dispatch from quarantine hotel
I will not miss you, three-tentacled, wavy, ship-like IMAX theater construction.
It’s the last night of me and my daughter’s two-week hotel quarantine in Sydney. It has reminded me of her newborn phase. ‘The longest, shortest time’ people call it. The days can feel endless and monotonous, there is nowhere to go and nothing to do but take care of a child. You’re in a tired blur for a while, complete with 3am wake ups and the jet-lag sads which can feel hormonal. People deliver care packages and there is a sense that you are supported, but no one can do the heavy-lifting for you. You question whether you’ve made a huge mistake but then you settle into a rhythm and think “this is nice”. I even take her into the shower with me like when she was a baby, but this time it’s because the 23rd floor windows are easy to reach and open.
We talk to John when we wake up and when he goes to bed. We rotate the same three ‘soft clothes’ each and do laundry every few days. I make coffee, then I wash the plunger. Play School is on at 9am then we do puzzles. A daily routine naturally formed. We paint with shaving foam & food coloring in the bath, we make forts and we craft. There’s play-doh everywhere. Isha uses the individual sugar and coffee packets to “cook” and we use window markers to draw on any glass surface we can find. I don’t normally do stuff like this at home, more of a “how about a book” parent.
There are knocks on the door from hotel staff about 3-4 times a day bringing us food and other deliveries but we never see or speak to them. My friend Jess delivered a bunch of beautiful Australian wild flowers "Nature. X" she said. My parents house (normally my first stop) looks out on to bushland. The things that help me place myself, like gum trees and comically loud bird sounds, were missing. What eventually made me feel at home was food. My Mum and friend Kate delivered their home-cooking (highly recommend Nourishing Club). I ordered dishes from local places like Pad Kee Mao from Spice I Am, my go-to comfort pasta for years from Italian Bowl, curry from Chat Thai, El Jannah’s Chicken with garlic sauce and chips (and chicken salt!!!), even a Guzman fish burrito. I follow an Australian chef and realize his recipe posts correlate with Australian dinnertime duh. I usually see them when I wake up and the last thing I feel like eating is uni sashimi. There’s a chunk of time in the evenings when no one in America is on social media or tweeting and it feels so relaxing and pleasant. This feels like a useful sign to myself but I'll just ignore it.
The only two people we’ve seen are the nurses who did our COVID tests on day 2 and day 10. Any time I felt slightly off or a tickle in my throat or a sneezing attack (symptoms of jet-lag or being in near-constant air conditioning), I would feel sick with stress. I pictured myself telling people *Valerie Cherish voice* “Well, I got it!” and being shipped off to never-ending quarantine at one of the ‘health hotels’- which makes them sound like a fancy rehab. We get a mental health check-in phone calls daily, "We're fine!" I announce too-brightly, as if sounding bummed on the phone could be used against us to tack on some extra days to our stay.
We have endless hand sanitizer and disinfectant from the plane part of the trip but I remember we don’t need to wipe down stuff coming in because we are the potential contagion. On our first Friday night in here, I could feel the energy and movement of the city- one not engulfed in a deadly pandemic. We could hear the gecko-with-a-lightsaber sound of the pedestrian crossing from up here. People would be wrapping up their work days, maybe heading to drinks or dinner inside restaurants, maybe going to the movies or gathering in homes. Not masked and not 6 ft apart. It felt like an alternate reality- a simulation of a country handling it’s shit. Someone on the news said that on November 17 it was one year to the day since the first known case of COVID was detected in Wuhan. I watch cases in America rise at an alarming rate- 10 million then 11. There’s panic in Adelaide because of 17 cases. I had lost all perspective of what constituted “reasonable” numbers. I had just come from 11 million, but now the 17 cases were giving me pause.
