S3:E1: lost and found, part 1

Thursday, September 30, 2021

-------

Have you taken our listener survey yet? We’d love to hear from you. Your advice and feedback will help us with everything from creating future episodes to talking to potential sponsors. Find the link on our website.

-----

Episode description:

What have you lost in the pandemic? What have you found? We asked these questions to people from New York to New Mexico. What they told us has given us a roadmap for finding our way home. #interview #pandemiclife #femalehost #soothingvoice #femalevoiceover #femalepodcaster

——-

Laura: Hey Shelter in Place listeners, I want to share with you some exciting news. Last week, we learned that Shelter in Place won an award at the International Women’s Podcast Awards in London for our episode featuring Sarai Waters and her experience of being homeless. Sign up for our newsletter at shelterinplacepodcast.org and we’ll send you a link to a clip from the awards ceremony in London.

Laura: This is Shelter in Place, a podcast about embracing the journey in a world forever changed. Coming to you from Oakland California, I’m Laura Joyce Davis.

---

Laura: It had been a week since we’d seen the sun.

This was July of 2021. As a kid growing up in Minnesota, July was the best month; school and autumn were still too far away to feel real, and winter was a distant memory.

17 years in California have made me appreciate July for another reason: it’s the last month before fire season.

And yet here we were in July, driving through Montana on our way home, and all we could see was smoke. The car smelled like a campfire even though we’d duct taped hepa filters over the vents. All of us were cranky from hours of breathing bad air, and even the kids were starting to complain about pollution headaches.

It had been this way since North Dakota. In state after state, the skies were clouded with wildfire smoke, often so low and thick that it looked like yellow fog. We’d cancelled our plans to camp in Montana and instead stayed with friends in Helena, where we didn’t go outside for the better part of three days.

The constant gray gave the country a sameness that made even the Big Sky state feel small. We were fifty miles from Glacier National Park and we knew there were mountain ranges beside us, but we couldn’t see them.

My husband Nate turned to me from the driver’s seat and said, “I feel like this is a picture of our future in California,”

Our future in California had been a touchy subject for the better part of the last year. We’d left Oakland in September of 2020 because the combination of wildfire season, pandemic parenting, and financial struggle had pushed us to seek refuge closer to family who could help us with the kids.

That’s the story behind season 2, the Pandemic Odyssey that took us from Oakland to Massachusetts—and back again—in the span of 11 months. 3 of those months were spent on the road. But even with a year and a country behind us, we still didn’t know if Oakland was our Ithaca.

On paper, leaving Oakland was the obvious choice. Between wildfire season and the high cost of living, life there could feel exhausting. We both had family in parts of the country where life was more affordable and sustainable, where the air was clean and the rains came on schedule.

During our travels, we saw many different versions of home: there was Massachusetts, where our kids spent weekdays with Grammy and we discovered that our son loves winter. Virginia, where every rowhouse in my sister-in-law’s neighborhood backs up to shared parkland and playgrounds. New York, where graduates we’d only met on Zoom greeted us with hugs and a picnic at a park in Queens. Indiana, where we picked and ate the best strawberries of the summer on the farm where for twenty years, my college roommate and her husband raised crops and six children. There were homes nestled in cities and forests, homes where people were packed in, and homes where everyone had a room of their own.

All year we’d lived with a sense of inevitability, an ache we couldn’t seem to heal. The Montana skies felt like proof that the end was coming, that eventually we’d have to leave Oakland. We knew we could make a home somewhere else—but we were no closer to wanting to go. We were grieving the loss of our home in California before we’d even crossed the state line.

And then, all at once, mountains emerged from the haze. The road climbed, curved, and descended. Waterfalls cascaded down cliffs and splashed onto the roads, close enough that the kids rolled down their windows to catch the mist in their hands. That sense of inevitability fell away. I forgot about it in my gratitude for the moment I was in.

