I. The Pandemic Diaries
If the time comes, you must be ready to leave quickly. Keep only the essentials.
It’s the beginning of the end. COVID-19 is sweeping the U.S. and exploding in California, Washington, New York, and Michigan, where I live as a final-semester senior at the University of Michigan. I can hardly believe how little time it has taken for life to turn completely upside down. As I write this, the concept of life normalcy has been completely ripped from under my feet in the span of just a few days, just as it has for most across the U.S. On Monday, March 9th 2020, life still felt normal. Spring break had just ended for the University of Michigan, and I was travelling back from Princeton, New Jersey with my Taekwondo friends, having just spent the weekend competing at a collegiate Taekwondo tournament at Princeton university. 6 of us are crammed in a minivan.
Monday March 9th 2020
“Ugh… This weekend was so fun, I don’t want to return to class tomorrow. I’m not ready for the regular college life again.” my friend Khanh says.
“Same! I’m too lazy to go to class. Are you all going to practice tomorrow?” Someone else replies.
“Oh for sure, wouldn’t miss it. We have Nationals in 3 weeks, and then the Vermont tournament 2 weeks after that.” I reply.
I’m sad to be returning to reality. The tournament weekend involved 3 days of travelling, fun times with friends, and an exciting time competing against athletes from other colleges along the East Coast. The next tournament in 3 weeks. Collegiate Nationals is supposed to take place at UC Berkeley, and I’m both excited and scared for it. I have been training hours a day, every day, for weeks, to prepare for this. The Vermont tournament is also one I’m looking forward to. Since it’s my final semester at U-M and with the club, it will be the last collegiate tournament I compete in before I graduate.
We chatter during the 10 hour drive (yes, we drive, both ways!). As a team tradition, we stop in Akron, Ohio, at a grilled cheese restaurant called Melt Bar and Grilled. Every tournament, we always stop at this restaurant and flood it, all 40-something of us across 6 vans who went to the tournament.
Over a dinner of various overstuffed fancy grilled cheese sandwiches, someone asks: “Do you think it’s weird that Michigan doesn’t have any coronavirus cases yet, given how bad it is in California? Do you think nationals at Berkeley will get cancelled?”
“Well I sure hope not, that would be so disappointing. And regarding Michigan, I am pretty sure it’s coming. Given that U-M spring break just ended, I’m pretty sure some college kid went travelling and brought it back. I bet there’ll be a confirmed case or two this week.” I assert, as I finish my fries.
I wish I hadn’t been right.
Who knew? The things I took for granted: Being able to share close social space with friends outside my household. Being able to sit down as a team for a large group meal at a restaurant. Being able to complain about the prospect of going to class physically. Being able to look forward to the idea of a future tournament. Being able to look forward to practice. Shared space, routines, and future plans. These were all soon not to be.
The subsequent week proved to be the most chaotic of my life, and of many others around me.
Tuesday March 10th: Collegiate nationals get cancelled.
Wednesday March 11th: Vermont gets cancelled. U-M officially cancels class for the rest of the week. No school on Thursday and Friday.
Thursday, March 12th: U-M officially moves all classes for the rest of the semester to remote learning and online formats. Ann Arbor Public Schools (where I intern daily as a student teacher for a middle school band) declares closure till April 6th.
Friday March 13th: The University cancels commencement. My graduation ceremony is cancelled.
The week throws me in a tailspin. It feels like everything is happening, when in reality nothing is happening. All the work, the training for competitions, the 4 years of college labour, the journey of going through college - all of that now seems to end in a big nothing.
You don’t know the importance of closure till it is denied. I heard someone put it very eloquently: “You thought college would end on a bang, but it’s really just going to end on a whimper.” Odd isn’t it? That we hinge the validation of our experience and journey on reaching the destination. It is hard to acknowledge the process and journey as successful or as worth it, when the destination suddenly disappears. What is a journey without a destination? I think most of us do desire that ‘happy ending’, that triumphant finish. To walk across the stage, to know ‘I did it’! I finished! It’s a release that we have had suddenly ripped away from us. The lack of closure leaves us in eternal limbo.
