Peace

There is a new sound in the air,

It’s faint, but regardless it is there,

But what?

A new smell is in the air,

The perfume of the mother 

who has given us health and care,

But who?

There is a new taste in the air,

A refreshingly sweet candy to consume,

Its soothing resolution is colorful against this darkness,

But where?

The first petals of Spring have arrived,

but no one dares to admire their glory,

enveloped in television stories,

But if we listen to our senses

in these times of trouble,

we can find–

Peace.

Here is peace.

Separate, Together

Raging through communities

A small, microscopic being

Sends full-grown humans into hiding –

What power it holds

Something we must control

Controlling us

We are overworked

Overtired, overburdened 

Underpaid

Jobless, helpless, foodless 

Doubtful 

Lucky families like mine

View lockdown as an adventure

We say we see when we don’t

Our nation divided

But look closer: 

For the overworked, recognition

For the jobless, hope

For the lucky, gratitude

For everyone 

Solidarity.

Separate, together.

Step into another’s shoes

Even if the shoes seem too small.

Perhaps the distance that keeps us apart

Will finally unite us.

Your Voice

In the dismal darkness, there is

someone drifting among floating

papers. Staring above.

Hoping for a light. Hoping for someone to

pull them out. Out of the darkness and into

the light.

Suddenly, a light illuminates the stars,

shining through the darkness.

And a voice says, “Write. Make your voice be

heard. Pull yourself out of the darkness and into

the light so you can walk towards a brighter future.”

So he writes about the stars and about the

wings of freedom shining through the murky

darkness so he can rise into the light.

Silver Linings

I am quarantined with my mom, my dad, and my triplet little sisters. Sounds a bit chaotic, doesn’t it? Two adults and four girls stuck all day in a not very big house. I used to think the universe was plotting against me by giving me triplet younger sisters. Why me? The odds of triplets are about 1 in 9000 and I was the one who ended up being their older sister. But although I haven’t always realized it, my sisters were the best thing that ever happened to me. Over the past few years, I forgot how lucky I was to be that 1 in 9000. It took being quarantined with them to make me realize once again how lucky I am to have them. Sometimes it takes going through hard times to realize how lucky you are. If the pandemic and staying home have taught me one thing, it’s that nothing is all bad. Everything has a silver lining. Although I lost some things when we were quarantined and my day to day life was put on hold, I gained so much more. I’ve gotten to spend more time with my family and now have a deeper appreciation for family and for sisterhood. With my sisters, I could never be alone, even in isolation.

When we were in elementary school, my sisters and I were inseparable. We went to the same school, and sometimes they would escape the kindergarteners’ area and sneak over to the big play structure so they could play with me and my friends. Every day I was in charge of walking them home from school. They were wanderers, so I would tell them to get in a line, hold hands, and follow me. It was like I was the mother goose and they were my little chicklings. When we got home, we would play pretend school. I would set up a fake classroom with our dolls and our chalkboard and pretend to be their teacher. We also had a play kitchen my grandpa made us out of wood. We would bake fake cakes and have pretend tea parties. We drew flowers and fairies with chalk on the sidewalk in front of our house.  We played hide and seek and we played games in our backyard.

But then we got older. One day we no longer went to the same school. I went off to middle school and left them behind. Every day I went to school and then after school I would go to soccer practice and do homework. I no longer walked my sisters home from school. We no longer played together after school. We no longer had tea parties or drew with chalk on the sidewalk in front of our house. With every day, with every month, with every year that passed by, our lives grew further and further apart. As my sisters grew into annoying tweens, I began to see my triplet sisters as more of a curse than a blessing. 

So when the quarantine began, I dreaded the coming months. I saw staying at home with just my parents and my sisters as a nightmare. But it turned out to not be such a nightmare, despite the things that were canceled and everything I lost, I gained so much. We gained a stronger sense of family togetherness. Spending this past month with my sisters has made me realize how lucky I am to have them. Often family and sisterhood are things that are just taken for granted, and with our busy lives, we often don’t stop to enjoy and appreciate these things. 

Now that our schools are closed, I feel like we’re little kids playing school once again. Every day I teach them math and help them with their homework, I am their pretend teacher once again. We bake often, this time for real, not in our wooden play kitchen. We make cakes and muffins and we even made ice cream. We play soccer in our backyard. We have picnics that remind me of the pretend tea parties we would have as small children. 

