I just got back to Brooklyn after a poorly timed trip and resulting quarantine elsewhere. I’m a tech at a Manhattan hospital and am gearing to go back. I haven’t been home in the month, so the culture shock is huge. The sirens and the masks are new. In a few days I will have to distance from my partner when I go back to work. I’m dreading that, and I’m terrified, but aren’t we all? Better to be terrified on the move, I guess. Better to be terrified and helpful.
Hi, I’m calling from Brooklyn, New York. I’m lucky enough in this time of social distancing to be able to work from home. So I’m able to work remotely and lucky enough to have my fiance and my pup to keep me company throughout the day.
So, my life has changed a lot, in the sense of just, you know, not taking the subway to work, not being able to see friends, coworkers, to go out and celebrate. But I also do feel like it’s changed in ways that obviously are disappointing, but are, you know, a far cry from ways that it’s changing for people experiencing just significant loss or who are in much tougher situations than I’m in. So, I also feel very lucky in this time.
I think one thing that stands out to me significantly is just, you know, walking, walking around outside in the neighborhood. I feel like it’s normally such a joyful experience, especially in spring time now that’s happening in Brooklyn. But, I feel like there’s just so much fear on people’s faces. Especially as you know, we’re wearing masks to keep each other safe.
It’s just, walking just isn’t the same experience it was pre Covid-19. and it feels like something that needs to be done kind of quickly and really intentionally, rather than just being able to wander and look at beautiful Brooklyn brownstones, or, you know, look at Brooklyn Bridge Park, or just see people out and enjoying the city life, which is one of the, you know, things that draws me to Brooklyn.
So, one exciting thing, hopefully that I’m excited for after quarantine is up, is getting married whenever that happens. Hopefully it can happen still in a large wedding way, but maybe it just happens as a smaller ceremony, just with our parents. But that’s something I’m looking forward to. And then also just kind of seeing friends, again, seeing people, and just being out and feeling the energy of the city, which is now so empty.
I’m very thankful for Zoom calls and game nights, virtually with friends, but really just looking forward to being in the same room with people again. On a different note, I’m also hopeful that this means that the nation really cares for the workers that we’re regarding as essential during this time and provides grocery store workers and delivery workers with health insurance, with public benefits, with a social safety net that we normally just afford to higher paid workers and what we call higher skilled workers. So I’m hopeful that, you know, out of this great tragedy, we will really see a coming together.
I think we’ve really seen that a lot in New York. I think there really is a strong feeling of unity and I hope on a national level we can feel that and we can translate that into something that really has tangible results out of this crisis for a lot of the workers that we don’t necessarily support in the way that we should. And we really see healthcare as an essential human right. And the living wage as an essential human right.
So, thank you for this project and I look forward to hearing more stories.