Pandemic Reflections
A source of support.
When the first Bay Area shelter-in-place started March 16, 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it felt lonely and disorienting and pretty awful having no childcare for our 3yo with 2 full time working parents. In week 2, I sent an email to people with whom I worked closely, honoring this feeling and sharing some coping strategies I was using to create a sense of solidarity and support. This became a weekly ritual that grew over time.
In the emails, I shared a little bit about what was happening in my household as a way of normalizing the massive changes, shared strategies we were using to cope, and things I was grateful for despite everything. I invited people to reply for support and connection and to aid with professional accountability and motivation. Slowly and sporadically I invited others to join the list. Eventually, I decided the simplest way to allow people to join as they found content useful (or to opt-out if content did not resonate) was to create a newsletter and website. For the archived letters from 2020, I’ve done some light editing to provide additional context, or to remove my weekly goals. Not all have been uploaded yet, but I’ll get there eventually.
In 2021, the weekly letter has evolved into aggregations of many of my mentoring and peer-mentoring conversations. They still touch on methods I’m using to remain a whole, semi-balanced person amid parenting, grieving, and being an early/mid-career academic researcher.
In 2022, the weekly letter became a little more sporadic, but still shared reflections on things happening locally and broadly.
Week 67
Arguably, my pacing’s been off this week. I’ve had early morning meetings nearly every day this week, and I’m pleased that I’ve managed to motivate to get up at 5am with Sam to fit in some exercise (and sometimes even some meditation). I’ve been meeting deadlines, making presentations, giving feedback on collaborations, moving first-authored papers forward. For the first few days of the week, I was able to ride that energy all day, using time between meetings productively. Later in the week, free time has led to staring off into space.
Week 66
After a few days of intense heat (and little sleep thanks to no AC and a neighbor’s dog) and all-day meetings, all I’d like to do is whine. Ok, really, I’d like to find AC, exercise, and nap. I’ll focus instead on some of the good things, hoping to filter them to the top of my consciousness.
Week 65
It’s been a gorgeous few days here in Sausalito. I’ve accidentally taken a month off from writing these. It’s been a time of tremendous change. I took a week vacation off-grid, 4 days completely solo at Wilbur Hot Springs. We’ve had visitors, we’ve gotten together with people, we’ve been delighted and overwhelmed in turn. It’s a season of transitions, which means the emotions are tightly layered.
Week 60
The fog has rolled in, there are reports of small fires, and this week has felt a bit like September. I felt like I had a pretty good amount of patience and resilience all week until I hit a wall Thursday afternoon. Too little sleep and too many things my brain was trying to do. Thank goodness the weekend is nearly here.
Mother’s Day is Sunday. For those of you grieving, I hope you are able to protect yourselves or make space for feelings. Among other things, I’m looking forward to a break - a few hours alone in the house while Sam takes Theo to Cal Academy.
Week 59
We’ve had a few days of perfect afternoon weather on the docks, and it’s really helped my mood. That and pretty much ignoring the news, checking social media (Twitter and Instagram) less, and finding that my many meetings this week were concentrated to a few days, leaving me bigger blocks of time for writing and thinking.
Week 58
I am angry and I am tired. There was accountability and immediately another murder of a child.
When I get overwhelmed and angry, I get aggressive and impatient – all hard edges, no soft edges. I don’t want to be nice and supportive. I want to be pity and cutting and clear. I want people to do their jobs the way I would do their jobs. It takes a lot of extra edit to add any degree of softness back in.
Week 57
The collective grief and trauma in the Black community this week is just so heavy. We need accountability and change. #dauntewright #adamtoledo
I hijacked some of my designated writing times this week to support colleagues (peers and trainees) who are struggling for a wide variety of reasons – racism, grief, pandemic parenting/caregiving, out of whack brain chemicals or hormones, and of course, the intersection of these things and others. I’m proud of this work, not least of all because I feel it is a way to pay forward the support I received.
Week 56
Change in the pandemic remains hard. It’s been lovely to have my mother next door and honor all the events of the weekend…and we are, of course, still working on finding a new rhythm to life. Hard things are happening in the live of people around me. I have completely neglected all my usual self-care this week – exercise, meditating, journaling. I am trying to be patient with myself, not judging, and remember that each day I can make different choices.
Week 55
What a week. On the national stage, ongoing hard and triggering news like increasing COVID cases with the new variants, the Derek Chauvin trial, another mass shooting…never mind ongoing racism. For those of you in need of, or about to take, time off, I cannot recommend this blog post from Dr. Urmimala Sakar’s enough. On the home front, major shifts. I got my second dose vaccine, my first haircut in over a year…and most importantly, Theo and I got to hug my mom for the first time in a year and a half (all masked and outside).
