Our baby sister, Sherill, has been rushed to the hospital. As her legal guardian, I immediately think to go there. Debbie reminds me, “Freda, we can’t go there.” Right, no one is allowed! The hospital is restricting visitors.

Everywhere I looked, I saw rainbows.

Not every house, but many, had children’s drawings of rainbows taped to the front gates or the inside of the glass window panes.

In April, my bones began telling me that the COVID-19 crisis isn’t something we can hope to put behind us; it’s something we must deepen into. This demands that we mourn the loss of beliefs killed by the crisis. Those beliefs served us for a long time, so they’ll haunt us like hungry ghosts if they’re not honored with a proper funeral and burial.

I discussed my feelings with a friend. Thankfully, I’m in a very safe space during the lockdown, but I know there are people who are stuck with homophobic parents, roommates, and landlords. My friend and I thought, “Let us start a virtual support group.”

I think of my mother, deceased now for twelve years. I am glad she is not living still, to be in the path of the relentless virus decimating the elderly. But I think of her, child of the Great Depression, sustained through lean years by stale, government-issued dried cow's milk she described as rancid.

As my return date to the U.S. approached, a connection in Europe was no longer safe. Some suggested I delay my return, but most just wished me well. My friend V. handed me a tiny cloth pouch bag containing a mauve colored garnet stone which I didn’t know was my birth stone. My friend A. gave me a horseshoe that he had found on a Himalayan trail.

One time, on the bus ride home from school, I looked out the window and saw an adorable older couple taking a walk and holding hands. I pointed them out to my friend next to me; she replied, “Aren’t those your grandparents?”

I took a closer look; she was right.

My plans for June were drawn well in advance: I would finally take the “Camino de Santiago” with my son. He was named after the pilgrim saint, so reaching the holy city of Compostela, in Spain, was a mandatory trip. More than anything, it was an opportunity for deep sharing.

Amidst this constant certainty, I told myself that I could only have one fear. The fear I chose for myself was snakes. Everything else was surmountable. If my plan gets delayed for a few days? Fine, no snakes. If I fall in the river? Fine, as long as there are no snakes. If I wake up with a chicken on top of me? At least it is not a snake!

We are now ready for you to leave us, as our healthcare workers, mass transit workers, grocery store workers, port workers, rubbish collectors, and all other essential workers need respite.

The last time I remember being struck with the deafening noise of silence was when I had just come back to my studio apartment in West Oakland and sat on the coach after a three-month stint teaching …

I get a call. The getting a call is usual, as the shelter gets call all the time for new admissions for people experiencing homelessness who are positive for COVID-19 and need a safe place to recover. But the content of the call was unusual.

I am quarantined with a teenager. It is just she and I, the dogs, and the cat. This teen is my daughter, my friend, my binge-watching TV companion, my work out buddy, and my therapist.

There’s a laugh that’s not really a laugh. You know what I’m talking about, right? When someone laughs but you can hear the cry in it?

Quarantine creates monsters. There is a feeling of numbness in the feet and hands because the routine breaks creative spirits, and brings monsters to life.

The aroma of 2020 was beautiful. Many saw themselves achieving their goals and aspirations. “Huu ni mwaka wa bwana na lazima tutabarikiwa” (This is the year of the Lord and we must be blessed), many said. Plans were made, but COVID-19 happened, and everything, for many, came to a standstill.

The lockdown has brought down noise levels, and so like others across India, I find myself catching unique birdcalls. But what has been most special has been the Muslim call to prayer, the azaan, several times a day. A few days into the lockdown, my partner and I figured out that there was a syncing of our routines with the azaan.

We used to hike in the hills of Northern California. I remember as a little girl he would race me up to the top. When I became a competitive cross country runner, he would take me to the trail the week before a race, and we would run it together, noting the areas where I’d need to pace myself, the turns and corners to speed up at, or be cautious of.

My strongest longings are for home. Being from a family of displaced people that faced the partition of India in 1947, the idea of home became central to my sense of safety and belonging. It became a motif of the will to reconstruct life after the trauma and pain of losing home. 

I was grateful that when I looked in the freezer I found some Italian sausage. I put that together with other veggies that we had, making sausage and peppers over pasta—good comfort food. Thinking about it, having the Italian sausage in the freezer is representative of a kitchen with lots of food in a comfortable house. We are fortunate and privileged.