Reflecting on 5 years
Voicemails from then and now
Five years ago this month— well, you know, the panini began.
On the night of Sunday, March 15th, a group of friends gathered at my neighbor’s place to stream “Contagion” on Netflix, drink wine and laugh nervously as Gwyneth Paltrow went into convulsions.
I tried to absorb that this might be the last impromptu social gathering I had for a while. Lockdown was starting the following day. The next time I’d gather in a large group inside someone’s house wouldn’t be for over a year.
While we were watching “Contagion”, I missed a phone call from a friend and ran into the bathroom to listen to the voicemail. It was comforting to hear her full of concern and anxiety. We should be freaking out, right?
I wanted to hear from more people.
The next day, I sent out an email to friends and family (and an Instagram story, below) asking people to call and leave their thoughts in a voicemail. I sent along prompts for them to respond to.
My friend and audio producer, Tina Antolini, was inspired by the idea and stepped in to help me spread the word and produce some short pieces, some of which ended up airing on KQED. Here’s a very brief excerpt:
Tina and I made a five episodes of Corona Voicemails from the multiple batches of voicemails we received from friends and strangers.
This month, I reached out to the folks who had called in 5 years ago and sent them a link to their raw unedited voicemail message.
I asked them to listen to their messages and call in once more to reflect on the five-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic.
First: here are the full episodes of Corona Voicemails first published in 2020, with my favorite moments highlighted.
Episode 1: Social Distancing is Strange
Colin: I work out to have a body that impresses people, not necessarily for my own health. I think that’s secondary. Not having that impetus, the ability to go out with a sleeveless shirt and have people look at my arms and compliment me on my physique, makes me less compelled to work out.
Amelia: I don’t like people in general, so I stay away from them. I never touch door knobs, I never have. People are gross. If you’re hot, that’s different. But you can’t even touch the hot people anymore, so that’s a problem.
Episode 2: So Many Eggs
Adam: I immediately went out and bought a lot of weed. I can live without weed, but if i’m going to be stuck at home without work for three weeks with roommates, I want a fair amount of weed.
Courtney: This is the one time I can finally stop teasing my dad for stockpiling items from Costco and take advantage of the fact that he has multiple years worth of paper products in the basement. I might need to go there to get toilet paper, honestly. I got three roles left. Why are people hoarding toilet paper when this is a respiratory illness?
Episode 3: Pandemic Fantasies and Positivity
Amelia: How do I stay positive? Keep on a rockin’. Look, if you get sick, you get sick. You die, you die. You live you live. That’s the way.
Episode 4: I Am So So So Horny
Youngmi: I literally just wanna ask one of my friends to come over and just lay down on top of me. We can wear masks. Like not even sex, I just wanna feel the weight of a man’s body. Now I’ll look through Instagram and I’ll see pictures of my friends who I don’t really find attractive. Now I’m just like, why didn’t I ever notice that Brandon is hot?
Lowe: I’m looking forward to going to restaurants honestly, like I know this is about sex and apps, but I’m like truly looking forward to sitting on a patio and sharing someone’s cigarette and being close to them and hugging them goodbye. My longing has become so much more elementary. Yeah, I’m horny, but that doesn’t feel like the want anymore. I just want like, a hug. And I want to hold someone’s hand. So that feels like the most clear desire.
Episode 5: Here’s to the Moms and Dads
Rosanne: … She had arranged with the people who live across the creek from us to have a surprise delivered for her dad, and could we go into the living room and look out the window? What happened was she had worked all day as a physician, driven to Lakewood, parked in our driveway, sneaked around the house and came around to the window and tapped on the window to say happy birthday to her dad.
It was so uplifting to see her face and it turns out we went around to the other part of the house and brought a little cafe table out and she sat about eight feet from us, and then brought the birthday cake out, lit the candles and sang happy birthday.
There are some good things that happen when we’re forced to interrupt our normal way of living and seeing and being.
