Items

• 
  2021-07-20

  Disneyland 2021

  In July of 2021 my husband and I took our first trip since the beginning of COVID, to celebrate my graduation from the credentialing program, my birthday, and our honeymoon since we never got the opportunity before (we got married in January of 2020). We decided to take a trip to Disneyland for a few days, stay in the Grand Californian, and get park passes for three days because it was local and affordable, with the discounts they were offering at the time. At that point, there were no restrictions in place in public spaces. It was exciting to get out again but also a bit nerve-wracking as COVID was still an active concern of mine, we mitigated risks by wearing masks whenever we were indoors but decided to forgo them outdoors in the hundred degrees that California brings in July. It was a fun few days getting away from the stresses of daily life, though I wouldn't say that the stress and anxiety it gave me was worth it.
• 
  2022-02-12

  Honeymoon in Scotland

  After my husband and I were married in May of 2021 in our backyard with twenty vaccinated friends and family members, we planned to visit Scotland for our honeymoon as soon as possible. I can’t remember what the restrictions were like at that time, but having the vaccine made us both feel much more confident venturing out of our communities, which for me meant my job at a local coffee shop in Nashville and just a few, very close friends who were vaccinated and adhered to the recommended social distancing and masking practices. On our wedding night, we stayed at a hotel in downtown Nashville, wearing masks in all the common areas, and the next morning we had breakfast and returned home to our families who were in town for a couple more days. I remember checking websites frequently to determine when we would be able to travel to Scotland. We refreshed the CDC, U.S., and U.K. government sites daily to see if our honeymoon could happen yet. At some point the websites revealed that travel was allowed again with the stipulations that first, we show our vaccination cards at the British Airways desk with our passports and tickets and second, we had to present negative test results before returning to the States. While it still felt like these rules could change any minute depending on case counts in either country, we took the risk and bought our tickets. The time came for the trip, February, 2022, and getting out of the country went off without a hitch. The U.S. did not have an official app for storing vaccination card info like some other countries, but we found a third-party app called VeriFLY that was collaborating with British Airways to make confirming our vaccination status a tad bit quicker when checking into our flight at the airport. VeriFLY did as promised; our vaccinated statuses were confirmed in short order and we were on our way! Now, I mentioned that we had to have a negative COVID test to return home. That reality colored our choices throughout that entire two-week trip. Sometimes that looked like attempting to take public transit at off-peak hours to avoid crowds. Londoners were still largely masked, but if I remember correctly it was no longer a requirement there, which certainly gave us some anxiety. We weren’t necessarily worried about COVID being really harmful to our bodies, though we miraculously hadn’t caught it in two years so we weren’t sure how it would affect us. Our anxieties were instead tied to being eligible to return home. I had been a barista since graduating from college in 2016 and my husband was a bartender and musician, so we were afraid of the extra financial burden of having to find a place to stay last minute, booking new flights, and buying food if we had to stay out of the country for another week or two. In the pictures, even when we are outside, we frequently forget to remove our masks for the camera. There is a wonderful picture of my husband and I in front of Edinburgh Castle that would look so much better in a frame if our noses and mouths were visible. In contrast, there were other moments, like in a cozy speakeasy in New Town, Edinburgh, where the fears died down for a minute and we slipped the masks into our crossbody tourist bags. When a bookshelf opens up in the back of a fake barbershop that takes you down into a warmly lit basement with warm, low lighting and way more seating than you thought was possible, inhibitions fade and wonder takes over. Well, at least for my bartender husband and I. That was the manner in which we traveled from London to Edinburgh, Bath, and back: masking when we couldn’t social distance except for a rare few cocktail bars, travelling between morning and evening rushes, and sanitizing our hands as frequently as possible. Besides jetlag in the beginning, we both felt healthy and well for the duration of the trip, but we had three more hurdles to overcome. The last few days of our trip were spent in a neighborhood of London called Hackney-Wick where our AirBnB was a cozy, modern tiny home with an alley entrance. It was our favorite place we stayed the entire vacation. We arrived there very exhausted from our travels and eager for a few days of relaxation before the long trip home. Two days before our departure, however, Russia invaded Ukraine. We knew we were well out of harm’s way in England, but our relative proximity compared to our home in Tennessee made the exploding conflict feel much more imminent, especially when Boris Johnson made some bold comments about Vladimir Putin that week when nobody knew if Russia was prepared to make a larger attack. The last few nights in the AirBnB were a little less restful after that as we watched BBC around the clock for both COVID news and updates on the war. There was one more stipulation about our negative test results - they had to be performed within 24 hours of boarding the plane. In a generally unfamiliar and exceedingly sprawling city with no knowledge of what pharmacies were more reputable than others and regardless desperate to get tested in that short window, we landed upon a small clinic that we would have to take the London Underground to and finally walk a couple blocks. I remember we showed up an hour before our appointments just to be on the safe side and the clinic was pretty quiet, so we stood around on the sidewalk still nervously checking BBC for anything new that could impact our travel. The tests were performed and we were assured there would be results in our inboxes sufficiently before takeoff, so we prayed that would be the case.
• 
  2021-04-28

  Til' Death Do Us Part

  I've included a text story and video of the first time I traveled since the the massive Covid lockdown in March 2020. This text and video are important to me because not only was it a brave thing to do after being confined for so long, but it was also a defining moment in my adult life. I am now married as a result of that trip.
• 
  2021-09-17

  Sabrina Sakata and Emily Fink Oral History, 2021/09/17

  This audio interview shows how my friend, Emily Fink, and I have experienced the pandemic and how it has affected us.
• 
  2021-03-19

  Wait, Do I Remember How to Drive?

