taken for granted or exploited. I can’t help but wonder, how will this change our habits and perspectives when it’s all over?

My wish for this time is that everyone is able to be in a place with people who are comforting and warm—or at least something close to it. Arriving home to give my parents a loving squeeze was my reminder that we will get through this all together.

— By Jessica Colarossi

noun | [ ˈfō-kəs ]

a center of activity, attraction or attention

It’s a telescoping lens of the mental kind, vacillating between sharp clarity and an obfuscated blur depending on which corner of the universe I’ve trained my sights on. It’s the extent of the camera frame, zooming in on one feature of the landscape or panning across the horizon, taking it all in. Every view has a purpose during a pandemic of global proportions.

How’s this for irony? Just now, as I’m sitting on the sunny side of my couch writing on my laptop, I notice at the bottom of my Microsoft Word window is the word “Focus.” (Whoa, seriously, how have I never noticed this before, despite working within multiple Word docs every single day?) I click on Focus, my Word doc jumps up, stretching from top to bottom of the display as my desktop and all other windows fade into black, replaced by dark bumpers that present my words as the most important thing happening on this screen. I feel like Word has been raptly following along as I wrote my first paragraph and then offered me up a digital sign of solidarity.

Because it’s a perfect metaphor for what I’m trying to say. The small things dotting the panoramic landscape, if you magnify them so that they take up your whole frame of reference, become the big things. Songbirds are singing, like the one sitting on my balcony rail with fluffy orange feathers peeking out from beneath tawny plumes. The sun is warm on my face, and my plants seem to turn their leaves toward the windows in agreement. Biscuits are growing puffy and golden in the oven. My watercolor paints are dancing across canvases again. The people I love are safe and healthy. What beautiful things to focus on—for a moment or more.

— By Katherine J. McAlpine

noun | [ grad·u·a·tion ]

the award or acceptance of an academic degree or diploma

I started taking graduate classes after I was hired by Boston University in 2016, thanks to the University’s tuition remission benefit for employees, and over the last four years I’ve inched my way toward a master’s degree, taking one class a semester. In January 2020 I started the final class needed to complete my program.

The semester proceeded normally, with lectures and reading and group projects, through spring break. While everything at BU (and the world outside the University) has changed on an hourly basis since then due to the COVID-19 pandemic, for the most part my class has continued without disruption. We’re meeting (remotely) every week and working hard on our final group assignment for the semester.

The biggest change for me is that the semester won’t end with walking across the stage at Agganis Arena and receiving my diploma in person. This is a trade-off I’ll happily accept as I currently have zero desire to venture outside the confines of my apartment other than for groceries once every few weeks.

It feels strange more than disappointing to finish my degree without the official culmination of a graduation ceremony, but I’ll still receive my diploma and, most importantly, get to celebrate with my family and friends—via Zoom for now and eventually in person.

— By Chris Gambon

noun | [ di-ˈstrak-shən ]

something that distracts: an object that directs one’s attention away from something else

Before the pandemic, Twitter was my biggest form of distraction. I’d wake up, scroll through my timeline for about 20 minutes, then get up, make breakfast, and continue my scrolling while eating. Scroll, like, comment, scroll, retweet, narrowly avoid a pointless debate, then scroll some more.

Of course, the more depressing aspects of life would slide into my timeline: politics, human suffering, and pointless drama. However, it almost never took over the more entertaining aspects of Twitter for me.

Now, however, it’s scroll, existential panic, scroll, a new meme, scroll, doomsday Tweet, scroll, dog video, scroll, panic for the future. The unending barrage is enough to set anyone on edge, and yet I keep scrolling because it’s so horrid I can’t look away.

The unwelcome juxtaposition of lighthearted content with the constant somber Tweets leaves me with existential whiplash. How can I distract myself from the anxiety-inducing posts when they have invaded my favorite method of distraction?

