00;00;00;15 - 00;00;16;22 Kelsey Timmerman Timmerman: When was the last time you shook hands? Give a high five or a hug? Such in-person interactions build bonds with our fellow humans and aren't possible during a global pandemic. As we self-isolate for each other, we may feel alone. I'm Kelsey Timmerman. 00;00;16;25 - 00;00;28;10 J.R. Jamison Jamison: And I'm J.R. Jamison. Today on the Facing Project, we'll discuss Alone Together: Stories from a Pandemic. [Theme music] 00;00;28;13 - 00;00;48;25 Kelsey Timmerman Timmerman: Like the rest of the world, we have spent several months in our own bubbles, sticking close to home, mostly, and trying to make sense of what the future has in store, while also juggling e-learning with our kids, endless Zoom meetings, and trying to find the space for creativity, all in the comfort of our living rooms, at our kitchen tables, and in our basements. 00;00;48;28 - 00;01;19;16 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Because our work is about the human condition and connection, and we believe that is done best face to face, we have to rethink how we operate and how to basket writers and storytellers together. Of course, Zoom is always an option, but who doesn't have Zoom fatigue these days? And there's old fashioned phone calls, so let's not forget the Alexander Graham Bell’s original invention still plays an important role, but ultimately, we wanted to hear from you, our listeners, and provide a space to talk about your hopes and fears and dreams. 00;01;19;19 - 00;01;27;29 J.R. Jamison But mostly what life has been like for you during this time of social isolation and how community has or has not been created. 00;01;28;01 - 00;01;46;22 Kelsey Timmerman Timmerman: So we did a call out and said, whether you are on the front lines, at a grocery store, in the E.R., lost your job or hunkered down at home, we want you to connect with someone via zoom or by phone and talk about life during the pandemic. Then share those stories with us and we'll share them with other listeners by way of this show. 00;01;46;24 - 00;02;11;06 Kelsey Timmerman We also set up a call in line where folks could leave messages to tell us whatever was on their minds. Today's episode is about being alone together and stories from a pandemic, but it's also about reconnecting. Slowing down, appreciation, empathy, understanding and restarting. There's speculation about what people 50 years from now will call this time. One of the names I like best is The Great Reset. 00;02;11;09 - 00;02;22;03 Kelsey Timmerman And if you find yourself in that place, we hope some of the stories and call ins we share today help you feel a little less alone in whatever way a reset looks like for you. 00;02;22;05 - 00;02;44;25 J.R. Jamison Jamison: One of the first stories we received was from the island of Jamaica. Imagine going away on a mission trip and then being sheltered in place for five months. That was the reality for Megan Hamilton. But what she saw from the convent was more than a tropical paradise. During her time of isolation, she began to understand the stark differences between U.S. privilege and Jamaican unrest. 00;02;44;28 - 00;03;14;21 Amy Leffingwell Leffingwell: I write to you underneath the shade of a mango tree, listening for the call of the parrots that have seemed particularly abundant since Jamaica entered a lockdown period and my suburb of Kingston grew very still. I'm aware of the suffering beyond the gates of the convent grounds, and it moves me. I know I'm privileged and I help as I can by preparing bags of food, visiting the elderly sisters with dementia, taking on small projects around the convent. 00;03;14;23 - 00;03;42;17 Amy Leffingwell Still, this problem is bigger than me. I cannot rest the virus from this island, no matter how much strength my 64 year old body holds within. At times, these realities tap a vein of frustration, and I feel indignant with the universe that, after over a year of researching volunteer programs, applying and fundraising, I'm stuck in this convent and have little way of getting to know anyone outside. 00;03;42;20 - 00;04;07;14 Amy Leffingwell The visits to schools, to homes for people with disabilities, and to the local hospice all stopped in March. Jamaica is a gift I had only begun to open for a few weeks before it was snatched from my hands. The frustration is real and I honor it. But most days I open my hands, release what I cannot control, and feel overwhelmed. 