Week 54
This was a reasonably good week, but I feel a bit wrung out. My pacing improved – not enough bike rides, but other cardio activities. More of my own writing - I’m having luck actually using the writing accountability zoom meetings on my calendar (with like 3 different groups) by using them to schedule my writing to-do list. I’m also doing the NCFDD 14-day writing challenge (that I’m amending to 10 days because I’m not working on the weekends). Some complicated meetings and discussion about anti-racism. Too much sun today (a delightful change of pace). Theo and I had the day off for Cesar Chavez Day (which is actually Wednesday the 31st). Sam and I each got in a bike ride, then Theo and I had a rare playdate with friends from school in the perfect weather. Then this afternoon I caught up on some time-sensitive writing tasks while Theo and Sam took Greta for a walk with all the treats.
Week 53
I am heartbroken and outraged about the latest hate crime, this time Asian American women in Atlanta. This violence, racism, and misogyny against members of the AAPI community is not new, but it is becoming more frequent during the pandemic. As with anti-Black racism, thoughts and prayers are insufficient. I encourage each of us to find our ways to act in solidary with one another.
Week 52
Thursday was not my father’s 71st birthday. I had rough plans for how I wanted to honor the day. …This is approximately what I was doing a year ago, when WHO declared the pandemic and a few days before the shelter-in-place started. I haven’t yet watched the UCSF DOM Grand Rounds honoring the anniversary. But I remember those first few weeks feeling a bit like the shock after sudden loss, the sense of being unmoored and wanting reassurance.
Week 51
Saturday morning at breakfast, Sam casually said, “let’s see if we can get a campsite at Pantoll”. We periodically did this pre-pandemic because it’s ~20 minutes from the house so we can drive home to let the dog out if we don’t have a dog sitter (we never do, our dog is … special). I suppose I should be grateful that it’s been over a year since we had to pack to travel. Then again, I read a few pages of Bird by Bird by the campfire, and there was a line about a character saying “I could resent the ocean if I tried”, and now the phrase is resonating in my head, like an accusation.
Week 50
Oddly, this was a good week. I didn’t exercise much, I had too many meetings, I worked in the evening, I slept poorly, bad things are happening in the lives of people I love. And yet. Some odd mix of timing, pressure, new team members, coffee and adrenaline meant breakthroughs in multiple projects where I’ve had long-time hangups. It’s so strange and yet so normal, the pairing of shadow and light. Hopefully this weekend I can self-invest a bit more (e.g. meditate, exercise, sleep) and re-set my work boundaries (e.g. no work nights and weekends). Both to allow my brain to recover and be more creative.
Week 49
Stormy weather over here. My emotions have just been all over the place. Lots of anxiety, anger and grief. Funny reaction to a Friday afternoon work meeting that led to a rare bout of sleeplessness and subsequently demoralization. I’ve also been texting/talking a lot with close friends who are anticipating or grieving parental deaths – I’m trying to normalize the awfulness of their experiences and help them feel less alone, as others did for me. We try to take turns with Theo on the weekends so that the other person gets some alone time (not for working or doing chores). I used mine on Sunday for exercise and actually feeling feelings (hard with a kid around unless they are totally overwhelming). Theo and I had Monday off while Sam worked – there were tantrums, getting soaked in the rain, and a giant pretzel at the zoo. Theo and I have been overly stubborn with each other lately, leading to many tantrums and opportunities to repair the relationship (e.g. “I’m so sorry I expressed my big feelings that way. I will try to do better next time. What do you think we could do instead?”).
Week 48
Happy Lunar New Year! Theo’s daycare/preschool has always done a great job celebrating – in past years bringing in Lion Dancers too – such that I think this is Theo’s favorite holiday of the year (despite us having no family/cultural connection to the holiday). As a white family I usually am more quiet about it, because it seems too akin to cultural appropriation. Yet Theo’s been watching video of International Lion Dance competitions, reenacting them in his lion bathrobe (complete with washcloth “beard”), and unmaking and remaking his Lion Dancer Legos. We will be enjoying the Bay Area and Smithsonian online celebrations this weekend. In a week where my social media has been full of acknowledgements of anti-Asian hate crimes and racism, it seems especially important to teach Theo the variety of global celebrations.
Week 47
You may not believe this, and you probably aren’t hearing this enough, but you are doing great. No seriously. We continue to be living in a pandemic. Many of us separated from family or loved ones, often trying to help from afar or navigating risks to help in-person. Many of us are navigating deep grief, in varying degrees of willingness to talk about it. We are all trying to make the world a little less terrible, in our own ways. Thank you for all you are doing.
Week 46
I’ve been thinking a lot this week about failure and resilience, misfortune and privilege, individual efforts and systems. As a result, this missive got a bit…long. We’re all healthy again, thankfully. Theo is doing his job of pushing boundaries, and we are trying like heck to be patient as we keep them. We fail a lot, but we try. With the winds being wild, we can feel the boat move quite a bit at high tide, but it hasn’t been too bad and we haven’t lost anything overboard yet.