A student perspective: College in a COVID world

I stir early and tiptoe downstairs. The floorboards creak, and my face cringes; surely, I am waking up the household on my way to the kitchen. Pouring rolled oats and hot water into a bowl, I breathe in and look longingly out the sink window. A suburban hedge, manicured. I hear birds.

Just weeks ago, I would have seen the New York City skyline. Harlem, to the east. The sound of sirens.

Exhaling, I place my in-progress oatmeal on a wooden butcher block. I unload the dishwasher. Mandoline. Grease splatter screen. A green-and-blue-variegated, oblong platter. I open cabinets and stack dishes, which clink and clank despite my care. As I store the final spoon in the silverware drawer, I check my wrist. A personal record of three minutes and 16 seconds. Practice makes perfect. I celebrate silently and consider performing the task tomorrow blindfolded.

After a month of quarantine, I now know every crevice of the kitchen — the home of every odd utensil at my friend’s in Rye, where I plan to stay for the remainder of the Spring term. Finals end on Friday, May 15.

It could be any day, but today is Monday. I am slated for three classes and still need to prepare. Linear Regression Models and Time Series Methods requires reading: a case study on insurance companies and redlining in 1970s Chicago.

Just weeks ago, I too would have waited until Monday morning, but instead just after midnight; I would have finished my coursework weary and in a library. I would have slept in.

At this hour, I am rested. Still, I rub my eyes, picking at my tear ducts with long, dotted-white nails. Shoot. With soap and scalding water, I wash my hands dry.

Starting a cup of coffee, I forgive my negligence but am still suspicious. I don't like the drink — its burnt aftertaste, which lingers uncomfortably. But here, in my friend’s family, pre-packaged coffee pods are bought in bulk. As a member of their Quarantine clan, I assimilate.

Just weeks ago, I would have drunk tea.

With the push of a Keurig button, I hear a steady thrum. I see steam. Contented, I turn to the oats, which have swelled considerably. The consistency, though, is sub-par. All the time in the world to boil water over stovetop and cook porridge in old fashion, yet I decide instead to nuke it in the microwave.

I guess some things do not change; in the age of COVID-19, I still like my fingers woven, wrapped around the warmth of a hot morning beverage. I still like my watch, latched loosely around my wrist. I still want ritual. I still crave efficiency. A posteriori, I have learned to use the popcorn button.

I add toppings. A robust selection of nuts: walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, cashews, pecans. Peanut butter. Gasp. Suddenly, I stop in my tracks; we are all out of bananas. With a shallow sigh, I instead reach for blueberries. I proceed with chia seeds. Pumpkin seeds. A dollop of wildflower honey. Voilà, breakfast.

Closing my eyes, I take a tiny bite. Effectively Anton Ego, I eat slowly and indulge in my very own Ratatouille moment. I have time to taste.

Just weeks ago, I would have feasted with friends in a crowded dining hall. We would have laughed and cried loudly and enjoyed the company. Probably, we would have noshed quickly. Time in college is, after all, a kind of currency.

As I sit at a table for one, I wish my former self had been less frugal.

I rinse my dishes and reload the dishwasher, checking again the time. In roughly 30 minutes, I have completed my morning routine and only ritual and am now at a loss. What to do, I wonder. I have an infinity to fill. Indeed, I do have virtual classes and coursework, but the day ahead feels virtually empty, almost endless.

Just weeks ago, days brimmed. Office Hours. Speaker events. Club meetings. Group study with the blue-eyed boy, my crush from Econometrics. The semester was in full swing.

Then came an email from University President Lee C. Bollinger. On March 8, he wrote, a member of the Columbia community had been quarantined as a result of exposure to COVID-19. Classes that week would be suspended. Some of my peers cheered; midterms had been, necessarily, postponed.

Just weeks ago, it was easy to exercise shortsightedness. There was no reason not to celebrate, in their eyes; it was the week before Spring break, and it was not like the semester had been cancelled.

I tiptoe upstairs and into my room. Opening my laptop, I launch Zoom and enter Econometrics — a review session. In two days, I will take an exam originally dated weeks ago. Worth 45 percent of my final grade, it no longer holds the same weight; I pursue learning in spite of a mandatory Pass/Fail grading policy.

Some of my peers booed at the news. Petitions abounded in protest, advocating alternatives.

I consider the measure a moral one — necessary to mitigate socioeconomic disparities exacerbated by the current crisis. I see my professor who shares a screen from her New York City apartment. In the background, a spiral staircase. I see high ceilings. Addressing the class, she wishes us well. Sentiments of health and safety. She hopes the same for her daughter, a doctor at a Manhattan hospital, who, for days, has worn and worn again the same protective gear. She fears infection. As she speaks, she is somber.

Just weeks ago, she would have greeted us with levity.

Focus eludes me for the whole 75 minutes. Class is less compelling, but oddly more intimate than in person. I leave the session feeling unfulfilled; the college experience through a computer screen. Just weeks ago, the current reality of Columbia students was as imperceptible as the virus itself. Then came another email indicating campus closure, compulsory evacuation and online courses.

In a day, I packed my things. I gave a handful of goodbyes but not nearly enough. From the City, I fled to Westchester County, where lived, at the time, "the most significant cluster" of COVID-19 cases in the nation, according to State governor Andrew Cuomo.

Weeks ago, I did not fear infection. I entered Westchester willingly, committed to self-quarantining and focused on flattening the curve.

Currently, New York City is struggling to do so. A dearth of ventilators. Masks requiring reuse. Cobbled-together hospitals in Central Park. The irony of the moment is ignoble; as Bernie Sanders ends his run, the United States healthcare system is utterly exhausted.