I have to distract from how yuck the hotel feels with each day that passes, how it’s painted in fifty shades of grey, how it’s carpet feels very ‘lived in’ and how it immediately smells musty if the windows aren't open. Someone recommended we bring incense. I burn Astier de Villatte's 'Delhi' by refashioning a fresh orange into an incense holder. I only feel like watching Australian TV. I watched my friend Sophie’s brilliant, high-concept show ‘Reputation Rehab’. For some reason I watched the pilot of 'McLeod's Daughters' and it felt cozy and easy. I rewatched 'Love My Way' and got to that episode, which was just as devastating this time round even though I knew it was coming. I read Emma Cline's ‘Daddy’ and Lianne Moriarty's ‘The Husband’s Secret’ (a perfect book recommendation from Jessica Stanley). I caught up on articles I'd saved forever like Jennifer Egan's iconic profile of Jaime King/ young models from 1996 ‘James is a Girl’.
I got ‘Gorman eyes’. When my friends and I went to Bali many years ago, we coined the term 'Bali eyes'. The ‘Bali’ part is interchangeable. I define it as "The sensation of being in a new location which convinces you that you have a different personality or sense of style". It’s used in terms of purchasing unnecessary items that will not hold their value when you return home and they lose their context. In Bali, I bought three almost-identical silk kaftans which I almost never wore again. In here, I placed a big, brightly-patterned (is there any other kind?) Gorman order. Let's see what personality I land on when it arrives.
We woke up to the excitement of Biden winning (I would have loved to have been in L.A. that day) and watched the Kamala Harris speech. We celebrated Diwali. We saw 'Trump 2020' in skywriting over the CBD. I saw someone post about an email they received which began "I hope you are managing the trauma of the American experience". I thought about looked after I felt by the Australian Government. How seamlessly the Police, Defence Force and medical staff seemed to be working together towards this common goal of keeping the population protected. It wasn’t the Defence Force’s job to move my suitcases from the bus to the hotel to my room, but they were doing it. All in new roles working toward the greater good so that they could see their families for the holidays and keep their children in school and Australians could live and not die.
My version of 'Rear Window' is watching families in another quarantine hotel across from us at Meriton Suites on Sussex St. I wonder what day of quarantine they are on. I think of all the Australians stuck in limbo overseas after countless cancelled flights, wondering if they will make it home before the new year. I see the boys from a city college playing basketball on a patch of green in grey slacks, white shirts and ties during various school breaks. Throughout the day, we check to see if they’re playing ball. We also check to see if the Darling Harbor ferris wheel is turning. If the boys are playing and the ferris wheel is going, we do a little dance.
I’ve seen endless views of this city, but never this one. Still I can see signs of my life here. The yellow bus that goes to my parents house. The Woolworths where an ex and I would get off the train, get ingredients for that night's dinner then change train lines to get to Petersham. A 7/11 where I used to buy Camel Lights. The Town Hall steps that were always the city meeting spot in high school. I can see Galeries Victoria where I would love to go to Kinokuniya and get ramen after. The copper oxidized domes above the QVB. One day, we see dark grey clouds and strong gusts of wind and then it’s clear, blue skies and sun. Weather! I have missed you. In all, I count 4 Australian flags and 2 Australian Aboriginal flags. I was in Sydney this time last year but it’s never felt like this before. My eyes don’t usually glaze over hearing kids sing ‘We Are Australia’ on TV.
"Are we in Australia?" Isha asks every now and then. How to explain where we are. I don't want her to think this is 'Australia', I'm worried she'll never want to come back. I try to give her an idea of how long we have left, but I don’t think a three-year-old can grasp what 5 days means compared to 1 day or 14 days. I think about kids in detention centers with no window markers to cross off the days until departure. I think of the Biloela Tamil family. Their daughters (aged 3 & 5) who look not unlike Isha and who were both born in Australia, and have been detained on Christmas Island since 2018.
I sit outside at 2pm most days and have one glass of light, red wine. How lucky, I think, that the sun hits the balcony exactly when she naps.
dispatch from quarantine hotel
I loved this. Thanks for sharing. Your relationship with the IMAX wave building is so relatable. I have a weird new relationship with the Centrepoint Tower after staring at it for 14 days too. Such a ubiquitous silhouette which I'd never fixated on, always glanced past. Catching a glimpse of it now, from life outside the hotel room, it has become a poignant culmination of 2020 and the complicated journey home. xxx WELCOME HOME xxx