Our guinea pig, Glance, who is waiting for us at our home in Beijing.
Many of us have been in COVID-19 limbo, displaced from our usual homes, without any idea of when we’ll get back to our usual routines and when our kids will go back to school. My family and I have been in the metro DC area since before the pandemic reached the United States, waiting to hear from my husband’s employer when we’ll be able to go back to our home in Beijing. We’d been waiting for four months and finally, in early June, we’d heard some surprisingly good news: a flight was scheduled to take us back to China in early July.
But then around June 11, a second wave of COVID-19 struck Beijing and the date of that flight was scrapped. In the last couple of weeks, we received news that we might be able to fly back sometime in July, but the key word is might. Nothing has been confirmed.
There are a lot of complications, of course. With very, very few flights between the U.S. and China, my husband’s employer is arranging a charter — we’ve been told it could be a military plane, outfitted with makeshift airplane seats made out of material resembling lawn chairs. Before we board the flight, we’ll have to get tested for COVID-19. If we test negative, we’ll be able to board the plane. The plane can’t fly to Beijing, but rather a nearby city, because of Chinese pandemic control measures. Once we arrive, we’ll get another COVID-19 test. If we pass that test, we’ll endure a long car ride to get back to our home — and stay there for 14 days under strict quarantine, not the kind of “quarantine” that Americans have been experiencing. There will even be someone sitting outside our house, to ensure that we don’t leave. It will be more like house arrest.
But we’re willing to do it, because we miss our home and our lives. I have a cooking school there, and my husband has a job. We have pets — a cute, squeaky guinea pig named Glance and Santiago, a rabbit the size of a small terrier. (Both are being cared for by a friend.) My kids might have a school to attend. (More on that in another post.)
I think that’s the hardest part about COVID-19 life: the uncertainty. When the pandemic first began, we had no idea how contagious the coronavirus was. We have no idea how many people were afflicted with COVID-19, and we had no idea whether it was safe to touch our mail or for our kids to play in playgrounds. (Even months later, we’re still feeling uncertain about these things.) Today, we have no idea if we’ve been exposed or will be exposed because there are so many asymptomatic cases. Nobody has any idea when their lives will get back to normal, when their kids’ schools will begin, or when some of us will return to their offices.
In the midst of this uncertainty, it’s very understandable that people have started going back to work (especially those who need the money), protested on the streets, congregated at bars, and held parties in their homes. Especially when you wake up the next day and you’re still alive.
Living on the edge: for us, staying sane during COVID-19 has meant picking a few things that makes us happy. Tennis seems like an acceptable risk now, even though early on in the pandemic it seemed taboo.
We understand that the rates of COVID-19 will go up as businesses and institutions begin to open up, but we still don’t know if each of us, as individuals, will be harmed.
We’ve wanted to do many things with family and friends, like go out for a meal, go on a hike, or just simply get tipsy and silly together. Our more fortunate friends with beautiful swimming pools have invited us over. (Those invitations have been painful to decline, especially because we have no idea when our kids will be able to swim regularly again.) We’ve wanted to have people over for barbecues. I’ve wanted to simply just give my friends and family hugs. But aside from having two friends over for a socially-distanced drink in our front yard one night, we’ve resisted the temptations.
For us, we are staying tight and self-isolating because beyond the fact that we don’t want to get a very unpleasant and unpredictable and nasty illness ourselves, my mother is staying with us and she’s over 70 years old. She’s in good health but she takes medication for certain conditions. We are also staying tight because of the possibility that we might get to go back to Beijing.
So we’re resisting those urges to be social and trying our best to stay sane and happy. My husband and I are picking and choosing the things that seem to be acceptably un-risky, like taking walks and playing tennis. (I’ve been playing tennis through the pandemic, even though the U.S. Tennis Association discouraged people from playing a few months back.) I’m holding my online cooking classes, which are bringing me a lot of joy. I’m even planning to hold one on July 10, my birthday, because I can’t think of a better way to celebrate right now than to cook with you … and I mean that in a good way!
Let me know what’s keeping you sane, by commenting on my Facebook page.
My live stream cooking classes have been giving me immense joy. Thank you!