Items

• 
  2020-03-18

  Comfort in the Kitchen

  I have always loved cooking, and from a very young age, I spent time working through tough moments in my life with the comfort of flour, sugar and butter in the kitchen. When the pandemic hit in March 2020, I was a student teacher at a middle school in California, and finishing up my final quarter of my masters in education. I loved my job, my students, and my colleagues and I was heartbroken when I had to say my final in-person goodbyes to my first set of students. Just as I had in the past, I took my confusion, worry and stress to the kitchen, and began to procross the difficult road that I knew was ahead of me. One of the first recipes that I baked in quarantine was coffee cake because I had been talking to a friend, who had never tried it before. As I listened to my mixer beat the sugar and butter together, I could feel a sense of calm wash over me. Baking, even though it’s science, has an interesting paradox of being confusing and straightforward at the same time. I typically understand how the ingredients work together, and the process of following each step of a recipe brings a sense of peace. As I incorporated the eggs, vanilla, cinnamon, dash of allspice, salt into my mixture, the daunting nature of a global pandemic hit me. How was I going to adapt to online learning? How was I going to get a job in the fall as a teacher? How was I going to handle the next unknown amount of time? The smells wafting from my mixer comforted me, and even though the smell was confusing to my nose, I knew that the end product would be delicious and bring warmth to those who tried it. As I poured the mix into a pan and set it in the oven, a new sense of ambition began to bubble in me. If I could bake this wonderful cake, how hard could it be to face a pandemic? As I said this to myself, I knew how ridiculous it sounded, but I knew at this point I had to fake it until I made it. So as my coffee cake was baking I sat down and began to plan the next few weeks of virtual learning and by the time the timer went off, I had a rough plan of what I wanted to do. Taking the cake out of the oven and sampling it for the first time was glorious. I had worked hard to produce this thing, and I knew I could do the same with any task put in front of me during this pandemic. As I delivered baked goods to my friends doorsteps, while maintaining 6 feet of distance, and wearing a face mask, I hoped that a taste of coffee cake would bring the same comfort to my friends as it did to me in the tough early days of the pandemic.
• 2020-10-26

  Leaving the House After 4 Months of Quarantine

  Leaving the house in this climate has been an event and a half each and every time it happens. You really begin to take it for granted- all those months in quarantine and not seeing the outside world really does do numbers on your perception of what is real and fake, as odd as it sounds. Everything changes when you’re deprived of something for so long. I remember the first time I left the house. It was my family and me- we were leaving to go to my Grandma’s house, I think, and this was four to five months into quarantine. Prior to this, I haven’t been past my backyard for the past half a year. I’ve never been a big outdoorsy person, so there was no reason to really leave my house the entire time. So my family drags us all out to go and see my Grandma, who has been doing somewhat meh recently. We get ready, take showers, the whole shebang. I remember seeing trees again. You’d think that oh, seeing trees is completely normal, it’s something we see on a daily basis. But the difference between seeing them through my bedroom window and in real life was honestly kind of shell shocking. I spent the entire car ride just watching outside the window and absorbing the world back in. It seemed so much greener than before’ I’m not sure if that’s because no one has been outside and that helps the environment, or if it’s just been so long since I saw plants that it almost seemed unreal. The smell, too, oh my god. I forgot how the outdoors kind of vaguely smells like plants all the time depending on where you are, but the area near my grandma's house smelled exactly like flowering trees. My family were all laughing seeing my reactions because it seemed so odd, but honestly, it genuinely shocked me. You don’t realize how much you take for granted until it’s ripped away from you, after all. They’ve been able to leave the house, but I haven’t, so of course I’m going to be super confused and astounded. But yes. Was a weird experience. Trees really did look greener back then and the world seemed so new- it’s weird to think about since it’s not something people think about often or re-evaluate. After all, it’s something that’s meant to melt into the background, since people have more to focus on than trees passing by on the highway or the smell they make.
• 2020-10-26

  Sports? What's That?