We’re calling season 3 In Search of Home, because while our pandemic Odyssey didn’t bring us to a neat and tidy resolution about what’s ahead, it did remind us that there’s a lot of joy, delight, and meaning to be found in the journey. It’s about finding those moments along the journey that can keep us grounded, even when life is spinning out of control. It’s about shifting our focus not just on what’s been lost, but what’s been found.

So today, in this special two-part episode, we’re going to share stories from the Shelter in Place lost and found. They’re stories about relationships and solitude, about finding your calling and losing your faith. There’s even a story about hair. They’re the voices that make up our Shelter in Place neighborhood, that remind us that sometimes we need to lose our sense of home to find it. The thread you’ll hear through all of them is one of stubborn joy, a refusal to give up even when things get hard. We hope you’ll find a bit of yourself in each of these stories, starting with this one.

Elayne: I've lost the freedom to go to places that I love, meaning the movie theater.

Laura: The movies. Who doesn’t love a little escapism from reality? Back in 2010, Nate and I lived in Manila for a year. The daily forecast was 90-degrees and 100% humidity, and even with fans on full blast we were sweaty all the time. But there was one place where for just a couple of dollars we could sit in a dark air-conditioned room. I saw more movies in that one year than at any other point in my life. Every time the lights went down and the sound flooded in, we were transported into another world. Every time the credits rolled and lights went up, it was like waking from a dream.

I had mostly forgotten that sensation until I heard this story.

Elayne: My name's Elayne Maura Saltzman, and I'm living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I've lived in the house that I'm living in now for 60 years.

Laura: I wanted to start with Elayne's story, because it was Elayne’s granddaughter, Clara Smith, who came up with the idea for this episode. Clara sat down with her grandmother, who she calls “Bubbie,” last May.

Elayne: When you're in a movie theater, you're in the dark. There's nothing that can distract you. There's no phones ringing. There's no doorbell's ringing. It's just another world that you're transformed to. Sports like tennis, you need somebody, a partner. A movie theater is something you can do alone.

Laura: Elayne lives alone, so I was a little surprised to hear that one of the things she loves about going to the movies was that she could go there alone.

But then I thought back to the movies I saw in the Philippines, how normal it felt to sit in close proximity to strangers, not talking, just enjoying the feeling of being immersed.

Elayne: When you go to the movie, you have that suspension of disbelief. And with this pandemic, you can't suspend any disbelief, because you have to believe there's a pandemic. You have to believe it's dangerous to be in close proximity.

Laura: Last spring, when things were finally starting to open up, Clara and her family decided to help Elayne find her way back to the thing she’d lost.

Elayne: My grandchildren know how much I love movies. It's my birthday, and they have arranged to rent a movie theater. You were allowed 20 people. My grandchildren are very careful, so I have 10 select people that are coming to the movie theater. The youngest is 22. The oldest is 86.

And of course we're not going to be sitting close to each other, but still we're going for a special occasion, and for many people, it's the first movie they've seen in a year and a half.

The movie is Dr. Strangelove, made when there was conflict, and this movie is about the military. They were terrified of nuclear weapons. There was the Vietnam war, so many of the people weren't even born when this movie was made—1964—but they can really identify. A lot was going on, and it was very, very frightening.

And then you realize today, you know what? This has been repeated. And this is what movies do. They capture an experience for you. You put it in your brain, and then many, many times you realize that you're going through that same experience again.

Laura: I spoke to Clara this past week and she said that Elayne is back to going to movies every week. After losing them for a year, she appreciates those movies now more than ever.

Alana:

What is the point of having new chapters if you can't share it with those you care about?

Laura: This next story comes to us not too far from where Elayne and Clara went to see Dr. Strangelove.

Alana: I'm Alana Herlands. I'm a born and bred New Yorker.

Laura: Like Clara, Alana is a Kasama Collective graduate. She was part of our very first cohort in January of 2021, a month that for many of us, felt like the low point of the pandemic. We were approaching a year of pandemic living, and beginning to understand that life might never fully return to the way it had been before.