When you’re in quarantine, everyday life is more simple, the days seem to sort of just blend together. To many, that might sound like a bad and boring way of life. And I saw it that way at first, too. But then I realized that with my sisters, even quarantine has its bright sides. Even the plainest of days are fun with them. My new day to day life is much different than it was before, but I’ve found happiness and joy within this new way of life. I feel like a little kid again. My days are filled with pretend school, baking, tea parties, picnics, playing games, painting the sidewalk with chalk, laying in the grass, and long walks. This life is plain and child-like, yes, but happy nonetheless. You can find joy in even the worst situations. 

I’m not going to say our quarantine is all sunsets and daisies. My sisters and I have our fights. Fights that usually end up in sixteen flailing arms and legs and some bruises. Always about the stupidest things like who gets the last scoop of ice cream left in the bin. There’s no doubt about it; my triplet sisters are triple the chaos. But I have learned to love the chaos. And in the end, despite our conflicts, they will always be there for me and I will always be there for them. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love my sisters, and I couldn’t survive quarantine, or the rest of my life, without them. 

Beautiful Fragility

The world surged into surreality just as I turned fifteen. On March 12th, the stay-at-home order was put in place; five days prior, I’d been straightening my hair, meticulously glossing my lips, and ready to celebrate with my closest friends. I had an inkling of what was to come, thanks to my father’s mathematical predictions. I’d chosen to ignore it and have one relaxed evening, burying myself in the petty issues that come with being a teenage girl. So when the events began to unravel so quickly and suddenly, the threat of global havoc finally making itself clear in my muddled mind, it was hard to comprehend.

Looking back, week one’s events are hazy. I was happy that school canceled, as there were local cases and the thought of being around that many people began to terrify me. Other than that, I followed the news, lounged on the couch, and attempted to cook. I relished waking up late. It’s nice to think of it as a break, a relaxed suspension as those in charge scramble to fix this drastic change. As the days dragged on, the redundancy eventually got to me. My screwed-up sleep schedule and loud surroundings didn’t help either.

I decided to read and write, two activities I barely got to do when school is in session, yet even that got boring. I wanted to find some new talents, but it turns out baking isn’t for me. The cake—more like ‘unintentional incense’—sucked. I was reminded of my birthday party and the huge dessert we’d shared. We had been stupidly happy, bracing for the storm but not really. It was more like ‘I see that big wave, but I’m comfortably relaxing on my beach towel,’ and we moved on. My panic worsened, and I didn’t want to bombard my mother with these feelings, for she’s more paranoid than me.

To lessen my anxiousness, I stopped tuning into CNN. So when I eventually checked the data, I was surprised to see how 700,000 cases jumped to 1,000,000 in just three days. Then Boris Johnson was diagnosed—not a surprise, considering he did brag about shaking hands with COVID-19 patients—and any security I felt shattered. I’m not sure why; I barely know anything about him, just that he’s the Prime Minister of England. I suppose the invisible lines in my mind—those who are safe and those who aren’t—blurred. 

I tried to be prudent when I was younger, parroting the words of Carl Sagan: “Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe. . .” Yet it’s just begun to resonate with me. We are not invincible; not as a nation, not as a planet. We go about our lives, ignoring the threat when it’s China, relaxing when it hasn’t reached our state, and then feeling shocked when it’s right in front of us. It takes one respiratory illness to flip the world upside down; any normalcy we’ve ever known put aside for the time being.

Of course, our knowledge will pull through. Science will pull through, vaccines and hydroxychloroquine and whatnot. Still, our vulnerability began to frighten me; who is really in charge? Who’s our protector, from viruses like COVID-19 or any other mass destructors? I could not find solace in spirituality, so I thought of my grandmother, who, if she had not passed away last November, would be confined to the house and writing poetry. She would’ve penned something personal, as I am right now. Perhaps everybody has philosophical tendencies during a pandemic.

So I broadened my mind. I centered my late-night thoughts not just around my concurrent experiences, but also around health-care employees and grocers and those deemed essential workers. Around the millions who have found themselves jobless in the midst of this unprecedented confusion. And of course, around the truly vulnerable ones to this virus: people with compromised immune systems, whether it be due to age or illness.

When I thought of them, the randomness of my privilege was clear in my mind. I’m lucky to stay at home with my family, for there are many that cannot. While my situation is extremely different from many people’s, we have all been thrust into this together. Our fragility is universal, and the connection is both frightening and beautiful. We are each other’s protectors. 

To honor those who are risking their lives for us every day, I’ll continue to stay home. And I’ll continue to find beauty in the fragility, as Carl Sagan also said: “For small creatures such as we, the vastness is only bearable through love.” I believe that. 

