Narrative Medicine, Writing

Writing Through COVID-19

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Like many people lucky enough to have a backyard during this time of pandemic, we’ve spent a lot of time working on the yard, creating space for the kids to run and play and take in the fresh air, get grounded in the earth. I’ve found this essential for myself as well, digging in the previously neglected raised beds, planting flowers and greens in the hope they will grow something new out of this time of desolation. I’m lost when it comes to gardening but, like many things during this season, have tried to embrace anything that offers potential for nourishment.

Usually for me that’s writing, taking pen to paper and letting myself discover what needs to be said. Lately though, I’ve been overwhelmed with ideas—for essays, for poems—but only fragments come out. I’m not sure if it’s the uncertainty of the time, or my life at this moment, or if it’s just there’s too much to write about, too much to process, too much to share. I’ve struggled to find creative space, both physically and emotionally.

Part of the backyard refresh, in addition to the basketball hoop, the dedicated fort-building trees, the shuffling of deck furniture, is a repurposing of a small shed. Cleared out of old bikes, shovels, cracked pots, and campfire wood, the whitewashed space now houses a seafoam writing desk and lilacs blooming at an opportune time. With this space, and the online offerings below, I find I’m emerging from a writing hibernation of sorts, finally having some urge to create.

During this time of pandemic, I’ve found so many generous spaces for writers to connect virtually. I’ve “met” with writers’ groups, both local friends well-known and those from all around the world. One thing I’m grateful for during this time is that many of the classes and gatherings I’ve longed to be a part of are now available via Zoom: Columbia University’s Narrative Medicine program has several offerings a week, Toronto’s Firefly Creative Writing has moved writing sessions online, Stanford’s Medicine and the Muse offers a weekly writing and sharing group that has been encouraging and approachable, Suleika Jaouad’s Isolation Journal email prompts have featured some of my favorite writers and thinkers.

I’m hoping to get back into a regular cadence of Narrative Medicine Monday posts and even Free Write Friday prompts, with a COVID-19 theme. But I’m also letting myself be fluid during this time, resting when I need to (anyone else find they just need naps in the middle of the afternoon no matter what the day holds?) and not demanding so much of myself—that I should be writing more or should be homeschooling in a certain way or should be innovating at work or should be anything other than what I need to be in this moment to move forward.

Here are some resources I’ve found that have provided writing community and encouragement to get pen to paper, finger to keyboard, soul to rest. Some are geared toward healthcare workers, but there are also opportunities for the general public looking for a creative space.

Be gentle with yourself, and those around you. May you find the space for rest and growth and the hope of creating something new.

The Isolation Journals: Author and speaker Suleika Jaouad will send you a daily thought and prompt from an inspiring writer, artist, person of note.

Firefly Creative Writing: Early morning (for us west coasters!) collective writing sessions, a prompt and 20 minutes to write together, to benefit small business rent relief.

Writing Medicine: Saturday morning time for healthcare workers and their families to write and share, led by Writer in Residence Laurel Braitman (who also has a wonderful TED talk on Storytelling and Writing) at Stanford’s Medicine and the Muse program.

Columbia Narrative Medicine: Virtual book club & narrative medicine writing sessions led by faculty and alums of the original program in the traditional style of close reading, discussion, writing, and sharing.

Hugo House Quarantine Write-in: One of many online offerings from this prolific Seattle writing community. Check out their classes, virtual happy hours, and other events too!

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Ramblings

Medicine and Mothering on the Front Lines of COVID-19

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Two weeks ago I picked my kindergartener up from after-school basketball on a routine weekday afternoon. He bounded up to me, backpack in hand and asked, “Mom, do you know about coronavirus?” His teachers had discussed the viral outbreak and the need for good hand-washing skills. My budding epidemiologist went on to explain how the virus spread from bats to another animal to a human to another human to even more humans and so on. I tucked him into bed that night, marveling at his teacher’s skill in stressing hygiene and explaining the novel virus to a group of 6-year-olds.

Of course now coronavirus, or COVID-19, is all anyone is talking about, reading about. Coronavirus has uprooted my personal and professional life. As a family medicine physician working in Seattle, and as a mom to three young children, COVID-19 has consumed my day-to-day activities and workplace. As a primary care clinician and parent at a U.S. epicenter of the outbreak, there is no other word for home or work right now than upheaval.

I am also a writer, a creator of art. But I have struggled to find the time and emotional space to articulate and explore all the layered questions this crisis has presented to me—as a physician, as a mother to young children, as a creative being in this world. Fragments of essays, lines of poems, pour out of me as I wake with anxiety in the middle of the night, as I run around a deserted Seattle park, as my children beg to gather with their friends, as I discharge a clinic patient who pauses as she exits the exam room: “Thank you for being a doctor.”

As a participant of Harvard Medical School’s inaugural Media & Medicine program, I’ve recently been trained in writing Op-Eds for the public, in discerning misinformation and disinformation in the media about healthcare issues, in thinking creatively about how we can use podcasting or plays or poems to tell stories that make a difference to important public health topics. My classmates and I, healthcare professionals from all over the world whose projects focus on varied themes from mental health to vulnerable populations, from physician burnout to cancer awareness, suddenly find ourselves in the middle of a pandemic, sharing stories from our respective locations worldwide.

My work right now, though, is focused here, on my community: the people I hold most dear and the place I grew up in, I trained in, I live. My colleagues and community are at the forefront of this pandemic. I feel the rising sense of fear, the wave of overwhelm, the steady thrum of kindness.

For now, I offer this. Anyone who attended medical school with me knows I like to make lists. I approach a seemingly insurmountable task by compiling, organizing, and splitting it up into manageable components. Over the last two weeks, as local healthcare systems faced rapidly changing recommendations, confusion about suggested protocols, differing messages on testing capability, questions about adequate protection and supplies, as schools closed and family schedules were upended, I gathered information. Here is my contribution, my list of reliable resources and information for the worried, weary, and hopeful among you.

Despite my own swirling anxieties, I’m grateful for the work I’m trained to do, in medicine and in the humanities. I’m thankful for my colleagues—every aspect of the health care team—who are committed to serving our community’s most vulnerable, and each other, through an uncertain time. I’m bolstered by the parents sharing resources and tips about how best to support our children through unprecedented upheaval. This, I know: we are distilled in a crisis to the best, or the worst, that is in us. May we cling to the best, stand firm in sound science, look to compassion and art that sustains our souls, and encourage others to do the same.

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