00;04;07;16 - 00;04;41;03 Amy Leffingwell Not with frustration, but with gratitude. This convent is an oasis. And the sisters who graciously opened some of their living space to volunteers have become my community. I often feel I'm on holiday or at a writer's retreat. The rhythm of swimming, praying, reading, writing and thinking does my soul and body well. Though movement is restricted, I feel a sense of freedom. Just as I thought the gift of Jamaica might entirely be ripped from my hands with a forced evacuation, 00;04;41;06 - 00;05;10;09 Amy Leffingwell I was invited to discern whether to stay or go. I knew my answer almost immediately, heart and gut and soul. I was called to be here. Yes. Called. My decision was about more than infection rate facts and a calculus about where I would be most safe or comfortable. Part of my decision was my observations about how the pandemic was being handled in the United States compared to Jamaica. 00;05;10;12 - 00;05;41;22 Amy Leffingwell Early on, the Prime Minister turned away cruise ships, closed schools and shut borders. As a much smaller country compared to the United States, Jamaica was able to implement a mandatory curfew, as well as an executive order that masks must be worn outside at all times. If the rules are broken, citizens can get arrested, but it seems that a sense of social responsibility, rather than fear, is motivating the community to comply. 00;05;41;25 - 00;06;07;02 Amy Leffingwell As I hear of angry protests in the United States, I feel perplexed. Here, there is poverty and understandable grumbling about difficulty making ends meet. And yet, protests have not escalated to the point of violence. This makes me wonder about differences between Jamaican and American values. But violence is a serious issue in Jamaica. Recent volunteers have grieved the murders of Jamaicans 00;06;07;02 - 00;06;30;27 Amy Leffingwell they've come to know, and I will likely grieve similar losses. Something here is different. The register of unrest is not imported from the United States. It is uniquely Jamaican, and it stirs the air differently from the unrest back home, as differently as the trade winds stir the heat on the island but did not touch my hometown of Baltimore. 00;06;30;29 - 00;06;59;14 Amy Leffingwell As I wander the grounds, studying the names of local birds and trees and sitting in shady spots to read, I alternate between the book “A History of the Jamaican People” and a biography of Saint Francis, so that when the world reopens and I can venture out again, I can greet Kingston not as a stranger, but as a friend I haven't seen in a while. [Hopeful piano and rhythmic music] 00;06;59;16 - 00;07;22;05 J.R. Jamison Jamison: The last time Megan shared with us about greeting Kingston once this is all over, not as a stranger, but as a friend I haven't seen in a while, is a theme I feel like we heard over and over from our call-ins, and it's a beautiful notion, this idea of a grand reunion and falling in love again with place and perhaps appreciating the smaller things in life that once before had gone unnoticed. 00;07;22;07 - 00;07;38;01 J.R. Jamison Three of our callers shared the same sentiment. Though thousands of miles apart, Garima in California, Serene in Arizona, and Stephanie in Indiana found isolation to actually be a time of connection and slowing down and seeing the world in front of them. 00;07;38;04 - 00;08;09;27 Garima Verma Verma: Hi, this is Garima from California. I wanted to share a little bit about my time in isolation during the pandemic. This time has really been kind of a once in a lifetime opportunity for my family to be together again. Since all of us are working from home, my brother and I are staying with our parents, and it's been about a decade since we've all been living together in the same house again. 00;08;09;27 - 00;08;24;16 Garima Verma So that has really been incredible. And it's been an incredible time to spend time with family to, you know, heal my mind and body and slow down for the first time in my life. 00;08;24;18 - 00;08;45;13 Serene from Phoenix, Arizona Serene: Hi, this is Serene calling from Phoenix, Arizona. This pandemic, obviously, it's been very hard for everyone. I have loved reconnecting with people who I haven't spoken to in a long time. I have loved, you know, meeting new people online because that's kind of all we can do at this point. And just making the best of everything 00;08;45;13 - 00;08;54;28 Serene from Phoenix, Arizona that's hard. I'm a student, so I haven't seen my friends in a long time. But we're making it work, and I'm trying to look on the bright side. 00;08;55;00 - 00;09;17;27 Stephanie Fisher Fisher: Hi, this is Stephanie from Muncie, Indiana. During the isolation period of the pandemic, I realized how much I enjoy a slower life at home. But it's also made me miss hugging my mom, going out with friends and seeing my coworkers. So I think the pandemic has forced us all to take a look at what's important in life. Thanks. 