  March 13th was the day that everything changed. My social life, school, activities and especially sports, were gone. I remember the last day that we were in school before getting the email that schools were going to be shut down for what we thought was only going to be two weeks, I had open gym for volleyball. I remember me and my team being super excited because we haven't played in moths and we were all excited to get back on the court and to all be together. My team and I all meet after school to get ready for practice and as we were walking to the gym in all of geer that took 20 minutes to put on, out team captain told us that our open gym was canceled. Everyone was in shock and mad at the same time because we all wanted to get back on the court, plus we had already changed and that took a lot of work! After we all said our goodbyes not knowing how long it would be until we saw each other again and even how long until we were able to get back on the court. Finally after months of being away from volleyball and my team we started conditioning. It was so fun to each my team and to get to workout together. We are not sure when we will get back on the court but at least we have conditioning which is a huge step forward.
• 
  2020-08-13

  The Reality of Traveling During COVID-19

  ere silent and it seemed as if I was living in a ghost town. I exited the car with family who all had their masks on. I could smell the cloth of my mask and see the open building that I always remembered being packed. I remembered the people scattering around trying to make it to their flight on time. But what I was experiencing wasn’t even close to that. The building seemed empty. When I did encounter someone they would look at me and make sure to maintain their distance. As I continued my journey to my boarding gate the restaurants didn’t seem as exciting as they normally did. My mask clogged my sense of smell, as I couldn’t smell the food like I normally could. Eventually I made it to my plane. The plane was filled will barely any people. My family occupied one row and the rest of the people were far from our seats. The entire 3 hour journey to Louisiana was filled with hard breathing with my mask, admiring the scenery and the empty plane. Smelling the humid air and my disappointment that I wasn’t getting my free drink. The entire experience was different and proved to me how Covid-19 is considered a sensory revolution.
• 2020-10-26

  Sensory Memory Changes During COVID-19

  The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly affected our sensory memory. All of the 5 senses have experienced a lot of change during this pandemic. Personally, I found the streets and stores to not be as packed as they used to be. When I go outside, I see most people are wearing masks and staying 6 feet apart from each other. During the pandemic, it has been a lot quieter as well. There is barely any traffic on the freeways or even the sound of cheering from football games and gatherings. The sense of taste also experienced a lot of change. Due to social distancing regulation, restaurants and cafes have been closed or only allowed takeout. Personally, it's been almost 8 months since the last time I went out to eat at a restaurant or get coffee pastries at a local cafe. For smell, California was struggling with fires so for a few weeks and all I was able to smell was smoke. Finally, the sense of touch has been experiencing change. I'm not able to see my relatives and friends. Since I can’t really go outside or visit people during these times, I haven't experienced a hug, high-five, or shaking someone’s hands in a while.
• 2020-10-26

  2020

  August 17, 2020 the first day of school. Years in the past for school i have jumped up excited to meet my new teachers, see my classmates and start sports. This year i felt something different, I was excited I was scared to start this virtual learning journey where my home becomes my school, my bedroom becomes my classroom and my family becomes my classmates. This life we are living is one that will be told for decades to come, so let’s tell it the right way. The very first mandate was to wear a mask, this was to keep others safe of your germs. Wearing a mask limited interaction with people because it was hard to hear them or know how they are feeling because we can’t see facial expressions. The second mandate was a country wide quarantine, two weeks in your home to clean your body of the Coronavirus. Many people didn’t believe or did not want to follow this mandate so they didn’t, so two weeks turned into four months. Not being able to see your friends, family, co-workers, and just the general public was really strange and was hard to get used too, however now as things start to open it is strange and hard to get used to this as well.
• 
  2020-10-24

  Sensory History & COVID-19, Lesson Plan

  This curriculum was designed for a junior level US History course. First, students learn about sensory history through the study of a historical event. Then, students are asked to submit a COVID-19 sensory memory to the JOTPY archive. The curriculum and student work are being submitted to the JOTPY archive to provide insight into the sensory history of COVID-19. They also give insight into the vast array of perspectives teenagers living during the COVID-19 pandemic have based on the diversity of their current life experiences.
• 
  2020-10-18

  Smoke During Covid-19

  For me much of the pandemic has been an abstract concept. Our senses cannot really alert us to the presence of Covi-19. The exception I suppose would be the presence of masks but that is not a constant reminder. I have only worn masks when going in and out of stores. My sensory memory of the pandemic is four months of the smell of smoke. I noticed the smoke yesterday and again this morning. Since the California wildfires started in June there has been an almost constant smell of smoke in the air. We also get large grass fires in this area as well so there is usually some type of fire burning. I believe that the sense of smell can at times be a much more powerful sense than sight. I will remember the smoke long after Covid-19 is gone.
• 
  2020-10-16T23:30