Alana: I've lost the sharing that is so integral to opening new chapters of your life. I actually thought before the pandemic, I was more on the introverted side. During the pandemic, I moved out of my parents' house. I always pictured sharing my new apartment with my friends, and none of my friends have seen this apartment.

Having this much solitude and silence during a pandemic, it's forced me to ask myself what is most important to me when this is over? What do I want to welcome back into my life, and what do I want to leave behind?

I’m sort of grieving. I’ve lost my childhood self. The part of myself that is naturally sociable, the ability to call my friend and ask them to go out to dinner and hugging them and sharing space with them and hearing their voice without the tinny sound of my computer or their phone. I think those little things actually have become very big things that I've lost over the past year.

Through losing that, I’ve gained this incredible appreciation for what it means to be a messy human in front of another messy human. I've realized that being with other people, it actually is so incredibly energizing.

What's interesting about this prompt of ‘what have you lost and what have you gained,’ like this is just life. You're always losing and you're always gaining and it's this constant ebb and flow. And I think this period of time has made me appreciate that entire flow.

Laura: Things haven't turned out the way that Alana thought they would, but she says she's grateful for the changes that these pandemic losses have pushed her to gain. She recently moved out of that apartment that none of her friends had ever been to and moved into a new place with her boyfriend. They've been together since high school and they just celebrated their 10th anniversary.

Alana: If you can get through a pandemic together and not want to kill each other, I mean, it's a feat.

I'm very, very suddenly aware of the preciousness of life. No matter what age you are, I think just living within a global pandemic, you kind of just, can't not recognize it. Even if there are situations that are outside of my control, like a pandemic, how can I find joy and beauty, even in that circumstance, because this is not a rehearsal before the dance, like this is the dance.

Laura: One of the things that has been really interesting about this pandemic is seeing the range of ways that people’s lives have changed. For my family, it felt like the bottom dropped out. But for some people, the opposite happened.

David: There's something odd where the rest of the world was locked in and you know, falling apart around me. And then here I was . . . it felt like I finally found where I was supposed to be in my life. Let's stick with finding.

Melisa: Let's stick with finding. And I guess the punchline would be each other. I'm Melisa. I'm an attorney who lives in Brooklyn, New York.

David: Hi, I'm David. I also live in Brooklyn and I am in graduate school and I teach undergraduates.

Laura: David and Melisa met during their freshman year at Vassar. Their junior year they dated for a while, but as David applied for jobs in New York and Melisa got into law school in Washington, D.C., it became clear that they were headed in different directions.

Melisa: I sent a very heartfelt text along the lines of, "we probably shouldn't talk anymore. And I'm moving to DC and that's that."

David: I still remember where I was. I was in a thrift shop buying for a murder mystery birthday party, and I was like, “Oh, that's sad.”

Laura: This was a decade ago, in 2011.

David: Our parents are friends. Our parents have been on vacations together without us.

Melisa: So there was definitely a period there where our parents were seeing each other more than we were. But we would see each other every so often for a friendsgiving type thing, and I think there was always a little chemistry there, but, you know, we were seeing other people. And then I met a man in D.C. We got married in 2018.

Laura: While Melisa was getting married, he and his girlfriend were moving in together.

Dave: I was putt-putting my way towards a PhD.

Melisa: And all was good.

Laura: Until it wasn’t. In February of 2020, Dave and his girlfriend broke up.

Dave: She kept the apartment. I moved out and was bouncing around on friend's couches for a little bit.

Melisa: At that point I was accepting the fact that my marriage was ending.

Dave: Right as there was this pandemic thing starting to enter Europe.

Melisa: With work remote, you're kind of siloed. You're alone. You don't know what's going on and you reach out to friends and families. We at one point through our mutual friend Michele decided that zoom trivia night would be fun.

Dave: It was a Zoom Vassar celebration.

Laura: That mutual friend is how we found Dave and Melisa. Michele was one of our second cohort Kasama Collective graduates.

David: This was still early enough that getting on Zoom was kind of exciting, and not the soul crushing experience that it would later become.

We're chit-chatting.

