Real Community Stories from the COVID-19 Public Health Crisis
About
We are living in a historic moment. The Minnesota Historical Society is collecting and preserving Minnesotans’ stories related to the COVID-19 health crisis so future generations can learn how the pandemic has impacted our lives. We invite you to read a sampling of these stories here.
My heart hurt to think of children being denied their favorite slide
COVID-19 health crisis has greatly impacted my work. Beginning March 16th, we were told to stay home and work, however possible, remotely. I worked hard on creating a project for others so that they could work from home. After 9 weeks of doing plenty of work, attending many virtual meetings and webinars, and attempting creative ways to stay concentrated and positive I will be placed on temporary furlough for 6 weeks, at the least. This is simply the reality that a safe and distanced world means a very tough financial loss for many businesses, big and small.
COVID-19 health crisis affects us all in our personal lives. I made a move from living alone in St. Paul to living with my boyfriend and his children in Mankato when I started working from home. It went smoothly but with plenty of worries and caution, and while moving always comes with normal adjustments to the furniture and living together, this came with a heavier realization of a new way of living in general. I am continually grateful for my experiences and acknowledge my privilege in that we do not lack essentials, we have substantial internet connection, we will be okay during my furlough, we have been able to get safe outdoors time, and we do not know anyone personally yet that has been sick. Yet we have our moments of pessimism, of missing our families and friends, of sadness for trips cancelled, and of mourning that going back to normal or close to the old normal is a long way off.
There are constant reminders of this grief, this loss of what was once normal, even in the happiest of moments. That is why I took the picture I did of the playground. It was one of our almost-daily afternoon walks through Skyline (town adjacent to our place in Mankato). It was gorgeously sunny and we were either chatting away about fun and pointless things or our next grocery list, then I noticed the caution tape around the playground equipment. It had appeared overnight and the first thought was a natural "oh no, what happened?" then a "are they doing construction?" and finally a "oh, we live in a social distancing world and, of course, how are you going to disinfect and share playground equipment safely with an unknown number of families." My heart hurt to think of children being denied their favorite slide and then my heart hurt more thinking of those that could already be infected or were going to be infected or how many more if their community did not try to encourage everyone to be safe.
~ Caucasian female in early 30s, generally of the Twin Cities now living in Mankato
Stronger than I think
It's somewhere around 4 a.m. I'm lying in bed, awake. I roughly know what time it is because my husband, who is next to me, is snoring. I've been woken up by vivid dreams. Dreams of my sister, spending time with her. I'm feeling desolate. It has been ten years since I last saw my sister. Nine years since she died. Anxiety rises up. It's almost as much a pattern for me as my husband's snoring is for him. My joints begin to ache, and I long for the relief of falling back asleep. Some mornings, I am able to relax and drift off again. Other mornings, I grapple with the realization that it's going to be a longer day among already long days.
The grief and trauma of past losses has swept into a torrent with this pandemic. I'm 38 years old with a 10-year-old daughter at home. I'm married. My husband has been able to continue working, and continue working at his office, through this time. I'm thankful for that bit of comfort. Still, this leaves me at home, alone, through much of the day to work through grief while attempting to maintain some sort of normalcy for my daughter. I try to help her keep up with her schoolwork, stay busy. We get outside a lot. But I'm overwhelmed. Disrupted sleep doesn't help.
Prior to this pandemic, I'd already been through a lot. My mother died when I was a teenager. My only sister died a little more than a year and a half after my daughter was born. A brother, the oldest of two, was murdered just before my daughter entered kindergarten. I engaged in EMDR therapy last year. I was making a lot of progress. I was looking forward to 2020, hoping that much of the worst was behind me.
Then the pandemic. Just the disruption of the day-to-day routines was enough to push me back into that familiar space of loss. Lack of motivation. Exhaustion. Feeling on the edge of crying. No patience for insignificant difficulties. Anxiety. Fear.
I've been through it enough to know I can get through it again. It's possible. Not easy.
