The Privilege of Quarantine
Home. The place the whole world has been quarantined for the time being due to the spread of COVID-19, more commonly known as the coronavirus.
This is the first time the world has faced such a lockdown in over a century. I live in Los Angeles, which has one of the worst traffic problems in the world, or at least it used to. Now, when I watch the news I see clear roads at what is normally rush hour. I see people walking around my neighborhood that I’ve never seen before, just trying to give their kids and themselves something to do. I see my dad nervously put on a mask and gloves as he prepares to go to the grocery store each week. Being quarantined with my family has opened my eyes to what home really means. Home is a household in which my dad was at home and my mom worked. Home is where my brothers and I wrestled over the last chocolate chip muffin. Home is the place where I know who is coming down the stairs based on the sound of their footsteps. However, home is also the place I have chosen to be 1136.7 miles away from, three-quarters of the year.
As a child, my street was my whole life, one strip of suburban life in L.A. I had the privilege to grow up as a traveler. Family vacations allowed me to see the world and start exploring from a very young age. While this enhanced my love of travel, knowing I had a home to return to made me comfortable in foreign places. As I grew older, my pull to my home street began to fade. I learned how to drive, I was spending more time with my friends. Home became the place I was always leaving. While I found myself letting go and enjoying my own adventures, there was always a sense of guilt when I came home and all the lights were off, everyone was asleep. I put my key in the lock, turning it ever so slightly so the dogs wouldn’t bark, like a stranger. I walked through dark rooms and crept upstairs trying to avoid the steps that squeaked loudly until I reached my bedroom. When I did this, it didn’t feel like home. It felt dark and lonely. No one greeted me. I felt as though I was choosing my friends over them, even though I grew up learning to put family first. Leaving for college, my guilt only grew. I felt as though I was constantly walking through dark hallways, subsequently leaving my family with the darkness of the space I no longer filled. This has left me constantly questioning, how do I grow and explore as an individual and as a traveler with such a strong tie to my home?
A few summers ago I went to Paris with my mom and a few friends. We stayed in a small Airbnb within shouting distance of Notre Dame and the Seine River. The seven of us were jammed in this small apartment with no air conditioning and two small fans, one of which clattered loudly if we dared to turn it on. While this may not sound “home-y” to most, I felt most at home here. Why? I didn’t feel like I was in some polished, snooty hotel that put up this facade of elegance. Instead, I was in a home; a home that had some issues. We as humans find a sense of comfort in returning home at the end of the day. Even whilst traveling, we referred to our hotel or hostel as home to create this illusion of belonging in unfamiliar surroundings. I have experienced this even more through the creation of Airbnb. Crowding around the one working fan in our small Paris Airbnb brought us all closer together. We walked around in our little shorts and shirts trying to stay cool—we were hardly Instagram-ready. This was the most beautiful part of the trip because everyone put the facade down of a perfect Parisian getaway that would have looked great on our feeds. I feel most at home when I am loved for my authentic self, and I felt that in Paris. For most of my life, that place was my little street in Los Angeles, but as I grow older I start to feel this love outside of my childhood home. This makes it difficult to differentiate homes as I move and travel as a young adult. I have always known home to be my childhood house where my family is, but now I refer to my house in Seattle as home and my roommates as family.
I always felt guilty for going to college out-of-state, away from my family who I am very close with, echoing the twinge of guilt I felt returning home to a darkened house past midnight as a sixteen-year-old. But now, during this time of uncertainty and mandatory quarantine measures, being home for weeks indefinitely has made me realize the importance of being away. Home is not always where you want to be, but where you want to return to. This coronavirus pandemic leaves me itching to be out of the house (a desire I never really felt before), to go out and live my life. But at the end of the day, I find comfort in knowing that no matter where my path in life takes me, I always have a safe place to return to.
When classes were first placed online and cities were being shut down, the first thing my parents did was make sure I got home from Seattle and my brother got home from New York, two major hotspots for COVID-19 cases. Of course, it was most important to my parents that we were home safe during this chaotic outbreak. I am fortunate enough to have a place to call home at a time like this. I have a family that I love and a place where I feel safe. Many people, unfortunately, are not as fortuitous during this pandemic. Some people are forced to stay in unhealthy households with abusive family members, addiction problems, and several other factors that make them feel unsafe or uncomfortable. They are merely in a house. What makes a house a home is when you feel safe and feel loved, otherwise, it is just the place you are living. In addition, over half a million people go homeless each night in the United States [1]. Of that, over 50,000 are located in Los Angeles, with 5,000 on one strip of Downtown L.A. called Skid Row [2]. With mandatory stay-at-home orders, how do we protect people whose home is the street? On March 31st, 2020, the first case of coronavirus was found on Skid Row [3]. This leaves Angelinos fearing the spread of COVID-19 through the homeless population like wildfire. This quarantine is the time to recognize our privilege and change the way we address the world when we are re-exposed to it.
While this outbreak has ceased all travel, for the time being, it will benefit travelers going forward as they will better understand and value what home means to them. Whether they are trying to mirror their values of home in foreign places or searching for their own idea of home, I hope travelers will have a better base to work off of. People who are merely in houses will hopefully be empowered to go out and find a true home. Others who are fortunate enough to already have a place where they feel at home will hopefully feel greater appreciation towards it. While this is a very uncertain, troubling time for all of us, I urge you all to use this quarantine as a time of reflection and gratitude. Realize the privilege of having a place and/or people to turn to during a time like this. Most importantly, think about the life you want to live and the impact you hope to make on the world when this is all said and done.
The Council of Economic Advisors. “The State of Homelessness in America.” www.whitehouse.gov
Slayton, Nicholas. “Number of Homeless People on Skid Row Spikes by 11%.” Los Angeles Downtown News www.ladowntownnews.com/news
“Coronavirus Strikes Skid Row as Union Rescue Mission Reports First Confirmed Case.” Los Angeles Times www.latimes.com/homeless
“L.A. County Is Counting Homeless People This Week. Here's Everything You Need to Know.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 21 Jan. 2020, www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-01-21/homeless-count-los-angeles-county-faq.