Melisa: Both having experienced significant breakups, both being alone and reflecting on that. That was the beginning of what we have now, something familiar, comfortable, but also something totally new. And I think it's been fun to see how we've grown. We fell right back into things that worked when we were dating the first time, like I think we have a really similar sense of humor. Like, he's pretty corny on the joke side and it just kills me every time. I feel like now I'm much better able to talk about my emotions, and I've always thought you were so good at that.

David: And I'm less dumb than I was like eight years ago. (Melisa laughs) You know, 22 year olds can be very dumb. Come on.

Melisa: Ha! Yeah, fair. (laughs)

David: I was not expecting coming into a pandemic where I was living at my parents to find a partner or re-find a partner. And that's what I did. I think that's what you did too.

Melisa: That is what I did. I was coming off of a pretty dark time. The number of people that said to me, "you're a completely different person, so much noticeably happier now" was really remarkable. You don't necessarily realize it, but when people around you who know you and love you see how happy you are and can notice a change like that . . .

David: My parents said the same thing. They're like, “we've never seen you this happy. We've never seen you talk about somebody like this.” There was this strange juxtaposition where I lost connection with everybody else in my life—and yet found myself happier and more fulfilled than I had ever been before.

There’s something odd where the rest of the world was falling apart and locked in around me, and yet here I was. It felt like I finally found where I was supposed to be in my life.

Melisa: Yeah. He's a poet!

Laura: In a year where loneliness was the default, it didn’t necessarily follow that all of us were alone. For those of us with small children, sometimes the loneliest times were the times when all we wanted was to be alone.

Elena: I have a nine year old boy who is the love of my life. During this pandemic year, I have lost my mind dealing with my son.

Laura: This is Elena Lovo, one of the parents at our school who has become a dear friend. She’s a single mom who works three jobs to support her son. Somehow, she manages to take care of her community, too. One of Elena’s three jobs is cooking and delivering meals to families in our community. When Nate lost his job two weeks into the pandemic and we were losing our minds dealing with our own kids, Elena was cooking and delivering meals to our doorstep for twelve weeks straight. The longest-standing group text thread I’ve ever been a part of is one that Elena created for 18 of her friends.

Elena: I love being in the Bay area. I love the diversity. I love the people. I love the community that we have, I love pretty much everything except the fires.

Laura: Elena is originally from El Salvador, but she’s been living in Oakland for 28 years.

The best word I can think of to describe Elena is “heroic.” She almost died crossing the border when she was 17, which is another story for another episode, but she’s been a U.S. citizen since the 80’s thanks to President Reagan giving amnesty to all undocumented immigrants. She’s a pillar of strength for our school community, and a rock for her son David, who is in 4th grade. While some kids thrived with virtual school or homeschooling, for David, learning in the pandemic felt almost impossible.

Elena: David is a very smart kid, but he also has some learning disabilities that were very challenging during this time. Not being able to have the help and the support from his teacher, and not wanting to do Zoom. He was dealing with depression along with anxiety and a learning disability. So it has been a lot for him to process, not being able to understand why he was not able to see his friends, not being able to fully understand the whole COVID thing, and being home.

The fires last year were a huge impact on our life, because not only we were not able to visit friends, we were not able to go outside. That gave him more insecurity and he got more depressed.

My job schedule was reduced. So instead of working as a nanny for 20 hours, I only work 10 hours a week. My job at a preschool is gone because we didn't have enough students enrolled in the preschool.

I never thought that I would be in a situation that I feel so terrified to be a mother and not being able to provide the quality of life to my child, because in our community we rely on each other. We depend so much on each other. And I think for me, and for my son, that has been one of the biggest losses, not being able to be with each other, not being able to have dinner with friends, not being able to do anything together, and also not being able to go home to visit my family in El Salvador. Having lost three of my uncles due to COVID in El Salvador, and not being able to be there to support my mother. That has been the biggest losses that I have during this COVID year.

Laura: But in the midst of all of that loss, Elena found something, too. Something she hadn’t even been looking for.