In the first few weeks of the lockdown, I had some tough conversations with my father. The broader scope of what this pandemic could mean for my future is daunting to consider. My father laid out his plans for what he wants to happen should he get sick. He's in the high-risk category, as is his wife. My husband is borderline. He has issues with asthma. He downplays his risk. Then there's my daughter. I don't worry as much about her getting sick as I do about the long-term impact of this on her life. I don't want her feeling the weight of life experience as I do.
I cope through photography, particularly macro photography. I like wildflowers. It's my tradition to get out in the spring and hunt for the ephemerals. At least I can continue to do that, albeit closer to home than I originally planned this year.
Sometimes, I think I should give myself more credit than I do. Maybe I'm stronger than I think. Even on the days where I feel like I've been brought to my knees, I get out of bed. I live with the emotions, let them ride alongside the washing of dishes, going for a walk, asking my daughter for the fifth time if she's done her morning school check-in. I don't feel pity for myself. I long to talk to my mother with an ache that reaches deeper than I can fathom, but I accept that she's not there. I accept that there are aspects of this that I can't change. I focus on where I do have control. And I remind myself over and over that I'm doing okay. My house might still be cluttered. I might not be learning a new skill. But, right now, I'm okay.
And, right now, the people I love are okay.
~ Submitted by Nicole
Slowly exploding
I'm a singer/songwriter and mother of two teenagers, living in a relatively small house in St. Paul. The space where I write and create music is the very center of the house—the one room that everyone needs to walk through to get anywhere else on the main floor. My routine is (was) that at least two afternoons a week, while the kids are at school and my spouse is at work, that space is my studio for songwriting and recording.
Now that everyone is home all the time, I've lost my studio (not only the space, but also the time when I could be alone in it).
[Listen to a “Slowly Exploding,” a song written by Julia, recorded with her husband and daughter while staying at home].
I'm adjusting and enjoying having my musician family members more available to play with me, but I don't feel quite like me. I miss playing live shows. There are multiple opportunities to stream performances from my house, which I have and am taking, but they aren't the same (and figuring out the technology to get good audio quality has been stressful).
One wonderful thing that's come out of all this is that I've grown closer to an international songwriting group I'm a part of, called Song A Week (www.songaweek.org). Members of the group write a song each week and share our songs with each other, listening and supporting. I've been a member since 2016, and it was the pandemic that prompted us for the first time to start doing video meetings as a group. A different lineup each month plays two songs each for each other, and we take some time to chat during and afterward. Many of these people I'm likely never to meet in person, and it's been a joy to feel more connected to them during this time.
The other members of my family each have their own feelings and issues - deep sadness that brings tears almost daily for my sixteen-year-old daughter, daily snuggles, and maybe biweekly tears for my thirteen-year-old son, and struggles with depression for my extroverted spouse. At the same time we are drawing closer as a family, picking up new activities (long bike rides, evening walks with the dog, card games, sitting around and just talking . . .), and getting things done like cleaning out the garage and home repair projects and gardening. My daughter loves to sew, and she voluntarily made masks for each person in our family, and then went on to make thirteen more which we just donated at our local fire station this past weekend. I feel like we are very lucky to be doing so well during this time, knowing there is so much suffering on so many levels. This pandemic has forced many of us to slow down, some for the first time in a long time, and face our own mortality.
~ Submitted by musician Julia Bloom
Having this project gives me focus
My husband and I are both small business owners, and I while that has prepared me for a lot of economic uncertainty for us personally, I never imagined this level of having no clue what comes next for a restaurant and a print shop. I am trying to just focus on the day in front of me, rather than look too far ahead, because I start to feel like I am drowning.
I have also started a project - a hand type-set letterpress newspaper that I am producing weekly. It is composed of 10-word or less stories submitted by folks around the country about how they are experiencing this pandemic. I mail them out weekly to subscribers. Having this project gives me focus and also is helping me feel like I am documenting this experience in a physical, tangible way.
~ Elana Schwartzman
We decided we also wanted to help
Nana and I moved to an apartment together in Uptown in the first week of March. We heard rumors of a virus but did not think it would be something that would affect our daily lives. A week after moving, things around us started to close such as restaurants and amenities in our apartment. Through the initial weeks of quarantine, we kept ourselves busy by designing, modeling, and 3D printing various items for our new apartment such as key holders and utensil organizers.