I find I’ve been logging off more whenever I get stressed, investing my time instead in other things. Attending virtual Zumba classes two nights a week? Why not? Reading through a collection of Jordan L. Hawk’s cheesy paranormal romance books? Of course! Playing The Sims 3 and sowing discord in a family unit of my own creation? Well, that’ll keep me busy for hours!

Sure, the distractions are only temporary (and occasionally shallow). But they allow me some semblance of reprieve from the troublesome reality of our world today. For now, they keep me afloat.

— By Taylor Mendoza

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There are 15 comments on Quarantine Diaries: One Word

Katherine Kennedy

April 27, 2020 at 8:57 am

This is one of the best, inspiring and insightful pieces. I loved the creativity in how each piece was featured. Everyone’s story was well presented and the content exemplified the word it represented. I especially loved the colorful way the word title s were displayed.
Thank you.


G. Weaver

April 27, 2020 at 9:19 am

CHILDREN. Spending an enormous amount of time in the house with my school-aged children, balancing home-schooling, discipline, play, healthy meals, bedtime routines, while also still trying to do my own work.


Megan Sullivan

April 27, 2020 at 9:36 am

Every one of these is beautiful. Thank you!


Ann

April 27, 2020 at 9:56 am

Job


Martha Robinson

April 27, 2020 at 10:30 am

ROLLERCOASTER

Also, love this piece…well done.


Leora Lanz

April 28, 2020 at 6:40 am

This was a very “healthy” piece of work. Mindful. I can relate to each of you. Beautifully done. Thank you.


Komal Pawar

April 28, 2020 at 11:55 am

Wow. These are so thoughtful and creative.


Heather

April 30, 2020 at 5:31 am

This collection of stories made me a little less sad, so I’d say they’ve done their job. Also- definite future historical artifacts.


John

May 2, 2020 at 10:45 am

Opportunity


Alice Yeung

May 2, 2020 at 4:32 pm

Really beautiful! I love this.


Carol Ann Raymond

May 10, 2020 at 11:41 am

Interstitial: When the pandemic was still new and Shelter at Home orders were not yet given, I told my Manager at work that the world was shifting on it’s axis. It needed a correction in how the poles lined up. I don’t know why I was thinking that way. I am generally not a scientific person.

Now that we are into the seventh week of sheltering at home, I realize that we can never “go back” to our lives before the pandemic. Too much has changed. The old habits and routines are gone and won’t ever return. We have wiped the slate clean and are adjusting our worldview to begin again in a Brave, New World. Every action, emotion and habit will need to be examined. How does it fit with the new way of thinking? Is it something important or frivolous? Only then can we go boldly into the new day.


1. Libby
  
  September 1, 2020 at 8:11 pm
  
  I loved reading all the word essays – so raw and heartfelt – beautiful.
  
  With thanks to the last post from Carol – love that word ‘interstitial’!
  The between ‘then’ and ‘now’ times. I will start reflecting on which of my ‘old’ habits I will take forward….thanks for that prompt.
  
  
GASJr.

November 24, 2020 at 9:09 am

It has been a “Nightmarish” year, full of doubt, anxiety,and too damn many people just plain ignoring it.


Tyrianne

January 15, 2021 at 6:45 am

As the coronavirus continues to spread and confine people largely to their homes, many are filling pages with their experiences of living through a pandemic. Their diaries are told in words and pictures : pantry inventories, window views, questions about the future, concerns about the present.


LaTrice Dodge

August 25, 2022 at 8:08 am

I definitely can relate to this I also couldn’t keep my eyes off of social media. This was very interesting and detailed.

Quarantine Diaries: One Word

Quarantine Diaries One Word

If you had to pick one word to describe your coronavirus pandemic experience, what word would you choose? These are ours.

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Quarantine Diaries One Word

If you had to pick one word to describe your coronavirus pandemic experience, what word would you choose? These are ours.

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There are 15 comments on Quarantine Diaries: One Word

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