Items

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  2020-06-01

  Jekyll Island as a New Family of Four

  The attached experience is more broad than what I alone felt comfortable with travel-wise. It is about the need to get out of the house and have some return to normalcy with a newborn and a toddler at home, while also trying to keep them as safe as possible. There were so many unknowns about how COVID worked, and so much certainty about the lack of immune systems in newborn babies. This travel story is significant because it reminds me of a season of life that was so incredibly challenging to navigate for a multitude of reasons, which only made little wins like afternoons on the beach so much sweeter.
• 2020-05-23

  An Anxious Stroll Through the Japanese Tea Garden

  Although I have taken longer trips to New Orleans, Costa Rica, Boston, and Mexico since COVID-19 travel restrictions were lifted, I consider the local afternoon stroll through the local San Antonio Japanese Tea Garden to be the first real COVID trip. It was May of 2020 , and, at that point, the most of outside I had experienced since late March of 2020 was sitting in my backyard or making hasty trips to the grocery store. With the weather so gorgeous and with doctors and politicians saying it was safe to go to parks so long as we kept our distance from other people, my boyfriend and I decided to venture to the Japanese Tea Garden for a stroll and a picnic in the park, just outside of the gardens. Unbeknownst to us, this was a very popular idea; we arrived to the gardens to find it swarmed with other people hoping to get some fresh air. The Japanese Tea Garden can be tricky to navigate with an abundance of people around; it consists of narrow pathways, bridges, and stone staircases surrounding large ponds, streams, and waterfalls, so we found ourselves having to squeeze past people, only inches away from them. What was worse, we neglected to bring masks, thinking we'd be far away from park-goers. Not having my mask made me feel incredibly anxious. We cut our walk through the gardens short and continued with our picnic in the larger park, safely away from the crowds. I felt like I could finally breathe safely. When I got home, I was very nervous that I may have come in contact with someone with COVID. This feeling persisted for a while. At the time, it was still very difficult to get tested for COVID if you were not a healthcare professional due to the scarcity of tests and testing locations in San Antonio. Additionally, our mayor, county judge, and local health advisors warned of a spike in COVID-19 cases which did not ease my tension. I essentially waited on pins and needles as I monitored myself for symptoms. While I didn't catch COVID (the first time I caught COVID was in November 2022 actually), I didn't make another venture like that for another three months due in part to the anxiety I experienced that day.
• 
  2020-05-27

  Osvaldo Perez, Jr. Oral History, 2020/05/27

• 
  2021-11-03

  My Annual Newsletter to Friends 2020 and 2021

  At the holidays I send a newsletter about whatever I have been thinking that year. This year and last the newsletters were about the epidemic. I was looking for examples in history to help us see today how we could cope with the disruption of our lives.
• 
  2020-10-28

  First Day Free

  HIST30060. The first day out of the second lockdown in Melbourne, Australia, I got invited to a picnic with friends from high school. We went to a park that was local to everyone and no one at the same time, having been going there for parties and gatherings for the past six years. This photo is of a café local to Yarraville in the western suburbs of Melbourne, Alfa Bakehouse backs right out onto the train station where I get off and the only reason I went passed it was to check if a froyo place I loved had yet reopened with other retail and hospitality businesses. To see this many people together was both exhilarating and uncomfortable at the same time. Knowing that freedom was finally in our grasp but the overlying fear that we could easily return to lockdown if we are not careful. I made my way to my friends shortly after this picture was taken and talked and ate for hours, even getting a sun burn, and it reminded me how all that time in lockdown was worth it if people can see one another again and enjoy their time together.
• 
  2020-07-01

  COVID-19 pandemic unmasks anger on Parliament Hill, picnickers elsewhere

  "As Dominion carillonneur Andrea McCrady played her 30-minute afternoon Canada Day concert on the Peace Tower’s 53 bells, pounding out The Log Driver’s Waltz, a megaphoned preacher (of sorts) was standing on the ledge of the Centennial flame urging listeners to 'repent and be converted,' while refusing to budge for tourists hoping for a clear selfie shot ('I was here first,' he rebuffed one visitor in Old Testament style). At the same time, an array of organized speakers addressed the crowd, warning of people like George Soros and 'so-called medical experts.' "'Our plan,” said one, 'is to infect as many people as we can with the truth.'" A news article describing events in Ottawa on Canada Day. Usually the streets, and particularly Parliament Hill are packed with thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of revelers as the Capital city is the centrepiece for celebrations across the country. The article discusses people going for walks and picnics but also protesting a variety of issues on The Hill; everything from Black Lives Matter to "5G Kills" or stating that wearing a mask is a violation of rights.
• 
  2020-03-10

  Quarantine Picnic

  I was given an assignment for a class which included documenting a regular picnic. However, as the pandemic unexpectedly grew I found myself documenting what a picnic could look like under quarantine.