A Year In: Looking Back on Our Pandemic Adventure

Who buys a place, takes a cross country trip, moves into it sans furniture, and starts a whole new life in the middle of a pandemic? We do, that's who!

We left Beijing on January 28th, anticipating a two week break before we’d be allowed back at school, assuming the COVID crisis would be over by then. Oh, the naivety! Needless to say, we haven’t made it back yet and see no evidence that we will any time soon, nearly six months later.

We have finally landed at a longer-term hitching post. After two and a half months in Thailand and the same amount of time in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Northern California, we have trekked across the country in our new-to-us 2003 Toyota Avalon and taken possession of a condo in Madison, Wisconsin, Don’s hometown.

About six weeks ago, on one of our evening walks around our hilly and deer-filled rural neighborhood outside of Placerville, California, we revisited the circuitous, never-ending conversation that many internationally employed, displaced people are having: where do we go next? The conversations about when will we finally get to go back to Beijing, what our jobs are going to look like next year and everything related to our lives back in Asia always end in speculation and we had largely dropped even talking about these what-ifs.

So, with summer upon us and wondering how we would keep occupied once our jobs wound down and the girls weren’t endlessly busy with their schoolwork, we allowed ourselves to explore possibilities on one of our evening hikes.

Our BC (Before Corona) plan for the summer had been to spend a big chunk of it in Madison, possibly renting an Airbnb, with Charlotte having the opportunity to get both her driver’s license and her lifeguarding certification, and the rest of us just relishing family and friends and biking and kayaking and drinking beer and eating cheese. A reunion was in the works for all the McMahans – a convergence on Madison in late June, just as we were winding up our school year abroad.

Alas, that plan was struck off the calendar many months ago, but we continued to wonder if Madison might be a place we could call home until our callback to Beijing. But the money! So many of our colleagues have spent exorbitant amount of money since being exiled from China. Those who have been fortunate enough to have gracious family or friends to stay with have lost less money but perhaps more of their minds.

So what if, we thought, we could find ourselves a little apartment to buy? After more than 20 years of living abroad together, Don and I were tired of couch surfing summer after summer. Was it time to grow up and find a little place of our own? (We do have a home on Vancouver Island that we will eventually retire to, but we are letting a renter pay our mortgage until the time comes.) Well, the stars aligned almost as soon as they came out that very evening, and within days we had found our modest little ‘covid condo,’ put in an offer and had it accepted. A few weeks later, school was out for the year, and with a week-long stop in Seattle to see my sister, an across-the-ditch border visit with my dad and brother and a pedal-to-the-metal trip across the country (with stops in Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore and the Black Hills), we find ourselves slowly settling into our new life here in Madison.

I’m still a little bit confused waking up in the morning and remembering that we live in the Midwest now. There is some cognitive dissonance since we are living in a modest apartment where we feel a bit like college kids: collecting thrift store furniture, sleeping on an inflatable mattress and hanging our clothes out to dry on the community drying rack outside. The big difference between those days and now is we are 55 and 60 years old, and have two teenagers along for the ride!

I am presently sitting on our still-unfurnished balcony with a lone $2.95 plastic lawn chair that I bought from Goodwill a few days ago. Soon this place will be a haven, once we have plants and herbs a grill and a table and chairs. I can picture it perfectly. Even without the amenities, however, my view is of green grass and tall leafy trees. We are in the city, but the property is so set back you’d never know it. There is no traffic to be heard. We are a two-minute walk from Lake Monona, one of the lakes on the Isthmus of Madison, and we are surrounded by parks. The governor’s mansion is just a short walk from our house. A plump little bright red cardinal shows up nearly every time I go out on the balcony, and I swear it’s my mama. There are squirrels scampering branch to branch and little baby rabbits everywhere.

For the paradisiacal landscape, there is A LOT that needs doing in our condo. The kitchen appliances are on their way out – there is no light in the refrigerator and it drips steadily, the dryer shuddered to a stop yesterday and the oven has a decade’s worth of grease in and around it. Don is a dreamer, though, and has big plans for kitchen improvements, carpet removal and the like.