00;09;18;00 - 00;09;41;26 J.R. Jamison Jamison: I, too, found isolation as a chance to reconnect with place and space, and as a writer, I decided to put my thoughts and feelings down on paper in an essay titled “Love in the Time of COVID-19. Have Our lives Changed Forever? I Sure Hope.” The essay is about the slowing down and appreciation of home. After all, I haven't really left my home in five months, so I have to love it, right? 00;09;41;28 - 00;10;11;08 J.R. Jamison In it, I write: “Our little mid-century ranch, with its limestone exterior and big picture window, sits clustered together with other mid-century homes, tri-levels and a-frames in a neighborhood that straddles the bustling city limits and acres of farmland that stretch out across rural Delaware County, Indiana. This proximity to civilization yet freedom to get lost on a back road is what drew my husband, Corey, and me to the house when we bought it in 2005. When our realtor walked us through, 00;10;11;08 - 00;10;33;28 J.R. Jamison we whispered into each other's ears about backyard picnics and late night escapades with glasses of wine. The real selling point, though, was that big picture window in the front room and the way it scattered morning sunlight across the pine wood floors.” In the essay, I go on to talk about the busyness of life and how year after year, we got further and further away from the home we loved. 00;10;34;00 - 00;10;54;25 J.R. Jamison It was only become a place to eat, sleep, and shower. In the last year or so, we started to look for a new home. But the pandemic made me realize that I have it all right here. I end the essay with, “We'll get back to our commutes, our speaking engagements, our travel. This won't last forever, yet I'm already beginning to mourn the loss of this way of living. 00;10;54;28 - 00;11;14;03 J.R. Jamison I hope future me says no more often to needless opportunities that fill our calendar. But I still call my mom and dad each day to talk about movies and the grocery store, and that Corey and I still tangle our feet together in the evenings as we binge another show. Yesterday we cooked dinner and made a picnic in our backyard. 00;11;14;05 - 00;11;32;26 J.R. Jamison Corey shook a fleece blanket in the air and let it drift to the ground. I placed the food in the middle. We sat together, no one else in sight other than a few robins singing in our budding oak. After we ate, we held hands and took in the sounds of our neighborhood, mowers buzzing in the distance, barking dogs, kids laughing. 00;11;32;29 - 00;11;55;03 J.R. Jamison I opened my notebook to scribble a few words about the moment and saw something I had written last fall after visiting the Mediterranean. ‘Though we may try to turn the tides of time in one direction or another, we must live in the now and learn from its lessons.’ I looked around at our fenced-in yard, our little mid-century ranch with its limestone exterior, at my husband. 00;11;55;06 - 00;12;05;20 J.R. Jamison This life is enough.” This piece was picked up by the Boston-based literary journal Pangyrus, and it will be released in their upcoming edition, out this fall. 00;12;05;23 - 00;12;30;08 Kelsey Timmerman Timmerman: My family? We've taken more hikes. We swam in the river near our house on Earth Day when it was 50 degrees. We got chickens. We grew the best garden we've ever had. Harper and Griffin, my kids, played together more. They've got an entire dance routine they do when “Roses” by SAINt JHN comes on the radio. But even in the happy moments, there's this ever present hum of existential angst. 00;12;30;11 - 00;12;53;01 Kelsey Timmerman How long will this go on? Sometimes that hum is a scream. A few weeks ago, I talked to my friend Bets, who lives in a retirement home. She's in her 90s. We share a birthday. She grew up with my grandfather. My dad worked at our local bank with her when he was in high school. She lost her husband when I was in junior high, and she'd take me out for jumbo shrimp and peppermint ice cream. 00;12;53;03 - 00;13;14;27 Kelsey Timmerman She come to my basketball games. Bets hasn't been allowed to have visitors in months. I called her after my mom told me Bets was dying. Bets answered, crying. Why is it that the closer you are to losing someone, the more you tell them how much you love them? Why wait? I told her how much my kids, wife and I loved her. 00;13;15;00 - 00;13;39;24 Kelsey Timmerman How much so many people loved her. We couldn't understand each other. We just cried. I couldn’t hug her or hold her hand. She is loved by so many people but can't be with those people. She thought she was going to die that day. She didn't. The nurses said that physically there was nothing wrong with her. But sometimes people can just will death. 