Elena: Everybody kept telling me it was time for me to find somebody, but, you know, I was so busy focusing on David. We have soccer. We have basketball. That was my whole life: cooking, working. I had the preschool job. I had the nanny job. And I was cooking on Friday. There was not enough time for me to think about getting into a relationship. I wasn’t completely closed to the idea. I was like, if it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t happen, you know . . .

Laura: A few months before the pandemic, Elena finally agreed to go on a dating app.

Elena: I was kinda excited.

Laura: She met a couple of people, but came away from the experience feeling disappointed. She wasn’t looking for someone to change her life. She was looking for someone who wanted to step into the one she already had.

Elena: It isn't easy when you are a single mom to go out and find somebody that will take you seriously.

Laura: Then one day she got a message from someone who seemed different. She looked him up, but she didn’t reply. Not right away.

Elena: I looked at him and I just said, okay, ‘let's put it in the shopping cart.’ That's how I call it: let’s put it in the shopping cart because I need to continue shopping. That was my thing. So he sent me another message and I'm still shopping. Right? So the third day I decided to reach out in answer to his text.

Laura: By this point, Elena was tired of hearing from men who lost interest as soon as they understood what they were stepping into. When she finally wrote back, she didn’t mince words.

Elena: I'm a single mother. I am independent. I'm not looking for somebody to take care of me. I’m able to do that. I need somebody to go for walks, to have a relationship, to be a friend, and to enjoy life. My son is and always will be my first priority. That will not change. So if you're willing to do that, we may have a future.

Laura: For the first time, Elena found someone who wasn’t scared off.

Elena: He has two daughters. We think a lot alike. We like the same things. He’s very easy going. We had our first date on December 29th. I was excited. It was fun.

I said to him, “This is what I have. This is who I am. This is what I need.” We had a long conversation and I said, “I am a single mother. We go to a beautiful school with an amazing community. I am supported by all of these moms and dads, and I am well taken care of by all of them. Now are you willing to commit to a relationship where you have to get involved with all these people? Because it's not only me, it's not only David, it's the whole community.”

I remember after, before talking to him about that, I went with our crazy friend Jose and I said, this is what I'm doing. I feel safe with him. I like him. I think we have a lot in common. And I said, what do you think?

And he said, “no, no, we have to put it on probation for six months.”

So I went back to him and I said, you know, Matthews, I went for a hike with Jose and he says, first, you need to get on probation for six months.”

And he said, “no, no, no. Tell Jose three weeks.”

I went back to Jose and I said, “Hey, Jose, I talked to Matthews. He said three weeks of probation is the maximum.”

He looked at me and he said, look, let me ask you this: Are you happy? Yes. Does he respect you? Yes. Then probation is over.

We introduced him to our friends. Most of us are fully vaccinated, so we had a little brunch in our house, and he did very well. I found somebody special to share life with. It's been really good. Our foundation is strong. We know what we have.

He loved the idea that we have a beautiful community. He loved the idea that we do so much with each other. So I'm happy too.

Laura: Life hasn’t stopped being hard just because Elena has found love. David is back in school, and there are still a lot of challenges. But on the hard days, when David’s anxieties or school struggles feel insurmountable, Matthew is there to remind Elena that she’s not alone. He tells her that she’s doing a good job. She’s a great mom. They’re going to get through this. And the community that has been taking care of Elena and David for all of these years is still rallying around them. It’s like Alana said—the losing and the finding—that’s just life. It’s part of what it means to be a messy human with other messy humans.

That evening in July when my family and I drove into Glacier National Park, we hiked to a hidden mountain lake with mountain goats trotting along the trail beside us. There were wildflowers everywhere—something we hadn’t expected in late July. It was wonderful.

As soon as we got back into our car and crossed over Logan Pass to head to our hotel, the smoky skies returned. When we crossed the state line to California, and then a few hours later passed Mount Shasta, we could see smoke billowing up from the wildfires at Lassen National Park.

But then something unexpected happened. The closer we got to Oakland, the clearer the air got. We knew that the winds could change again at any moment, but we also knew that something had shifted in our understanding.