Yup, our not-quite 900 square foot covid condo is in need of some serious fixing up. That said, we are seriously happy here. It’s our new home for the foreseeable future until we can return to Beijing, and will be our summer bolt hole for years to come. All of our expatriate friends will understand the complexities of rocking up to various (and generous!) relatives and friends’ houses over the summers, having to carefully calibrate the amount of time gracious hosts can deal with various impositions before it’s time to move on and unpack and recalibrate all over again. Our 1982 Toyota campervan is too small for the four of us to coexist now that the girls are teenagers (This apartment is almost too small for spoiled North American standards, though most Europeans would find it highly manageable and our Hong Kong friends would celebrate it as a mansion.) For me, my main complaint is the one bathroom shared by three other folks who all require their ablutions at the same times of day that I need mine. I also need my “Leah-space” but the balcony will soon become that nest, at least until the cold sets in. Let’s hope we’ve found our way back to Beijing by then.

May I reiterate how truly blessed I feel despite the modesty of this cozy little place filled with moldering carpet and a tub that scares the bejezus out of me? We are can-do people who love a good challenge. Within the course of a week we have manifested bunk beds for the girls, a dining room table with four five-dollar Mission style chairs, two top-of-the-line love seats (even if they are upholstered with old-lady flowers), and a plethora of other necessities. One forgets that when starting out with nothing, that it takes time to realize and accumulate what one needs: pots, utensils, salt, pepper, lamps, shower curtains, hangers, a can opener – it is a list that is both added to and struck off daily. Our thrifting skills are becoming honed.

Between our buddy Eydie and our Madison sister Ellen, we are set with mugs and coffee tables and dishes and towels and blow up beds and sheets and pillows. It’s been like moving into a dorm with roommates we already know. At least there’s no getting-to-know you phase. It’s straight to the “Get the hell out of the bathroom,” and “Give me some space” phase, niceties not required. Of course, we’ve been living in hotel rooms and smaller spaces than this for chunks of this six-month corona working vacation so this is not new to us. We are old hands at being together 24/7 in small spaces. The fact that we have moved into the non-transient part of our journey and the last place we will live before we eventually head back to Beijing feels like a gift beyond measure.

So, long story short: we’re home. For now.

Peeing on the Train

 It appears after a long day of waiting around for something to happen, I’ve finally gotten my wish. Our train departure back to Beijing was early afternoon and the day was drizzly and chilly so we had a late breakfast, hung out in our rooms and the cozy little library room on our attic floor of the hostel and then met up again for lunch in the dining room – also an agreeable hangout spot, even though plates came in paper bags, cutlery needed to be requested and the coffee was instant.

We got to the train station in plenty of time but found ourselves in the wrong part of the station so even though we had already gone through a security check we needed to do it all over again. On top of that, before boarding our train, each piece of our luggage was subject to a rather thorough search, including the opening of our toiletry bags and a rifling through of all our personal objects, including underwear. 

 

Emily had her hand sanitizer confiscated, the ultimate irony, since there is no soap available in the train toilets. Fortunately, mine was not found. Most certainly, people were left behind because the train departed some minutes early and there were many people behind us in the queue, having their personal effects strewn about. I’m not sure what all the security is about, but the Capitol of China always receives special deference and rules. It’s inscrutable. Nobody ever knows why. At least foreigners don’t.

 

Upon finding our seats, we found an elderly gentleman sprawled across the two of ours, gnarled hands with a wooden bauble bracelet on the left, clinging to a rather large stick. His mask was (and has remained) under his chin because he alternates between cackling apropos of nobody and spitting loudly into a plastic container, where he appears to be collecting his throat juices. He summons the sputum from the deepest spasms of his throat and horks it out with a noise that matches a camel in heat and that would have offended the deepest of sensibilities pre COVID, but now provides terror for those around him. 

 

We showed him our tickets and he only laughed, waving us toward the rest of the car, which we were happy to avail ourselves of. He has a rolly, metal structure, the kind used for carrying groceries as his suitcase of sorts. He has multiple bags and water bottles, a red fold-up stool, and a scarf all bungy-corded to it. It was perched beside him, blocking our way. After a lengthy discussion with the train attendant, we removed ourselves and sat several seats away until the train started filling up at other station stops and we were forced to return to our original seats. He had since moved across from our seats and I can see him perched on the edge of his seat, blue unshod sock on the seat beside him, his hands clasped around his knee. He’s wearing a camoflauge baseball cap and all-around, he looks rather well-groomed and dressed considering the sounds emanating from him at regular intervals. I’m guessing he has some dementia or perhaps mental illness, and I would find him quite enjoyable because he’s fairly jovial and spunky. It's just the regular sputum spewing.