00;13;39;26 - 00;14;15;15 Kelsey Timmerman I think it was loneliness and fear of dying alone. She's still here and I still can't go see her. There's been so much loss. And at this time of slowing down and reconnecting, that loss hums along. Loss of moments, loss of life and loss of jobs. Here, in our own hometown, the owner of the oldest LGBTQ bar in Indiana has struggled to stay in business while also thinking creatively about still providing a safe space for the community. 00;14;15;18 - 00;14;34;07 Kim Gillenwater Gillenwater: I had to start thinking about what my life might look like without the Mark III Taproom. Bar, as you know, has been a part of my life since I was a child. I grew up here. I was raised by a single gay man who was a regular patron of the Mark III Taproom. It was the first bar he'd ever gone in. On the one night a week 00;14;34;08 - 00;14;49;22 Kim Gillenwater he would go out for karaoke, they would have the phone by the bar, and I could call and ask to speak to my daddy. He would go to the shows and the queens would come to our house afterward. It was just always a part of my life. It was the first bar I ever went in as an adult. 00;14;49;25 - 00;15;08;06 Kim Gillenwater My dad and I were once a month regulars, and we would go out for the drag shows. When the bar came up for sale eight years ago, the girl that was managing the bar at the time got a hold of me. I moved back to Muncie from Indianapolis and bought the bar and never looked back. The Mark... It's my family. 00;15;08;09 - 00;15;33;07 Kim Gillenwater It's my friend. It's been.... It's everything. It's where we celebrate, where we mourn, where we gather. The community gives me a sense of fulfillment and something to fight for and to work for. And it's important as a creative outlet for our community. There's not a stage like this around for our entertainers or our artists. What would we do without that place? 00;15;33;09 - 00;15;51;29 Kim Gillenwater You know, to me, that's how it feels. No one would have that outlet for those babies that are just learning who they were and to wear their first pair of high heels and have nobody look at them in their costume and make them feel uncomfortable. It was a safe space for my dad. I've heard it 100 times from customers. 00;15;52;01 - 00;16;18;11 Kim Gillenwater It's a place to feel safe and accepted. The hardest part of the quarantine has been just that fear and the potential we might lose this magical place. The highlight of all of this for me really has been seeing the community rally around us. Performers banded together to put on a digital benefit show and raised over $4,000 to help keep our doors open. 00;16;18;14 - 00;16;46;22 Kim Gillenwater Drag queens, comedians and burlesque performers submitted filmed individual performances. A local company volunteered to compile the performances to air the show with a live host. That was a beautiful thing to be both supported by my landlord and to be held up by my patrons, who gave me the energy to keep fighting for this magical place that we need to have in our community. 00;16;46;24 - 00;17;10;19 J.R. Jamison Jamison: And the struggle to create a safe space in an online environment is real. When you're LGBTQ, bars are more than just bars. They exist as a sort of home, a place to find others like you, a place to build family when blood relatives have kicked you out or disowned you. And for queer youth, this time has been especially challenging when their support groups have had to move online. 00;17;10;21 - 00;17;35;16 J.R. Jamison If they are in an unsupportive home or not out yet to their families, connecting with their local LGBTQ peers from the comfort of their couches with mom or dad peering over their shoulder is not so easy. Others, like Shelley Berlin in Atlanta, are literally alone during this time of isolation. Shelley lives in an apartment by herself and has sheltered in place for several months. 00;17;35;18 - 00;17;39;26 J.R. Jamison Watching the outside world from her phone, Shelley had this to say. 00;17;39;29 - 00;18;06;20 Shelley Berlin Berlin: Hey J.R., this is Shelley in Atlanta, and I am going to read you part of a poem I wrote the other day as a reaction to the isolation and other horrific conditions of living right now with the pandemic. So here it goes. “Maybe we are all stuck to my living in the cloud of some crazy future dystopic world. 00;18;06;23 - 00;18;34;01 Shelley Berlin And as we sit here staring with glazed eyes into our cyber screens and looking out through the windows of our protective isolation, we can only hope that today’s awful world is already the path of a better future to come. So in the meantime, we keep hearing that for many, many among us the life we previously knew and so quietly, desperately yearn for now - a life of meeting others in person, 00;18;34;03 - 00;18;50;16 Shelley Berlin oh yes, even sharing food, touching hands or hugging bodies - may be relegated to a much missed and now seemingly mythical past, and a who-knows-when-or-how-it-will-ever-come future.” 