Call for Pandemic Diary Submissions: Your Covid-19 Stories
Storytelling in Times of Crisis
“Without air, our cells die. Without stories, our selves die.” (Neil Postman)
“A diary [or journal] can serve as a stimulant to feeling. It can remind the author, whether she is writing from prison or the warfront or a sickbed or—blessedly—from the safety and comfort of her own home, that she is alive.” (Katy Waldman on the value of private thoughts during a public pandemic)
Confined to our homes in different parts of the globe, where we share the same sentiments of fear and hope, the future looks and feels very uncertain at this point. Why write stories and share our experiences at a time like this? Writing can be deeply therapeutic as we draw from personal experiences to express our hopes, fears, and expectations. From the diary entries of Anne Frank to Samuel Pepy’s “A Journal of the Plague Year” in London (1665) and the proto-pandemic novel of Daniel Defoe (1722), many public records of historic moments serve to remind us how those before us experienced life in times of crisis. This is an act that portrays the value of storytelling, literature, and writing in times of uncertainty.
The Department of English Language and Literature at Istinye University has launched an entry page to create a record of what Istinye students and faculty are thinking, feeling, and observing from this corner of the world at this historic moment. We invite the community of Istinye to participate in a call for Pandemic Journal entries that will collect submissions by students and faculty from various backgrounds and disciplines. These word posts can be about personal observations and experiences regarding our current situation and future reflections of a changing world. Those who are interested may send their submissions to submissionsforleyla@gmail.com
For All Faculty (especially of Medicine): We also invite Istinye faculty to contribute their observations and stories in about 500-1,000-word posts. The stories from the members of the Faculty of Medicine are of special interest to us as healthcare workers and researchers take place on the front rows of this ‘battle’ against an unseen enemy. The stories of those in healthcare matter as narrative medicine enables patients and caregivers to voice their experience and improve the delivery of healthcare. Details and names in stories involving patients must be altered for privacy/ethical reasons.
You may choose to respond to the following prompts as guidance:
- If you are a healthcare professional, has the coronavirus altered the way you treat/view patients? If so, how?
- If you are not in the field of Medicine, has your perspective of healthcare workers changed? Do you feel significantly more empathetic towards them?
- Has this Pandemic changed the way you feel and think about yourself as a healthcare professional or educator?
- Has the coronavirus changed the way you look at life in general?
- What has helped/is helping you during this period in your life?
- How has your spiritual life, faith or religious practice helped you go through this difficult period in your life?
- What has particularly helped you cope in this time period?
For Students: You may choose to tell the story of how you are leading life during the coronavirus in writing in about 300-1,000 word posts (i.e. short personal narratives, poetry, personal essays) or mixed-media format (i.e. artwork such as drawings, comic strips, sketches, or photography).
You may choose to respond to the following prompts or use them as starting points:
- What are you reading/watching to help you cope during this time period? (you may recommend book/film reviews for your peers).
- How has art and literature especially helped you during this crisis?
- What does the Pandemic look like where you live/in your area?
- What stands out to you (i.e. common household objects now that you are confined home)?
- How have family or friends helped you during this difficult period? How have you reached out to them?
- In what ways are you using the internet/media now as opposed to before the Pandemic?
- Has the coronavirus changed the way you look at life in general? If so, how?
- What has helped/is helping you during this period in your life?
- How has your spiritual life, faith or religious practice helped you go through this difficult period in your life?
Important note: These submissions may be used for research purposes with the hopes of contributing to the growing body of literature on Covid-19. Of course, you will be notified beforehand and will have access to the completed research. We thank you for your valuable contributions.
Dr. Leyla Savsar
On behalf of the English Language and Literature Department at Istinye University
Entry #1
BEING A NURSE IN THE COVID-19 ERA
04.07.20
I used to have hope. When I look outside, look at the sky, I usually feel I can do anything in life. The birds, trees, stars, the sea connects me to life. But I don’t feel like that anymore. I feel like I took all the chances in life and nothing left. I’m 23 but I feel like 63. My thin legs don’t carry my burden anymore. What is my burden? My responsibilities. My responsibilities are my patients. Trying to hold a life when it’s hanging by on eyelids is hard. And doing it with other things at the same time is like carrying a time bomb. It’s impossible to breathe in these masks, see in these visors. I don’t know whom to care for or whom to heal. I left work an hour ago, barely arriving home. And people say they are bored at home...What a shame. Generally when I’m tired my legs shake. But for weeks it’s not like that. My whole body is trembling with fatigue. When I’m walking on the road maybe people think I’m drunk.