What a Diff'rence Five Years Makes…
Julie in Austin, TX
Julie was a few months shy of her due date for her second child in March 2020. Her experience of that first month was very different from most people as she was getting ready to visit the hospital to give birth.
She left voicemails just before and just after his birth in mid-April.
March 2020
JULIE: Hey, it's Julie, your cousin Julie, in Austin, Texas. Well I am pregnant and I'm due April 17th. So I started worrying the minute I saw the reports coming out from Wuhan. So that was mid January. And I'm just, you know, I'm concerned for everybody. And I am worried about myself because I will be going to a hospital in three to four weeks, and I really hope that there are healthy doctors and nurses there to take care of me. So, you know, that's adding a level of stress to the whole thing.
March 2025
JULIE: I do find I'm a little obsessed with our lack of collective reflection upon the very traumatic experience that we all had during the Coronavirus Pandemic. It's so rare that we collectively experience something. It's not like the pandemic happened and now it's over. It really changed us as a society, as a world, and I think a lot of things that are happening are a reaction to that. To think that we would be out of it five years later would be pretty naive. I think continuing to explore the pandemic and the trauma of it and how it is still really impacting us is a very necessary and noble thing to do.
Here’s how I think about it. So I was, a victim of a violent crime. It was a ex-boyfriend. I had to fight for my life. Afterwards, my behavior was really erratic and unpredictable. because I was just still kind of living in it. A little while later, unfortunately, my stepdad was also a victim of a violent crime. He was attacked by protestors on the street, and he also was very erratic and hyper-vigilant after that happened for a long time. At least a year.
I think about that. Okay. We were traumatized as a world, as a society. And we're being erratic. We're being crazy and being erratic! It's not that weird if that's what's happening. Like Trump is not that weird. You know, people just want a daddy who's gonna strong arm and control and take care of business, because they were out of control for a long time. So that is appealing to them.
When I go to that mindset and I think about how traumatized we are, and I listen back to the recordings and I can hear how freaked out I was… that makes me have a lot of empathy.
Walt in Marblehead, MA
Walt is my dad’s former co-worker and a genuine nice guy. I had been in touch with him just before the pandemic because he was involved in an audio gift I made for my parents 50th wedding anniversary. In March of 2020, I was curious how he was doing so I invited him to call in.
March 2020
WALT: Oh. Hi. Uh. My name's Walter Horan. I'm, uh, two months away from my 80th birthday, and I am retired. The past few days, we have been out to our supermarket where it looks like panic. People are buying up everything. There was no meat. There was no vegetables. And there were no paper products! I don't know if people are hoarding them or if they're just plain panicked.
And oh, a big thing is we no longer attend the Catholic mass. They're not holding it and we stopped the week before and not attending anyway.
So I'll wrap it up. It's Walter Horan, uh, signing off. Thank you.
March 2025
WALT: Five years later, I'm 85 years old now.
As far as COVID goes, it's behind us I hope. And thanks to the vaccine, I think it's saved a lot of lives. Even though I think we lost a million people. No one close to me died, and we did follow Dr. Fauci's advice.
The greatest psychological damage was done to school children, from first grade all the way up to high school. I think they missed a critical year or two of their social development. And I think that be a long range problem.
But now the country faces a much more serious damage from that foolish president who denied science and he's once again in power and I think that's on my mind and it should be on the mind of everybody. His attack on trans people is bothering me personally because I am trans-adjacent. Yeah, I could go on. I mean, the way he wanted to redevelop Gaza and put in hotels, the guy is just a- it's just a real bother for especially somebody as old as me.
Darby & Lio, Washington DC
Darby is an old friend from college. Her son Lio was 9 when the pandemic started.
March 2020
DARBY: What is your name?
LIO: Lio.
DARBY: And your age?
LIO: Nine.
DARBY: Your occupation?
LIO: Student?