00;18;50;18 - 00;18;54;24 Shelley Berlin So that’s it. Hope you're doing well. Take care. 00;18;54;26 - 00;19;00;29 Kelsey Timmerman Timmerman: And in all of this pausing and stopping, some people like Sue Godfrey are starting. 00;19;01;01 - 00;19;37;25 Sue Godfrey Godfrey: Hi, this is Sue Godfrey from Muncie, Indiana, and I have the privilege of starting a new job just two weeks before the pandemic shutdown happened. And so I spent the shutdown trying to get to know my coworkers and understand my job, which was in a new- an area outside of my expertise, area. And so, pandemic required a lot of work, a lot of effort, and a lot of meeting people who might only be a few miles away, but who I couldn't see face to face. 00;19;37;26 - 00;20;07;19 Sue Godfrey And so, it's definitely, definitely felt like climbing up a large hill to be able to be affected. I was grateful, so grateful to have a job and a good job during the pandemic when other people were facing layoffs and other things. So, the pandemic caused me to really be grateful but also have to really apply a lot more effort than I normally wear to make connections. 00;20;07;22 - 00;20;08;23 Sue Godfrey Thank you. 00;20;08;26 - 00;20;26;18 Kelsey Timmerman Timmerman: For many of us, the best way we can do something has been to socially distance from one another, which feels like doing nothing. Yet some, like Bryan Preston, a county GIS technician, and Josh Arthur, a local pastor, have been able to pour themselves into their work. 00;20;26;21 - 00;20;58;17 Bryan Preston Preston: I work for the county government, so I've been working from home for the most part. It's been all right. We've been very fortunate that our income hasn't been interrupted, and our main, sort of, source of livelihoods. You know, and I've been able to help my office keep track of some of the emergency management operations or emergency management functions of government. 00;20;58;19 - 00;21;32;23 Bryan Preston We have a website that's been the hub called the Hub of the County Response and stuff. So we've been posting resources and things like that. So that's been kind of nice to be able to work directly at the big giant problem. And there's been a lot of mutual- It's just been great, kind of see, like, mutual aid neighborhood things going on, people delivering food to folks who aren't going to be getting out very often and things like that. 00;21;32;23 - 00;21;51;18 Bryan Preston I know Josh and Josh's church are a big part of some of those workings. So I don't know. Yeah, I've been fortunate, I guess, personally. But it hasn't exactly been a happy time either. 00;21;51;21 - 00;22;01;00 Josh Arthur Arthur: Both my kids, my daughter goes to Central, my son goes to Burris, and they've got their little set up for homework in their rooms. 00;22;01;02 - 00;22;24;01 Josh Arthur They did, they did a really, really good job for the first four, four and a half weeks. Not that they're not doing a good job now, but they had a lot of energy and interest in it in their work, and now they're just done. They're over it. But they have a little bit more to plug away at. You know, church is closed, the Methodist Church, right now. 00;22;24;04 - 00;22;58;07 Josh Arthur They've done a great job, in Indiana, because we're basing that around health and safety. Not necessarily some certain notion of economy. Back to work, that sort of thing. There's been a number of people who have given me and a couple other folks their, their stimulus checks. Not giving them to me, 00;22;58;07 - 00;23;20;13 Josh Arthur I mean, pass them along to me so that I would then pass them along in cash to, to people who need it. I know one person passed quite a bit of money along to family and wrote them a note that said they're so happy that they're in our community, that they're in the community, a part of the community. 00;23;20;15 - 00;23;37;02 Josh Arthur And, I've been able to to pass some money along in that way. So that, that's been really cool. But, I have noticed that it's the, 00;23;37;04 - 00;24;06;14 Josh Arthur the folks that are already have a very difficult life. Like, around the corner from me, a couple people started living in a tent. Down the street, there are two cars where people are living, in their car. And I've lived, I've lived here for [thinking] 18 years in this house. And we've had rough times, 00;24;06;16 - 00;24;09;20 Josh Arthur but not like that. 00;24;09;23 - 00;24;41;29 Josh Arthur Yeah, that's really tough. So I see I see both: people with resources that see the stimulus check is not a huge impact to them, but knowing how much it would impact others doing great things and passing it out. And then I see really troubling, troubling things like people sleeping in tents and cars. [Reflective electric piano music] 00;24;42;02 - 00;25;01;16 Kelsey Timmerman Timmerman: Matthew Fichter and Michael Broughton describe themselves as “two guys in their 20s volunteering with Franciscan Mission Service in Washington, DC... during a pandemic.” Matthew and Michael shared their story with Kate Keely. They work at a food pantry in the center of DC. J.R. shares their story. 