  Friday night out during Covid

  I am a server at a Chili's in Tempe Arizona. Covid has changed many things about my day to day life and work. The restaurant scene has changed a lot as well. This recording was from the restaurant on a Friday night about 30 minutes before closing at midnight. Pre-Covid I would be cleaning tables and finishing up some cleaning to get out of there but as you can hear, the place was still buzzing. Since Covid began numerous bars and late night establishments have closed and thus Chili's a relatively safe chain restaurant that was able to withstand closure has taken some of that business in Tempe. Peoples normal dining cycles seem to have also changed a bit and becoming more random. Normal lunch and dinner times matter less when everyone is working from home and night outs with friends are more rare.
• 
  2020-10-15

  Surviving the Apocalypse

  I live in nice town in the Eastbay about twenty miles from San Francisco. Its population is around 70,000 and its downtown is home to dozens of restaurants and high-end retail stores. On the afternoon of March 16th of this year Governor Gavin Newsom ordered all non-essential businesses shutdown and locked down. The next morning I took a walk downtown only to find that the normally busy streets were deserted. It felt like I was one of the last people on earth. The normal sounds were all but gone and it sort of felt like an episode from the Walking Dead. For the next couple weeks and eventually months I walked downtown every day and sat on a bench reading a book. The business that I used to work at was deemed non-essential, so I was initially furloughed. Over time people gradually began venturing out and some of the familiar sounds returned such as people talking and the noise of traffic. Two months into the pandemic almost all of the businesses in my town were still closed. On my daily walk one afternoon I noticed something odd. As I looked up from my book, I noticed a large convoy made up of dozens of vehicles racing into the retail shopping district. Once there the drivers parked their cars and people began pouring out. Within a few minutes there were a couple hundred people breaking into and looting the closed retail stores. The towns relatively small police force was caught by surprise and within a half an hour almost every high-end retail store in town was cleaned out. There was no protest involved it was simply a coordinated raid. The next day on my walk downtown I noticed that every business in town had been boarded up and all the people were gone again. A little later in the pandemic the California wildfires began. I continued my walks with the constant smell of smoke in the air. On many days the sun was completely blocked out by smoke. The massive fires created a weird atmospheric condition. The smoke hovered at about 5,000-10,000 feet and it was as dark as night on some days but there was relatively little smoke at ground level. Now about seven months after the lockdowns began things are returning to normal and I still walk downtown every day.
• 
  2020-10-15

  Patients without voices

  COVID-19 has changed many aspects of our lives, one that I would have never thought was using a mask in public. I began my Air Force career as a surgical technician in 1992. Wearing a mask was part of the job. The mask was worn to protect the patients, we did not want to breathe germs onto the surgical site. It had secondary a secondary purpose as well, to protect us from the patients' bodily fluids. Though talking was allowed in the surgical suite it was limited and the distance between the team was usually less than a few feet. We also learned to use hand gestures to communicate with each other, for instance if a surgeon was suturing and wanted us to cut the suture she or she would use the index and middle fingers to mimic scissors cutting. In 2008 found myself in Iraq, this time I had to shield my face not because I was in an operating room but because the sand storms. The mask allowed me to venture outside the facilities for limited periods of time during the storms. As medical professionals, depending on where you work, the use of masks is not something new. What is new is that now the patients are wearing masks. At first glance this might not seem like much of an issue, occasionally patients would have to wear masks as well. As most of us have noticed, communication has been hampered with the use of masks. It is harder to here, muffled voices, it is harder to differentiate between similar words/sounds, and we cannot use the use or other senses to assist us such as sight. In addition patients whom might have difficulty breathing have a harder times breathing by wearing masks. It is imperative the communication between the patient and a clinician is flawless. If hearing is impaired or words are mistaken the consequences can be deadly. COVID-19 Has caused us to slow things down even further, we must double check and sometimes triple check to make sure we collected the correct information. We need to listen to what they are saying without the aid of their faces. Deaths caused by medical errors are a major concern for all, now add a barrier that is foreign to most patients and those errors can become even more common. Now I find myself in Biloxi, MS and in some strange way everyone became an OR Tech, we are all wearing masks. On a serious note, may we all learn and grow from this experience and not let it go to waste.
• 
  2020-10-14