I’ll also continue to bake. I have time to master the art.

How COVID-19 Has Affected My Life: A Reflection on How It’s Going

Over the last month, I’ve been under a stay at home order, as has much of the rest of the world. There have been bad times along with the good ones, and I just want to share briefly how it has been for me as a kid, cooped up in the same house as my family day after day.

There are pros and cons. While my family has always emphasized time together, we are spending more time together now than ever, largely due to the fact that there are no extracurricular activities. I am a dancer, and that used to take up a large part of my afternoon and evening, five days a week. My older brother also does his fair share of extracurriculars (saxophone, tennis, piano). But now, as we are not allowed to go anywhere or be near anyone not in our family, our days are much more open, allowing more family time. 

Because of this new routine (or rather, lack of it), we have started to take daily walks. The trail behind our house is closed, about which we are all very sad. It has multiple loops that can mean a very long walk, and the trail is full of Dark-eyed Juncos, Black Phoebes, and White-tailed Kites, along with cotton-tail rabbits and jackrabbits, plentiful deer, and small rodents among the beautiful wildflowers and plants. I have always looked forward to taking a walk with the wind blowing in my hair and having fresh air fill my lungs, and it was such a shame to go up to the gate to the trail only to find it locked. It made me realize what a blessing the trail truly is.

However, we have managed to craft a route that is about four miles long, just by going along the streets behind our house. It is not the same as going along the trail, but seeing people’s nice yards that have been landscaped with a mix of pebbles, bark, various succulents, and other native plants blooming is a welcome sight from a computer screen and desk. The streets extend very far behind our house, and when you get to the top of some streets you can see all of the San Francisco Bay, from sparkling blue waters to the bright lights of cities across the bay. Somewhat surprisingly, the streets are steeper than the trail, giving our legs a nice challenge. One of the best things about our walks is that we have many meaningful conversations. For example, we talk about board games and how school is going, and my brother often has lengthy conversations about a board game he likes, called X-Wing (it is based on Star Wars). My older brother also sometimes skateboards along, providing entertainment and a change of scenery from our normal walks with mishaps from everything to falling off his skateboard to near collisions with lampposts.

These walks are now becoming a necessity. Being on a screen doing work all day is never someone’s idea of fun, and when you have four people in the same house on screens all day every day, that is not good news. We take walks to clear our minds and refresh them, and it helps very much.

A negative change that has occurred in my life is the greatly increased amount of time I am spending on a screen. My family never had many screens in our lives before the pandemic, so being on screens for remote learning/teaching/working is newer and our minds get easily tired, as well as our eyes. School was never focused on screens. But now, if I have to do something like a worksheet, I’ll upload it to a digital app and write on it with my Apple Pencil instead of doing it with pencil on paper. Tests are on the computer. Work is on the computer.  Everything, it seems, is on the computer. There is just so much screen time, and it has caused me to be crabbier than usual because I am not used to it. I used to have next to no time at all on a screen. Now, I can be on a screen for hours at a time. I’m not very happy about that turn of events, and neither is anyone else in my family, as they too suffer from this change.

I grew up without a TV in my house, and I have always relied on books as my main source of entertainment. I still do now, even though my family just recently got a television, and we use it about once a week for a movie or an episode of Fawlty Towers. Because I have not had screens in my life, I am simply not accustomed to being on a screen so much. It is just not part of my daily life as it is with a lot of kids across the world. I do not play video games, either. 

Another thing that relates to screens are the constant Zoom meetings. I have different teachers for every class, and each of those teachers meets with me three to five times a week. Some meetings can be highly productive and useful, while others prove to be a waste of time. If it weren’t for the class meets on Zoom, I could get my school work done much earlier. I don’t want to have a habit that takes me to Zoom as a default mode of communication right now, and I feel that my school has not thought about this fact. 

I am glad, however, to have the privilege of staying home comfortably, with good food every day, a comfortable bed, and enough resources to still be learning at home. While there are things I’d like to have changed, I’m still grateful that I lead a relatively normal life in these times. There are countless more things that I could complain about or praise, but that would take a lot of pages. 

Every day, I wish that the Coronavirus will end. Of course, I know that it won’t be granted, but each day I put out a little bit of my hope that this crisis will not be continuing much longer. I am hopeful as well as disappointed. I think about the ways that my life has changed. And then I realize, “You know, maybe this isn’t so bad after all.”