While exploring 3D printing forums for new ideas on projects, we saw a number of community members try to design various PPEs to help with the current crisis. We decided we also wanted to help. We initially thought to design our own face masks, however determined that since we would be donating to hospitals, there might be strict guidelines on what can be approved.
However, while researching, we saw that the NIH website had a section for clinically approved 3D face shield designs. We immediately printed a couple. Next, we had to decide where to donate shields that we were planning to print. We thought of North Memorial as Rinku has a personal story with them and volunteered with them for a number of years. Nana found an email link for COVID-19 donations for North Memorial and reached out to them. We got in contact with them and explained that our plan was to print face shield PPE and follow the print and sanitation guidelines listed on NIH. We proceeded to print 100 shields as well as mask straps and donate to the hospital.
~ Middle class, young Asian couple
One small change with large implications
One small change, with large implications, is how my entryway looks these days. Many homemade face masks now occupy the pegs on a rack right inside our front door. I think it will look this way for years.
~ Submitted by Susan Koefod, West Saint Paul resident
Nothing is so scary you can't draw It
I am an artist who is a Documentary Drawer. I have used this time of Sheltering in Place to draw how I feel and what I notice. My drawings are both social commentary and rather humorous too.
I have drawn through many situations over the past few years, situations that were tough like my husband’s medical issues/death. However, through my documentary drawing of him, I was able to document A Day in the Life of HCMC [Hennepin County Medical Center]. These drawings are on display in the new clinic on the second floor. So I have drawn through many many challenging moments in my life, and living and drawing through all this adversity is not new to me.
I have my ‘Spiritual Toolbox,’ which has grit/perseverance/humor/patience and fortitude as well as resilience. My motto, “When the going gets Tough, The Tough Start Drawing” also sustains me. My other motto, “Nothing is So Scary you Can't Draw It,” also applies to these current times, which can be scary indeed.
~ Anita White, documentary drawer
I am grateful for this experience
For as long as I’ve been studying history, I’ve wondered what it was like to live through a major historical event. Now, I have the opportunity to experience one first-hand, and it’s nothing like I imagined. For one thing, I always thought it would be something I read about in the news, such as the moon landing or the fall of the Berlin Wall. I never thought it would affect me personally. For another, I didn’t expect it to happen so quickly. It seemed as if everything fell apart in the space of a week, and nothing’s been the same since. For my class, the seniors of 2020, it’s been an especially crazy couple of weeks. Most of us won’t experience a graduation ceremony or be able to spend time making memories with friends. Our future is more uncertain than ever, both in the short and long term.
As hard as it is now, I am grateful for this experience. It has given me time to think and reflect about what’s important in life, and what I want my future to look like. Not only that, but it’s also helped me understand the past a little more. In history books, you always read about incredible people who did great things and helped save the world. You almost never get a clear picture of what it was like for ordinary people in their everyday lives. I think now more than ever it’s clear that ordinary people are just as important as people in power, and though the ways we contribute to society in such times can vary, they are all essential in their own way. Though everyone is (literally) more distant than ever, I feel like we’re closer than ever, too.
~ Caitlin Ruhl of Central Minnesota
I am not a virus
I'm a young entrepreneur in the apparel design industry and I feel it is my obligation to use my skill to contribute to the community through the work that I do. I strongly believe in this desperate time of crisis that it's important we all come together to help one another to share information and bring awareness in regard to the rise of anti-Asian racism and xenophobia from the unprecedented Coronavirus pandemic...combat racism through solidarity.
~ Sai Xiong
When the flower shops closed
I felt the saddest when the flower shops closed. They gave away all their flowers for free. It was such a beautiful thing to do for people. On Friday, March 27th, 2020 I didn’t see a single person who wasn’t carrying a handful of exotic orchids or carnations. It was as magical as it was devastating. [...] When I get scared, I try to remember the things I’m grateful for. Like how nature is having such a tremendous moment. There are children playing in backyards. People are walking dogs and picking up garbage off the streets because there’s nothing else to do. Everyone is going out hiking, dancing on their balconies, and screaming joyful hellos at one another.
~ Katrina Ardolf