  Time to Cook

  Before the onset of the corona virus and the lockdowns and quarantines that followed, I had a pretty routine schedule. I would wake up around 7:15am and I would not get home again until about 7pm. Normally I would make something easy for dinner that I could have at least another night in a row. Usually it would just be a meat and a vegetable with fruit for dessert. I would cook the vegetables and the meat in the same pan to save myself the clean up time later as I would normally go to bed around 11pm and not want to waste any more time cleaning than I had to. I also would not stray too far from recipes that I was comfortable with. I would be very upset if I made something terrible after a ling day at work. However now with quarantine, I work from home and my schedule has become quite different. I am able to sleep in a little longer as I do not have to commute anymore. As soon as I am finished work I am already home and can start making dinner as soon as I want. This extra time gives me more flexibility to try new recipes and take chances on foods I may not have tried otherwise. On my lunch break I am able to go food shopping so I am not limited by what ingredients I have on hand. For this meal that I made and posted pictures of, it would be a rare treat to get this on a worknight before COVID-19. This meal took longer, used more ingredients, involved more pots and pans, and took longer to clean up than any pre-quarantine meal that I would make. Yet the payoff was absolutely delicious. To have pan seared scallops in a creamy garlic sauce over wheat spaghetti on a random Wednesday night is one of the few bright sides of quarantine. I am looking forward to the day when all restrictions are lifted and life returns to normal but I will surely miss all the extra time I have to try new recipes, to have my kitchen filled with new and unique scents and for my taste buds to experience diverse ranges of cuisines that my normal schedule precluded.
• 
  2020-10-15

  Sounds of Chronic Lung Disease

  In January 2015, my mom got very sick and was in the hospital for 2 weeks, 3 days of which were in the ICU with a breathing tube. She was diagnosed with severe COPD and has required at-home oxygen ever since. Her disease has now progressed to end-stage. Last year, she received a non-invasive ventilator to use at night. A lot of people with COVID-19 have breathing problems even after recovering from the disease. Some of these people might have permanent lung damage and require at-home oxygen therapy and possibly non-invasive ventilators. The first recording is the sound of an oxygen machine. The second is the sound of the ventilator. At the end of the ventilator recording is the alarm that sounds when it does not detect any breathing. These sounds demonstrate the impact of COVID-19 has on its victims and the legacy it will leave behind long after the disease itself has gone away.
• 2020-10-14

  An Empty Theater

  Every year for the last 20 years, our community has planned, practiced, and performed a tribute to Broadway in a production called "Best of Broadway". We have a cast of over 100 local community members that sing and dance to 20 or so different Broadway songs. Our rehearsals are in an old Veterans Memorial building that comes to life during January to March with our songs, lights, and energy. The chants in the hall echos against the old walls, the stomping of feet on the stage threatens those downstairs, and the beat of the music pumps your heart. When one is in the hall, they are guaranteed to hear laughter in the back corner, a director shouting at the sound guy, and a piercing squeal in the speakers. The sounds in the hall define the busy enthusiasm of the cast and crew. However, this year, our production was shut down the day before our opening night due to Covid-19. The heartbreak of working for months on a show that was cancelled was devastating. After our annual production, we always have a day to clean and put our props and costumes away and clean the hall. But, this year, we just...left. The hall remains filled with our Broadway stuff. And when someone walks into the building, the silence of a show that was never performed is deafening.
• 
  2020-10-14

  So Much Noise, So Little Peace

  I wrote this document to describe the constant noise that surrounds me on a daily basis.
• 
  2020-02-06

  Hospital Sensory Experience

  This experience of the Covid-19 pandemic is probably very different than most people. My picture submitted of myself shows a selfie that I took while in the hospital dealing with a non-Covid-19 hospitalization. As you will see through reading this I was on sensory overload. My experience with taste when it comes to my hospitalization was not one of joy, but one of provisional change due to introduction of various new medical regiments which made things tasting like metal along with various other side effects. The over powering aroma of alcohol wipes and various chemicals burned my nostrils causing my eyes to water with irritation and redness. Desiring the touch of a loved ones other then the nurses pin pricks and the doctors jabs however, due to Covid restrictions my only comfort was my husband. With the on going treatments of chemotherapy I had caused numbness in my toes and fingers which felt like knives. I am a 35 year old man who is diagnosed with stage Three-B Testicular Cancer who was healthy one minute and who's world was turned upside down the next moment. So, my Covid-19 experience has been that of Chemotherapy, isolationism, crying, hospital smells, changing of all of my sensory parts of my body, and more. This is important to me because it has changed my life, Covid-19 experience, work-life, and many other areas.
• 
  2020-10-12T09:40