00;25;01;18 - 00;25;23;25 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Although we are not able to run our normal programing, the two of us have continued going in Monday through Friday every week to help with food distribution. If only we could record people's reactions when they realize that we're giving out free food. One woman came over and was completely shocked. She kept thanking us and took pictures, promising to share what we were doing with her friends. 00;25;23;27 - 00;25;43;21 J.R. Jamison In fact, after getting her food, she walked down the street and told the first person she saw. Another woman in her 50s has been coming to the FMC food pantry for a while and has continued coming during the pandemic to receive food. Every time she comes, she gets so excited and says, “What person over 50 do you know who could do this?” 00;25;43;23 - 00;25;49;20 J.R. Jamison and then she does a cartwheel! These moments make the work we do much more meaningful. 00;25;49;22 - 00;25;57;21 Kelsey Timmerman Timmerman: Matthew and Michael miss family and friends and the old ways but see themselves in a unique position in their lives to help. 00;25;57;23 - 00;26;16;14 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Right now, we are living in a time when most people are in need, so we want to help more than ever. Both of us being young and healthy with no underlying health conditions, we realize that we are in a position to help with less risk. So while a lot of the world is spending time in isolation, we have been blessed to go to work and help others. 00;26;16;16 - 00;26;40;19 J.R. Jamison We have heard the voices of those struggling and have received immense appreciation for some very small acts. If there's something we've learned during all of this, it's that no one should feel shame right now. The other day we heard someone saying that they've never needed food before in their whole life. They almost seem embarrassed about it. Everyone in the world is experiencing some type of struggle right now. 00;26;40;22 - 00;27;07;03 J.R. Jamison A lot of people cannot control the circumstances they are in. In some ways, it's kind of comforting to know that everyone is going through this. We're all in this together, even though we're separated. Before this, there was a lot of focus put on our differences, and sometimes it seemed like there were no similarities to be found. But maybe by sharing this similar experience, we will be able to meet others with more compassion. 00;27;07;05 - 00;27;26;02 J.R. Jamison If everyone treated others with the same intentionality and care that they are during the pandemic, the world would be a better place. [Theme music] 00;27;26;04 - 00;28;02;19 J.R. Jamison Jamison: We want to thank all the listeners who contributed to today's episode. Voicemails from Garima Verma in Los Angeles, California; Serene in Phoenix, Arizona; Shelley Berlin in Atlanta, Georgia; and Stephanie Fisher and Sue Godfrey from Muncie, Indiana. Megan Hamilton from Kingston, Jamaica, was played by Amy Leffingwell, with story by Meghan Meros and Megan Hamilton; Natasha Martz from Muncie, Indiana, was played by Kim Gillenwater, with story by Tiffany Erk and Natasha Martz; and Matthew Fictor and Michael Broughton from Washington, D.C. were played by J.R. Jamison, with story by Kate Keely, Matthew Victor and Michael Broughton. 00;28;02;21 - 00;28;08;28 J.R. Jamison Josh Arthur and Brian Preston’s stories were clipped from an interview on The Good People podcast with Kelsey Timmerman. 00;28;09;00 - 00;28;36;18 Kelsey Timmerman Timmerman: To listen to past episodes of this program, visit IndianaPublicRadio.org/TheFacingProject. From there, you can subscribe to the podcast where you'll get episodes of the Facing Project delivered to your device each month. Listeners can contribute stories or volunteer to share the stories of others with the Facing Project that may appear on the show. More information at FacingProject.com/InspireAction, and to continue the conversation about this episode, find us on Facebook at The Facing Project. 00;28;36;21 - 00;28;56;02 J.R. Jamison Jamison: The Facing Project is recorded at Indiana Public Radio at Ball State University in beautiful Muncie, Indiana, and was produced by Sean Ashcraft. The show is distributed nationally through PRX. We are your host, Kelsey Timmerman and J.R. Jamison, and until next time, we wish you the courage to share your own story and the empathy to listen to others. [Theme music]