People start packing up and moving out of campus. I call my parents that evening, and tell them to cancel their travel plans for my graduation. They, along with my elder sister and brother-in-law, were planning to visit from Singapore to watch me graduate.
“Do you want to come home?” my dad asks.
“Not yet, I still want to go back and teach when the middle school reopens. Plus, I still want to do school here. I’m not ready to leave yet. I think it’ll be okay.”
“Are you sure you don’t want us to come and help you move?”
“No, don’t come. There’s no commencement to come for, and I don’t want you guys to risk being exposed to the virus here. You guys are safer in Singapore. I’ll find a way to move home myself.”
“Okay, but take care and be safe. We don’t know how the U.S. is going to handle the pandemic, and if the healthcare system is ready for it. The situation is unstable and changes everyday. Even if you aren’t leaving yet, I want you to start packing. Pack away anything you don’t need and send it home first. Be ready to go. If the time comes, you must be ready to leave quickly. Keep only the essentials.”
My life suddenly feels like a badly written action movie - having to pack and be ready to evacuate and flee the country I’ve built a life in for the past 4 years in the midst of a global pandemic.
Hearing such words from my dad does not do great things for my anxiety. That night, I stand in the middle of my college apartment bedroom. I see the laundry that needs to be done, the taekwondo gear barely unpacked from the tournament weekend, my teaching materials strewn across the desk, my textbooks from last semester I still need to sell, the boxes of random ass crap under my bed. I feel weighed down. If I need to flee, I would have all this life paraphernalia holding me back. Would I be able to grab all that matters? I have so much stuff to consolidate! It’s 11pm, and I should sleep. But the fear of having my stuff everywhere, and the prospect of being told ‘leave now’ scares me.
So I don’t sleep. I spend an entire night packing stuff into boxes and suitcases. I Marie-Kondo my room. I purge and purge stuff into “donate/toss out/give away” piles. What is essential? What can I afford to pack away and send home? What must I give up? Sentimental tokens, junk, books, papers, academic collegiate paraphernalia, I spend an entire night filtering, sorting, purging. It’s a night of questioning.
What is essential?
What can I send home?
What is worth sending home?
What is essential enough to keep with me for now?
What is not essential anymore?
What is essential???
In a way, the crisis-triggered aggressive pack-and-purge process forced me to re-evaluate the way I have been living. I expose all the miscellaneous things I have stored out of sight, and out of mind. I have a box of Taekwondo stuff, all my belts, white, yellow, green, blue, red, and my recently earned black belt. I have trophies, medals, photographs and certificates. I don’t need these to survive a pandemic I guess. I have an entire ziplock bag of sentimental paper products - concert program booklets, ticket stubs, posters, postcards, notes from friends, birthday cards. I put that away too. I have books. So many of them. Some of them are teaching resources I promised to save for my professional life. Some are my favorite books that bring me comfort - like The Little Prince. But it’s time to pack them away. I purge things too. These shorts? That dress? I have outgrown them. What do I even have so many random beauty product samples for? What is with all this free college paraphernalia cluttering my room?
At the end of the night, I have one large suitcase packed full and sealed with stuff I don’t imminently need. It’s mobile stuff now I guess.
My bedroom is remarkably clear. A lot of things I thought I couldn’t live without, I barely miss . How much of my clutter was really just a hoarding problem? Crisis-enforced minimalism - what does that say about my way of life? Can I actually afford to change to a more minimalist lifestyle - and is it better for me? In the days post-purge, I don’t find myself missing a bunch of the things I packed away. But that doesn’t mean I want to dispose of them, right? I just don’t need them in my daily life. For now at least. I don’t need my memorabilia all the time, but I’ll be damned if you force me to give up the first wooden board I broke with my bare feet as a white belt in taekwondo.
In 5 days, my life turned completely upside down, and so did my way of living. In this packing process, I was forced to question my relationship with my objects, and I wonder - would minimalism really be a better way to live? Would I have less stress, less stuff to hold me down?
I don’t think it’s really that straightforward.