Glenn and I went on a quick vacation to Hawaii last week and while we were away our world turned upside down. 

At the time we boarded the plane the coronavirus was definitely dominating the news, but still felt like a far-off hypothetical – a bit like previews for an upcoming paranoid disaster movie if I’m being honest. Friends and colleagues were talking about and beginning to prepare for what might come, but by and large everything was relatively normal. 

They had just locked down cities in Northern Italy, but the idea of doing something similar here in Portland was certainly still a ways off, if it was to happen at all. Glenn and I were planning to take extra precautions (wiping down our plane seats, using hand sanitizer frequently, etc.), but didn’t have any qualms about leaving.  

So Glenn and I got on our plane and set off for essentially a long weekend of relaxation and adventure. 

Glenn was a bit lukewarm about the idea of going to Hawaii initially. We’ve been to Hawaii a few times already, we aren’t beach people and we don’t like traveling to places where a lot of other tourists frequent. But, I found this super fun looking Air B&B and that was enough to get him hooked. The Air B&B “room” was a Jeep with a rooftop tent, which meant we could travel anywhere on the island (Maui) we wanted to go. 

The Jeep was waiting for us in the airport parking lot and came with everything we needed…sleeping gear, cooler, cook stove, pots/pans, dishes, camp chairs, hammock, etc. We just needed to stop at the store to get food supplies and we were off. 

We learned a few important things in those first initial hours. 

First: The food one typically procures for camping turns out to be the same types of food people buy when preparing for a coming apocalypse. There was still food on the shelves (the panic buying hadn’t hit the island yet), but the options of canned soups, pasta and snacks were notably dwindling. This forced us to get a bit more creative about our meal preparation plans.

Second: We are, apparently, shorter than your average human. Once we arrived at our first campsite it was time to set up the tent. The Air B&B hosts had provided us with a helpful “how to” video prior to our arrival – it looked simple enough. Needless to say, we just about gave ourselves a hernia trying to deploy the tent. In hindsight, we should have looked in the back of the Jeep for the handy stepstool they provided at the beginning – rather than the end – of our set-up efforts! Luckily, a little practice (and a stepstool) makes perfect and by the end of our trip we were pros at getting the tent set up and taken down in a handful of relatively painless minutes.  

We had made our way to the West side of Maui near Hana – which is a beautiful and more secluded area of the island. It also meant that for two days we didn’t have any cell service. By day three of our adventure we decided to make our way back “to civilization” toward the center of the island.

As we returned to cell service our phones started blowing up. 

Blah-ding…news alert notification.

Blah-doop…worried text message from a friend. “Are you watching the news? Do you see what’s happening?”

Blah-ding…another slightly more dire news alert.

Blah-doop…decidedly more panicked message from another. “Are you sure you shouldn’t just come home now? Please.” 

Glenn and I sat at an overlook intending to watch the surfers below, but instead spent an hour focused on the little phones in our hands getting caught up on all that had changed in the world seemingly overnight.

We found ourselves split between two markedly different realities. On one hand, everything we knew to be “normal” at home was slipping like sand through our fingers. On the other hand, we were surrounded by other vacationers watching surfers on the water and sunbathers on the beach – situation normal.

This dichotomy continued in fascinating ways. As much as things were falling apart at home (including a freak snow storm, much less the virus), things were working out serendipitously for us in Hawaii. 

For example, our decision to return to the central part of the island a day before we had originally planned meant I was able to get the voice message from the snorkeling company that our 2-day distant trip was being cancelled due to expected bad weather. As such, I was able to rebook on a trip the following day instead. Had we stuck with our original schedule we wouldn’t have been able to go snorkeling, which is where we had the most amazing experience of our trip – getting to listen to humpback whales vocalizing underwater (watch the video below to hear them too!). 

Another example of things working out swimmingly for us while chaos started to rain back home was our sleeping situation. The rooftop tent platform comes with a build-in mattress. Pretty handy! It’s made of about 2-inch thick memory foam. Unfortunately, the only “memory” this foam seems to have is of being hard plywood, because after laying on it for a few minutes that is what it comes to resemble. 

There was a time in my life when that wouldn’t have been a problem, but those days are gone. My old-lady hips just can’t handle sleeping on hard surfaces anymore. When we pulled into our campground on the 4^th night of our trip I looked over to find a big inflatable mattress next the recycling and garbage bins. 

At this point my hips were beyond me having too much pride to essentially go dumpster diving, so I marched over and snagged it before someone else could! It took a bit of creativity to figure out how to wedge it inside the tent and for us both to sleep on it, but we made it work and our remaining nights were much more restful. (Side note: I returned the mattress to the same location upon our departure…and smiled to myself when I saw a woman about my age wander off with it to her campsite. Desperate times, call for desperate measures.)

Welcome to the Twilight Zone…

Glenn and I eventually made it back to Portland to find that both of our work offices had shuttered with mandatory work from home requirements, all of the bars and restaurants were closed except for take-out orders, and everyone was keeping extra distance between themselves and others. Luckily we had stocked up on food (and toilet paper!) in the weeks prior to our trip so we didn’t need to worry about being stuck at home for a while.

The reality of the situation still hasn’t sunk in for me. 

The last time I saw my friends and co-workers was the day before my vacation when everyone was still working. My goodbye was more of a “I’m off on vacation, peace out!” and less of a “I’m not sure when I’ll see you again, please stay safe.” 

I returned to a vacant office building and nearly 600 unread work emails – many of which contain important information about what transpired because of the virus while I was gone, and those that don’t are completely irrelevant at this point given all that is going on. 

I just can’t seem to figure out how to settle in and focus on the work in front of me. Part of me still feels like I’m on vacation (ya know…the feeling you have when you get back home but haven’t gone back to work yet), and the other part of me is in denial about how serious this situation really is. My brain and my heart just can’t quite figure out what to make of this new (and ever changing) reality.  

I know of two people, including a very dear friend, who likely have the virus. Neither of their doctors can get access to tests, so that makes me worry about how many other folks out there are sick but aren’t showing up in the “number of cases” statistics shared on the news. 

I’m desperately worried about an elderly deaf friend of mine that will certainly lose his life if he gets the virus. I’ve spent the last few days doing everything I can to try to keep him safe, yet stress that everything I do to try to minimize his exposure (e.g., getting him food from the store and dropping it off to him) may be inadvertently exposing him.

I’m also grappling with the realities of my own privilege. I have a relatively secure job – at least for the time being – that I’m able to do quite effectively from home for the foreseeable future. Yet, so many around me are not in that same situation. I have friends that are losing their jobs and others that aren’t sure how they are going to keep their small businesses afloat.

While I’m healthy and snuggled at home with loved ones, I have a friend grappling with recovering from the virus (most likely) in complete isolation (which must be so lonely and scary), and another friend who is stuck for who knows how long in a foreign land because he doesn’t have health insurance if he returns home to the U.S. 

My world seems to be narrowing down to a few key priorities, primarily: food, health, friends and family. 

That makes sense and is normal. But, I don’t want it to stop there. This week I’ll be trying to expand my focus to include: 1) supporting the staff that work for me, both personally and professionally, with whatever they may need to get through this, and 2) finding ways to use the financial stability I have in my life to try to help others that are in more perilous situations. 

I hope you all are doing everything you can to stay healthy and safe. Please take care of yourself and those around you, and take a moment to express gratitude for the amazing folks on the frontlines like health care workers, delivery drivers, restaurant staff and grocery store workers.