Because of anxiety and suffering we break the hearts of our colleagues. My nurse friends are highly worried like me. Our working hours are worse now. We can’t even sleep or eat when the whole world is dying in our hands. We can’t go home and hug our parents. Today, one of our doctors told me “You are witnessing history. Live it.” These days people in the news say that healthcare workers are superheroes. People clap us in their balconies every night. I don’t know if they are truly grateful or caught in the wave. They already knew how hard we’re working and bared their teeth. How many friends we lost trying to save the families of those ungrateful people? We lost count. But maybe we might have gained some more understanding ones. You win some, you lose some. I do have a superpower, indeed. I see the future. I see what we’ll have in next week or next month. I know the contagion stages. So it’s not hard to foresee that it might turn into a catastrophe. I wonder if this is a blessing in disguise. Is this a way of universe teaching humanity how to get themselves together? I’m angry at people. I’m angry at this era.
04.21.20
The streets are empty. Even though there are restrictions, the area I’m living in is generally not deserted. Because here is an area with a lot of hospitals and it’s near the metro. But today is different. We have dead silence. There is almost nobody on the entire road. Actually that’s what I was hoping for since the beginning, because the spreading of the virus is so fast and we have a whole community who don’t believe coronavirus. I can’t know myself right now that I’m not sad about a lockdown. Let me tell you about the İstanbul streets in lockdown. The streets, the city which they wrote poems for, they did battles for is now empty. Highways are null. The police doesn’t even ask me who I am cause they recognize my nurse ID card on my neck. They probably estimate that I’m a nurse or something even from afar. Otherwise who can go out in such situation?
As I was heading home, three ambulances and police cars passed by me swiftly. The sun was already gone. It was all dark and silent. I heard the TV sounds coming from neighbour’s window, all they talk was disease. Then, I waited in the traffic lights for a few seconds but there weren’t any cars. I just waited and listened to the sound of the beeping of the traffic lights for a while. Red, yellow, green... Lights changed but nobody was there except me. How bizzare, people used to push each other to cross over. It was like time had stopped or I was starring in a dystopic movie. Abandoned cars parked by the sidewalks were resting in peace, not polluting the air. Oh, the air... It’s really clear. It never smelled and looked this beautiful before, I swear. It’s not like İstanbul, but rather like pure village air.
05.25.20
Above were my previous thoughts; now more than one month passed after I wrote them. We nearly discharged all of the COVID-19+ patients. All around the world graphics which show the mortality seem to be getting better. But it’s still too early for us to relax since stil we didn’t eradicate the disease. At least I feel more relaxed. I don’t have that anxiety which was devouring me for so long. The sense of relief actually came when I saw the medicine sent from China and gave it to my patient and all the other procedures of course. But the irony hit my face. Chinese letters on the pills deeply impressed me. The infection might have started in P.R.C but I don’t blame them. The entire humanity is guilty. With science and ration, we can cure every bad things but still we deny their power and destroy nature and ourselves. Once my shift is ended and I was walking towards my home, I saw a tree with newly sprouted leaves in its body. I wanted to hug it and say sorry...
We were already antisocials of the 21st century, and this situation doesn’t make a huge difference for the youth. But elders and youngsters seem to go insane. They are trapped in their homes not knowing that the value of a book or a film might give them pleasure. Why can’t people get along with their own families, or even have a conversation with each other? I wish them to see me. I wish them to see me working. In the world in which human relations are forbidden, I’m confined with the ones who are the reason for the restrictions. There are invisible lines I must not cross, but I have to cross them.
I don’t have to, but at the same time, I am much obliged...
When I’m in dilemma, I say to myself this cliche; If not now, when? If not me, who?
I usually work night shifts and go to college in the morning. Now I have online classes and so many assignments, and I’m working day shifts as well. Sometimes I watch the online lessons during my lunch time at work or never. I don’t even know why I’m pushing myself so hard. I guess I like torturing myself without sleeping. Because at the times when I’m not sleeping, either I’m taking care of a patient or learning a beautiful work, or the life of an author or a poet, or I am learning a new culture of a society. Yes, my life is spent between poems and the lives of patients. As a literature student and a nurse at the same time, I tried to find relationships between literature and healthcare, ended up understanding they are the same thing in a way. Literature is an escape but it is the reality at the same time. Analyzing a poem and examining a patient is similar and not everyone understands the deeper meanings; symbols and symptoms. They both require patience, knowledge, and common sense. I wanted to live and leave a mark in this world. I still don’t know how.
I’m a dreamer in the nondreamers world. Is this the reason why I find this pandemic quite arcane? Knowing that most of the great works in literature written in the time of plague gives me hope, I guess. People still keep going out without masks and stay close to each other. How funny this virus got people so confused. We don’t know how to live in peace and get along, but we can’t stay apart either. It is in our nature as human beings because “no man is an island.”
See? We’re doomed to live in unity people!