  Our Six-Week, COVID-19 Baking Crisis

  My wife and I were both home from our jobs by mid-March because the COVID-19 pandemic had, for all effective purposes, practically shut down our home state of Alabama. During our long sequestration from the world, we often baked together to pass the time. Tamsie has a sourdough bread starter that was handed down from her grandmother, so to keep the starter “alive”, she has to bake bread every month or so, which of course requires yeast. I believe that millions of Americans were at home baking during that time because we were out of dry yeast for her bread and, though we searched every grocery within a 20-mile radius of our home, we looked to no avail; additionally, yeast was back-ordered on Amazon, Walmart online, and every other online store. We were beyond desperate for that yeast, and the starter had to be near death when, at long last, I discovered an in-stock yeast on Amazon and ordered six pounds of it. Needless to say, I ordered entirely too much and thus unintentionally became that obligatory hoarder with which we’ve all had to deal during the last seven months. Thus, we had to bake dozens of loaves of sourdough bread to use that yeast! My wife is a dentist, so we baked bread for all her employees and left it on both their front porches and garages. We also baked for our neighbors and our families. The sweet smells of sourdough bread and sticky buns filled our home for nearly six weeks, as baking became an inane, daily ritual in the Rogers household! Today, whenever I smell fresh bread or cinnamon rolls, I think of our time spent together with our puppies in the kitchen, laboriously prepping, waiting for the yeast to rise, baking, and cleaning on a daily basis. I am thankful for this time, and though we now laugh about and much fun is had at my expense over my overzealous yeast spending-spree, whenever I smell fresh bread, I will forever be transported to our happy kitchen along with its aromatic sights and smells during the early weeks of the pandemic. It is truly amazing to ponder what we take for granted in our daily walks, and though I am obviously glad we are standing on firmer ground than in spring in relation to COVID-19, I miss our time together in the kitchen, which seems lonely and destitute without the sweet aroma of fresh sourdough bread. My association with this simple, yet happy memory during the pandemic is reflective of the joys we should be seeking in small things. Our daily lives are measured by our relationships, our serenity and contentment, and the joy we both provide and glean from others. The extended time at home with Tamsie allowed us a “factory reset” of sorts in our lives, one that brought our already-happy marriage much closer together; consequently, we no longer take life’s simple, quiet moments for granted. In some ways, the lasting human effects of the pandemic on relationships have been positive, in that each of us has had ample time to again focus on those whom we love.
• 
  2020-04-09

  Food Storage Sourdough Bread

  The pandemic caught me unprepared in many ways. I did not expect to run out of flour or yeast. I regularly bake rolls, muffins, cookies, and other treats several times a week. Just a day before New York shut down, I was at my local wholesale club stocking up on freezer items and canned goods, but could not find yeast or flour. The flour and yeast shortage was real and lasted for months in New York. Sourdough bread recipes started to circulate and I realized it was time to break out our food storage. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I have approximately a year's worth of dry canned whole wheat in my basement. My husband started the sourdough starter. As a the scientist in our family, I figured he would be up to the challenge of experimenting with a starter. After two weeks of tending his starter, he pulled out the wheat grinder. The grinder loudly screamed through the house as a fine flour sifted through the blades. A warm, homey smell settled in the kitchen. Then, he set about making the bread--a twenty-four hour affair. The tang of the starter smelled promising. The last hour of baking we smelled the rich smell of the bread baking in the hot oven. When he pulled it out, we could hardly wait to taste it. The jagged dark crust had the hallmarks of an artisanal loaf of bread. It smelled so good, earthy and hearty. After it cooled, he sliced the bread, cracking through the rough crust into the perfectly textured inside. The flavor was perfectly tangy, with a gorgeous whole wheat texture. Before the pandemic, my husband worked long hours at his lab and would never have had the time to make a loaf of bread that required so many steps and 24 hours. And before, we never had the need to make a starter or to use our food storage wheat.
• 
  2020-04

  The Silence of Moab

  Moab Utah is a lively tourist town normally filled with visitors from around the world. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has made it a ghost town.
• 
  2020-09-09