DARBY: Mm-hmm. And where do you live?
LIO: Private information.
DARBY: I'm Darby, uh, Lio's mom. And we live, or, I am 41. I work for a local elected official, and I live in Washington, DC. Lio, when did you start getting worried about the coronavirus?
LIO: I didn't really get worried, but like my friend Jacob, well he's not technically my friend 'cause he believes me sometimes, but he got like super worried. He was just like wearing gloves and a mask like every day.
DARBY: Oh wow. That was last week. Yeah. Before then?
LIO: Two weeks ago.
DARBY: Two weeks ago. Wow. Alright. This is a big one. How has your life changed in the last week?
LIO: My life? Um, including Coronavirus or just like school?
DARBY: Well, both, all of it.
LIO: Well, it's changed in the past week because like Luke was like nice to me finally, but then he just, like, after I didn't do anything, he just started ignoring me again. Mm-hmm. It's frustrating. It was really annoying.
DARBY: And how about with Coronavirus? What is, how has life changed?
LIO: Well, life has changed because you can't go anywhere without hearing something saying Coronavirus. Or COVID-19.
DARBY: And your school has been canceled.
LIO: Yeah.
DARBY: What's been, uh, what has been your, your experience with social distancing so far?
LIO: It's been hard because like even if I see like one of my best friends on the street, I can't get closer than six feet to them.
DARBY: Yeah. That's really hard. I miss my friends. I wanna see them and hang out with them.
LIO: Mm-hmm.
March 2025
DARBY: What’s it like to think back to that time?
LIO: I don't think it really affected me that much. I dunno, maybe I'm wrong or I just don't remember, but that's just my view on it.
DARBY: I found it really interesting to listen back to how things were that first week and my reflections and how things were different than we thought they would be, or similar. I'd kind of forgotten about how empty the streets were and that was something we commented on.
I’m glad, like listening to it. I was happy to have that recording and be to revisit it. Did you have any thoughts? Are you glad to hear it? Did you not care?
LIO: I don't really care.
DARBY: Is it painful or useful to reflect on that time in your life?
LIO: Not really. It wasn't really pivotal.
DARBY: It doesn't feel that important now?
LIO: No.
DARBY: You were nine at the time, so COVID and the impact of it has been present in your life for about a third of your life.
LIO: Yeah.
DARBY. 30%.
LIO: Mm-hmm.
DARBY: So maybe it almost feels like normal to you.
LIO: Yeah.
DARBY: I like reflecting on it. Um, it was painful actually to think about— I mentioned some people I was worried about, including some people who did die from COVID. From complications, particularly from having HIV and being older and not having good resources and support. So that did make me sad to think about them. And then I think it's good to reflect back and think on those times.
For you personally, are there any impacts from the pandemic or from the lockdown months that you still feel today?
LIO: No, no. Nothing.
DARBY: I think.. you might not be noticing it, but I think there are.
LIO: Like what?
DARBY: You might feel differently about school if it hadn't happened. Uh, it also lead to you being online a lot more and on screens a lot more. Not that that's a good or a bad thing, I just think that's a big change in your life from that time.
LIO: I don't think so.
DARBY: You don't think so?
LIO: Mm-hmm.
DARBY: What I struggle with is, I still have a hard time going out to things with crowds. I always wear a mask, but I think that's part of it is— I often feel weird talking to people. It's hard to talk to people in like a loud bar when you have a mask on. I don't feel like I know people as much as I used to. So I feel like I'm still learning how to kind of… socialize in a way, in those kind of spaces, bars and clubs.
How do you think your life would be different now if COVID hadn't happened?
LIO: Probably the same.
DARBY: Really?
LIO: Mmmm….
DARBY: Any last words or thoughts as we reflect on this five year anniversary?
LIO: I mean I’m also… just a teenager. And teenagers don't talk.
DARBY: [laughs]
LIO: I don't care about anything.