Meanwhile, leadership in the White House proves childish, rooted in egoism. In ill-advised efforts to protect Markets above People, Donald J. Trump clings hopelessly to the only political leverage of his presidency.

Just weeks ago, a recession was probable. Now, it is inevitable. All stock market gains under Trump are lost. If only he had had the foresight. After all, it is the president’s job to exercise caution. He relinquished his role, however, and we lost precious weeks. In consequence, citizens have suffered. COVID-19 now permeates all corners of the country.

Thousands are dead. Musicians, notably. Manu Dibango. Marcelo Peralta. Wallace Roney. Freddy Rodriguez, Sr.

Among others, Ellis Marsalis. I remember listening when I was younger — Mom turning on Jazz radio. KCSM would play from my great grandmother’s console stereo, which was in our living room. On weekdays, music filled the space with love and light and consonance. Often on Sundays, we would visit Yoshi's in Oakland.

I had almost forgotten. The rememory is a sort of silver lining.

Just weeks ago, I looked forward to a summer internship.

Now, I fear for my job prospects in a potentially unprecedented economy, which I will enter next year.

Or maybe I won’t; the paper published by analysts at Imperial College suggests COVID-19 suppression and mitigation measures should be maintained until a vaccine is available. According to the report, that could take “potentially 18 months or more.”

Just weeks ago, Fall 2020 and May 2021 seemed far enough dates away. Now, I would not be surprised if Columbia suspends the upcoming semester. I even doubt Graduation.

The uncertainty of the moment is perhaps most striking. Certainly, the time is weighing on us all. Businesses, large and small, face bankruptcy. Millions file for unemployment. Seemingly, people are living out the same coronavirus story.

A priori equivalence, however, lacks humanity.

Black Americans are dying disproportionately. Although COVID-19 infects, the determinant of death is an arguably more pervasive killer. Institutionalized racism corresponds to higher rates of underlying health conditions among the black adult demographic. Obesity. Asthma. Diabetes. All, reflective of inequities in the food system.

By now, it is lunch. Opening the fridge, I consider the vibrant collage of food items before me. Red Onion. Cucumber. Carrots. Hummus. Spinach. Avocado. White chicken breast, organic. I grab a loaf from the pantry. Whole wheat bread. I make a sandwich. Just weeks ago, I would have had a bagel with lox.

Certainly, a foul relegation from seafood.

The moment affects us all in a myriad of severe and subtle ways. Daily adaptations vary across all spheres of society.

Indeed, Healthcare personnel still wake up and go to work. In this way, the lives of those on the front lines have not changed unrecognizably. But work now resembles a warzone. Each day, COVID-19 further transmutes the identities of doctors and nurses and first-responders, who now bear semblance to soldiers. We command them to risk their lives.

Just weeks ago, we had asked them to do so kindly, only implicitly and in the abstract. Weeks later, there is an explicit gradation of mornings in America.

I wake up to simply start my day — to unload a dishwasher. I turn to something tangible, because the sense of purpose keeps me sane. What privilege to only lack purpose.

After classes end for the day, I sit at my desk in front of a cold mug. With a twist and light stretch, I gulp the last of my stale, pale-brown roast.

Disgusting. Horrific, even.

I, a tea-turned-coffee drinker due to circumstance. I can’t help but ponder my altered identity at 20.

Though young, the age feels pivotal. At this stage in my life, I thought I would be living freely, not in the future. At present, life inside is a loss.

Everything is relative, though. I must remember: as I mourn inexperience from the safety of the suburbs, hundreds a day lose their lives in the city from which I came.

Entering the kitchen, I rinse my morning ceramic, which reveals a faint ring. Wetting the sponge with a light trickle, I scrub.

Growing up, I remember doing dishes by hand — drying with a cloth while Mom washed. John Prine would play from a cd-player. Singing Space Monkey, I would dance around the kitchen with clean kitchenware.

Just weeks ago, I had never loaded a dishwasher. I had hardly thought the machine all too essential. In fact, I had always been skeptical of the thing — its seeming redundancy and lack of function. At my friends’ houses, residual food matter had always hardened defiantly, sticking to forks and knives and plates and the like. I had never felt safe using other people’s silverware.

I place the dish on a nearby drying mat and enter the living room. In good posture, I practice piano.

Growing up, I remember playing — tickling the ivories on a modern yet modest Yamaha, which was in our living room. Music filled the space with a great deal of dissonance. But many hours of labor and love always culminated in memory. With each piece perfected, my teacher would gift a composer statuette. Bach. Beethoven. Debussy. Schubert, among others. I would arrange the plastic busts along the piano’s lid. Ultimately, they lay there, collecting dust.

Just weeks ago, I had nearly forgotten the feeling of curved palms, fingertips against keys.

I hold my hand position, sitting on the seat of my friend’s digital Casio. With my back now curled forward, I stare ahead and remember legends recently lost. I line them up in my mind and add them to a greater arrangement. As alive in death as they were living.

I wonder if it’s wrong to derive meaning from this moment. I can’t be sure. Still, I try to stay prudent and make this time meaningful. Every day, I choose empathy alongside optimism. I stay home and remember those outside “...at the close of a long, long day.”

By now, it is night. Humming a hymn by John Prine, I remove my timepiece.

“Yeah when I get to heaven, I'm gonna take that wristwatch off my arm. What are you gonna do with time after you've bought the farm?”

My tiny clock lies indifferently on a nightstand. As I tuck myself in, it ticks onward in time. I think of leaving it there indefinitely and ponder possibility in tomorrow.

Elizabeth Kolling grew up in Kenwood, attended Sonoma Academy and is now a junior at Columbia University.