  I Stood Beneath An Orange Sky

  Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, August 2020 brought devastating wildfires to the state of California. Many of the Northern California fires were started as a result of the lightning produced during a massive - and rare - summer thunderstorm. The week leading up to the storm, I questioned the reliability of weather information as I had never experienced a severe summer storm in California. The night of the storm, I lay awake in my bed in awe of the sound of the storm. The combination of wind, rain, thunder and lighting produced incredibly loud sounds that lasted throughout the night. My family stayed snug in our beds. But when the storm continued into the morning hours, we decided to sit on our porch to take in the moment. The smell of rain in the summer was oddly refreshing. My kids were jumpy as none of them remember ever hearing thunder before. During a pause in the rain, we were walking between our home and my in-law’s home about 500 yards away from ours. The thunder hit at that very moment. I turned to look at my son and he was completely jumping out of his skin from fear of the thunder. Following each bout of thunder, silent lighting bolts shot across the sky. In the moment, we soaked in the beauty of nature. Little did we know that these beautiful bolts of lightning would cause some of the largest fires in California history. Immediately following the storm, fires spread across the state of California. While COVID-19 has completely changed life as we know it, we have found joy in being able to enjoy the outdoors. At the onset of the fires, even that reprieve was taken from us. I live directly between the SCU Lightning Complex and the LNU Lighting Complex fires, two of the first fires that erupted following the storm. The days immediately following the start of the fires brought record breaking days of heat well over 100 degrees. The hottest I have ever experienced in the San Francisco Bay Area. The region experienced rolling blackouts and even functioning air conditioners were so taxed that they struggled to keep the insides of homes cool. In addition to the heat, the skies were filled with ash. The air was so thick with ash it was difficult to even take a breath when outside. The outdoors, our place of solace, quiet and escape during this pandemic, was no longer an option for us. On September 9, 2020, I woke up and opened my curtains to face a brilliant orange sky. The color of the sky was unlike anything I've ever seen in my life. It truly felt apocalyptic. The air smelled of an extinguished campfire. And the overall feeling was eerie. The weight of the COVID-19 pandemic hit me the day that I stood beneath an orange sky, breathing in the smell of the fires ravaging my beloved state. How did we get here? Will life ever feel normal again? It just can’t get worse, can it? While I stood frozen in place, I heard the sound of birds chirping in the distance. This simple sound gave me the reassurance that I needed. We can do hard things. This too shall pass. I just hope it passes quickly.
• 2020-04-20

  Cherry wood and the smoker

  My submission to the Covid-19 sensory archive was about the smell and texture of cherry wood chips. During the first month of the Covid19 pandemic my father quarantined with my husband, daughters, and I. After a week or so of organizing, deep cleaning, and binge watching we decided we should find something else to do. My husband had been gifted a small wood smoker a few years ago and my father decided he was going to figure out how to smoke different types of foods. The first few attempts were less than stellar, with large flames, boiled water overflowing out of the bottom of this smoker but after another week he was doing quite well. He had ordered several different types of woods, chunks, and chips, almond and orange etc. I had not been a huge fan of anything he had done but it was keeping him, my husband, and my three-year-old entertained so it was fine. Finally, after his many attempts he came to me with mozzarella cheese he had smoked with cherry wood from our own trees. It tasted so good! I was thoroughly impressed with what he had accomplished. After that I helped him chop the wood and do various other things as he tried different recipes. Now anytime I move those wood chips around my pantry or smell the residual cherry wood smoke on the smoker in our side yard I think of that first month in quarantine. All the memories and recipes and the time in the middle of a pandemic where we got to slow down stay home and figure out how to use a smoker. I think that was a recurring event for a lot of people that were fortunate to get to quarantine with family. My family and I are typically terribly busy with various activities and jobs that we must run from one to the other and never get to have time to slow down and enjoy time with each other.
• -0007-10-18

  The Smell of Quarantine

  During the early days of the pandemic, I flew from my duty station at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma to Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune to attend an eight week school. While most of the country was shutting down, the military was forced to find solutions to mitigate risk of infection while still maintaining readiness. The solution to this was isolating service members for two weeks prior to training, protecting potentially infected service members from each other while giving time to monitor for potential symptoms. Looking back at my experience being restricted to a room for two weeks, what stands out to me is not how I stayed occupied, the food that was provided, or how I communicated with family, but the smell of the particular hand soap I had in that room with me. Through meticulously using it to clean and wash my hands, the scent filled my room, and I became more annoyed with that smell than I was being restricted to a room. The smell of that soap slowly became my memory associated with the COVID-19 Pandemic. Looking back at that time, five months later, the smell of that soap still standouts as my COVID-19 memory, and I don’t think I’ll be buying that soap in the future.