When we left Oakland a year ago, we were running away from a life that felt unsustainable. We knew there was still a chance we were returning only to leave again in a matter of months or years.

But our reasons for returning now weren’t the ones that had drawn us to California seventeen years ago. We weren’t there because of school or job opportunities. If we wanted to move someplace cheaper and easier, we could. We were returning home knowing that we were choosing it, and that choosing our home was something that not everyone got to do.

What made Oakland home for us was the same thing that has made it home for Elena, the same thing that brought together Dave and Melisa, the same thing that Alana and Elayne have been longing for during these months alone. It’s those sometimes messy relationships that make us feel at home, those people and places where we can let our guard down for a moment and just be ourselves.

Next week, we’ll be back with Lost and Found part 2.

We craft each and every one of these episodes for you, our listeners, and we hope that when you hear them, they feel like the gift we intend them to be. As always, if you listen to the very end of the episode, you’ll hear Shelter in Place outtakes, our little easter egg to thank you for sticking around.

But first we’d like to thank one of our supporters. Saundra Lormand, you are one of the reasons that Oakland is home. Thank you for loving our kids like your own grandchildren, and for always making us feel like family. Nothing makes me feel as seen as knowing that people are listening, and you’ve consistently shown an interest in my work and encouraged me since long before Shelter in Place began. Thank you so much for supporting this work and for sharing it with others.

We also want to thank Sony for their generous donation of headphones, which our Kasama Collective trainees are now using to help us create Shelter in Place episodes.

Our Kasama Collective training program is now a non-profit, and we’re always looking for partnerships and sponsors to help us launch these new creators into careers in audio storytelling.

As always, you can find show notes, details about our Kasama Collective training program, and sign up for our newsletter at shelterinplacepodcast.org.

Every month we send our newsletter subscribers a different audio delight for their ears. If you’d like to make our day, leave a 5-star review on Podchaser, Goodpods, or Apple Podcasts. Nothing makes us feel as seen as knowing that you’re listening! We love hearing from you!

The Shelter in Place music was created by Chase Horsman at Reaktor Productions. Additional music and sound effects for this episode come from Storyblocks. This very special two-part episode was the combined work of graduates from our first and second cohort, and also trainees from our third cohort, which began last month.

Clara Smith and Michele O’Brien were Associate Producers for this episode and conducted our interviews. Alana Herlands was the Producer overseeing that process.

Nikki Schaffer and Bethany Hawkins were our assistant editors for this episode, Meridian Watters and Zahra C. were our assistant producers, Nathan Wizard was our assistant audio editor, and Hannah Fowler was our Associate Producer.

Nate Davis is our creative director, Sarah Edgell is our design director, and our amazing season 3 Kasama Collective trainees are Bethany Hawkins, Hannah Fowler, Meridian Watters, Nathan Wizard, Nikki Schaffer, and Zahra C.

Until next time, this is Shelter in Place. I’m Laura Joyce Davis.

And now if you’re still listening, here’s a little outtake.

Outtake:

Laura: And now if you're still listening here is a little outtake.

David: It did kind of feel like I was living a romcom, which was kind of nice.

Melisa: So if this was a movie, you know, messed around in college, weren't ready to commit. Someone got married, someone dated around, everybody's lives went different directions... global pandemic hits. And yet here we are reconnecting. I could see it. Hallmark could make that movie. We'd play ourselves.

David: No, I don't want to play myself.

Melisa: Paul Rudd.

David: I've heard Paul Rudd before.

Melisa: Paul red would be your doppelganger.

Clara: Okay. Thanks Bobby. That was perfect.

Elayne: Listen, if anyone asks you how old I am you say my Bobby does not give permission.

Clara: My Bubby is 34 years old.

Elayne: The only one that knows it has a big mouth is Izzy, so she'll tell right away, but they asked you. So what is this for? It's not for work?

Alana: If it's done, then I'm going to contort my body out of the closet.

Zahra: Definitely. Get out of there.