Koi Fish and Questlove. Surviving the Early Days of the Pandemic.

Even in the darkest of times, light shines through

I walked over to the koi pond and peered in. There they were. Beautiful, plump fish swirled the water with their wide, feathery tails. I walked closer to the edge and two swam over to me. Red and white spotted, a giant golden one.

They poked their mouths out of the water and then dunked them back in. Other koi noticed me and they swam over too. I sat on a rock by the edge of the pond and watched them. They danced through the water, happily visiting me, before swimming off again.

I was in the middle of an outdoor shopping center, the center where I worked, and I was the only one in sight. It was 1:00 pm on a sunny day and I was on my lunch break. It was April 2020, and stay-at-home orders were in effect. The malls and freeways were empty.

The koi pond is normally busy, very busy. Parents bribe their kids with extra stops in the shopping center with the promise of visiting the koi pond. Kids line up next to the pond to watch the fish swim by, their marvelous colors on display.

On a typical day, I walk by the pond, dodging the families, without too much thought about the fish. On this day, I realized the fish had missed those kids. The fish did not know what was going on in the world, but they knew that there were no humans around. I sat with them for a bit before heading back to the store.

I felt seen by the fish and I hope they felt seen by me.

On March 10, 2020, my boss threw a surprise party for me in the back room of my store. I had been offered a spot in the company’s Senior Store Manager program. I was so excited! I would get to travel, partner with other District Managers, and help other stores.

Eight days later we closed the store because of COVID-19. We would be closed for three months.

I was offered a temp position in my store to process online orders for the time we remained closed. I would only work four days a week, but my hourly pay would remain the same.

I took it without hesitation.

Two of my other managers were offered the same position, based on their tenure with the company. So, three of us went into a store that was closed and shipped out orders to support our e-com business.

I felt grateful to still have a job, and I felt lucky that I got to leave the house. I could also work with two other people that I genuinely liked and trusted, and that made the days of packing orders kind of feel like summer camp. That’s the best way I can describe it.

We were doing busywork and the entire world felt like it may actually be on fire, but at least we got to see one another each day and talk about what was happening.

We created a lounge area at the back of the store with chairs spread 6 feet apart. We would take our breaks together and share Karen’s Going Wild videos. We wanted to see the worst behavior so that we could prepare ourselves for reopening.

Enforcing mask-wearing in a mostly white, affluent neighborhood was a daunting thought.

As the sun lowered in the sky, I exited my store with my two co-workers. We locked up and jumped in our cars, 5:30 sharp. I merged onto the mostly empty freeway and headed for home. Cars were zooming by — nothing like the gridlock that I was used to.

My commute to work is 25 miles. That’s about 30 minutes door to door. During the busy summer months, it could take me 90 minutes to get home. On this day, it took me 25 minutes.

No cops were on the roads and people would get in the fast lane and drive about 100 mph. I stuck to the slow lane and let everyone go by. Where did I have to be? We were in the middle of a lock-down because of a global pandemic; I had no plans.

I reached my front door, threw my keys on the kitchen counter, and washed my hands for 20 seconds. I changed clothes, took the dog for a walk, and met my husband back at home. He had already turned on Questlove, speakers turned up, and was nodding his head to the music while making dinner.

My husband works at a grocery store, and as everything shut down the floodgates opened in his industry. His co-workers panicked. A few of his leaders took a leave of absence. He was one of the few people in his department left to lead and care for his team as customers began to fully freak out.

He works the front end, so they were tasked with limiting the number of items that people bought. Only so many rolls of paper towels or a single pound of flour, those kinds of things.

Customers argued with him daily about what they should be able to buy. They also lied and tried to cheat. He explained that we needed to have enough for everybody. They didn’t care.

“What are you, the pasta police?”

That is an actual quote from one of his customers after he told him he couldn’t buy the 8 boxes of pasta he had in his cart; only 4 were allowed.

He eventually stopped explaining and just told them no. We both came home every day exhausted from the chaos and the worry. He had angry, panicky customers every day, and I was doing busywork and had a furloughed sales team to keep in the loop.

We were worried about our health, our parents, and the disastrous response of our government, but we had Questlove.

Questlove (also spelled ?uestlove) is a drummer and founding member of the band, The Roots. We have been fans of The Roots since the early ’90s. The Roots are also the house band for Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show. Questlove works as a DJ on the side. His knowledge of music is staggering.

As everything shut down, he hosted a DJ set nightly across social media platforms. We would come home and turn on Questlove immediately. We would make dinner, pour a glass of wine, talk about the day, check Twitter for more outrageous news, and listen to some amazing music.

Questlove would also tell stories about the artists he had met or worked with, and he played music until late every night.

It was our light.

It made us feel connected to other people around the world. It brought us joy and hope during a hard time. Questlove helped preserve our sanity. I marveled at how he could keep this up every night, and for so many nights straight, but he just did it with this sense of ease and lightness. All while raising money for different causes that needed help. It was remarkable. It gave me motivation every day, and it made me feel like we could all get through this together.

A year in, I look back and it feels like a hazy memory. It feels like an alternate universe. I see the light at the end of this tragic pandemic and with so much pain and loss I am grateful for those small moments that made me feel human and kept me from getting lost in a sea of despair.