  As I was making my list of things to have for going back to work in person for the first time in over a year, I asked myself “wait, do I remember how to drive?” On March 16, 2020, I drove to my classroom under the impression we would be working from school without our students until school reopened for the kids after spring break. By the time I got there, everything had changed. We had a quick full staff meeting telling us to take everything we need home, check our email later, and that everyone was to stay home indefinitely. I have not worked from my school site since. So, I drove home, showered, and put my keys where I always do. They remained there for 368 days. Tonight at dusk, realizing that my commute is coming back in two days, I grabbed my keys and made my husband ride shotgun. I was actually really nervous, because what if you can forget to drive at age 40? I also realized I did not drive a single day of my 39th year, which is sort of a cool statistic. I timed my drive for dusk because I teach zero period, and due to daylight savings it will still be dark when I begin my commute Monday morning. I am extremely happy to report that driving is a skill that sticks with you - especially important in Southern CA, where we drive EVERYWHERE. I’m still a little anxious for Monday morning. Not only will I be back to work in person for the first time, but my commute will be the first time I have been completely alone in over a year. Sure, when I teach remotely, I am upstairs alone in the room, but everyone else is home doing similar things in other rooms. When I run on the treadmill, though I have my headphones in, people mill in and out. I have not been totally alone this entire quarantine. I imagine my 30 minute commute will be either completely anxiety inducing or end up being the most relaxing and best part of my day! *Disclaimer: I am NOT flipping off the camera, that’s my pinky, I’m throwing a Shaka.
• 
  2020-04-20

  During the War... or A Gift of Time

  When the going gets tough, the tough get going... I think I understand the meaning of hunkering down and getting to work now. I have always loved creating and now more than ever am embracing its healing powers. During these last six weeks I feel like we have been dodging bullets. We have become hunter gatherers looking for supplies to combat the germs. We are obsessed with stocking our little fort with enough of everything (art supplies), to survive the war. Through it all, my husband and I have also been obsessed with creating. Me in my home studio, learning how to collage, make books, creating paintings, greeting cards and finding new techniques to immerse (distract) my self. My husband in his shop behind our house making cigar box guitars! I read a quote from J.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, that sums up, like most things, will be our attitudes that will help us accept this interruption of life..... ”I wish it had not happened in my time”. said Frodo. ”So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what we will do with the time that is given to us.” Since the start of the pandemic I have created over 65 paintings. I need to create in order to find sanity and feel productive and not scared and anxious. The photograph is a painting I created using Rohrshadk blots as inspiration.
• 2021-01-20T12:22:00

  Too close to home

  I was in class on a Wednesday and my phone kept going off like crazy.it was being so distracting so I just decided to check why it was going off and then turn it off for good. I picked up my phone and there were thousands of text messages saying "you need to get tested", "go get a test". At this point I was completely confused, so I asked them what was going on and they said that one of my friends had tested positive for Covid and that I need to get tested because I'm hanged out with them on that Monday. Once I read this I completely froze, I didn't know how to handle this information. I was scared for my life, and for hers, I wasn't sure if she'd be okay. If I was going to be okay. I wasn't paying attention to class at all and everything my teacher was saying was going completely over my head. School got out and all I could think about was how am I going to tell my parents that I came home possibly with Covid. The thought of just having to tell them the news and how they could possibly react to it scared the life out of me. I didn't think that I could tell them because I was afraid they would be too disappointed in me and to scared. I finally got the courage to tell my mom and she surprisingly took the news well. My parents weren't happy but they definitely weren't angry so that's good. They told me that I had to wash everything that I have touched in the past 2 days. I was so glad to tell my parents because holding that secret in was tearing me apart inside. I checked in with me friend everyday to make sure she was ok. It's scary to see it on the news and to hear it on the radio but once it hits too close to home, it can really change your entire life.
• 
  2021-01-04

  1 Person, 1 Brain Full Of Negativity

  The pandemic made my thoughts turn into this negativity and the thought of being alone scattered through my mind. It really felt like my anxiety and the pandemic worked together in a way to make me feel horrible and scared.
• 
  2020-08-17

  Divide in social interaction

  This photo speaks a lot about the current pandemic that is rapidly spreading among the world. I chose this photo because it represents how much we have taken seeing our loved ones and friends everyday to totally not seeing them at all in an instant. This photo I personally can relate to in a way. While I have been fortunate to not have any family members contract this virus, I still was not able to see any family or friends for months! This photo speaks for the pandemic because so many people are stuck in hospitals and they aren’t allowed any visitors. I feel we have all taken life a little bit for granted before this pandemic came along, but I also feel we have all learned more about our selves, lessons about life, and to always cherish time with family and friends because you never know what could happen.
• 
  2020-08-01

  The Importance of Understanding

  My experience with Covid-19 and quarantine has consisted of me being anxious and confused most days. It has been a stressful, heavy burden on my mind due to the many ongoing, worldly events. This is especially true because I am an American citizen. To me, this post speaks very heavily about the message that needs to be heard by all Americans. Many people are not taking Covid-19 seriously enough and are only thinking about how Covid could affect their health and not others’ wellbeing. This screenshotted post is important to me because I believe the reason America is having such a hard time fighting this virus is because people are only thinking about themselves and how the virus affects them versus how it could affect others with different immune responses to Covid.