Our fellow passenger with spittoon, stick and luggage

At the last stop I decided to brave the bathroom. I’m never sure what to do in a Chinese bathroom with a western toilet. Almost always the seats are left up because people here are used to hovering over seats, probably because squat toilets are normal here. I’ve taken to not putting the toilet seat down either because I’d rather hover than sit on a dirty seat anyway. That said, it’s different in a unisex bathroom that has been used a myriad of times before I make my entrance.

 

So suffice it to say, the bathroom is dirty, the toilet seat is up, the rim of the toilet is riddled with urine as is the floor. But I am prepared. I am wearing my mask so as to smell nothing and because, well, COVID. I have brought in my own toilet paper because even when facilities do provide toilet paper, they run out quickly. I also have my non-confiscated hand sanitizer.

 

Apologies for the forthcoming details, but its’ not a story without them. I hover over the seat, making sure I am positioned low enough (because I’ve made that mistake before), and I begin my stream. Just as I’ve started, the train lurches and I feel wetness. On my pants? My underwear? I can’t tell. I gently reposition and finish the job, hoping I’ve only imagined this not-new-to-me trauma.

 

No, unlucky again. It’s my underwear. It’s soaked. I had neglected to pull it down far enough (because I didn’t want it touching the toilet bowl, which was shimmered with pee) and the lurch had caused me to miss the toilet bowl aim and soaked through my panties instead. Oh, lord. 

 

I sussed out the situation, still hovering, I sighed and pulled up my underwear, but quickly realized they were wet enough to saturate the pants I was wearing, the offending aroma would also be all around me and my fellow passengers, and I would be in an uncomfortably wet pool for the remaining two plus hours and then a taxi ride home.

 

Normally, I would have thrown out the underwear and let it go, but it’s a great, quick-dry pair (but not quick enough!) that I am rather fond of. Fortunately, I had just enough toilet paper left to wrap up the panties. But first, I had to take them off.

 

The train, by this time, was at full speed, and I was in a snug toilet  facility with people waiting outside to get in. Already two times people had attempted to open the door, even with the sign clearing showing it is in use. 

 

Okay, you can do it, I told myself. One pant leg at a time. I wrestled one leg off while balancing on the other Birkenstocked foot. Then I pulled off the one side of the underwear. Easy enough. I was breathing heavily, and my balance was faltering. I leaned my head into the corner of the wall as I attempted to slither out of one side of the wet panties. 

 

One leg accomplished. Almost. First, I had to re-put on that pant leg before I could tackle the next. Somehow I had turned it inside out in my ministrations so with full weight of my body on my head in the corner, I right sided the pant leg and leveraged it back onto my leg.

 

On to the next side. Leg off. Final side of underwear off. Pant let back on. Done and dusted. I wrapped the underwear in the remaining toilet paper, the package looking like one of those giant winged period pads women wear at night and wrap in copious amounts of toilet paper to disguise in the bin.

 

So out I came, as discreetly as I could and slunk back to my seat, sliding my sodden underwear into my backpack alongside my iPad and jean jacket.

A view of the toilet and our friend's luggage

The spitting man across from me gave me a sprightly smile as I commandeered myself into my seat and dear Don got to hear yet another story of Leah peeing her pants. 

Morning Observations From My Balcony in Tsing Tao

I am sitting on a little balcony at our hostel, which used to be a church, overlooking the city of Qing Dao. It’s a pretty, cobbled view, especially for China. Qing Dao was a German concession early in the last century and it’s where the beer comes from! People can buy beer in plastic bags here: you see them walking around with sloshing bags of yellow everywhere! 

From my view here, the tiled rooftops with cement chimneys topple intrepidly forward to the higher apartments, which then ends at the sea. It’s pretty, though in a ragtag kind of way. Restoration has not been a priority in this quaint little European town sitting on the Northern sea of China, but then neither has destruction.

 

It’s quiet, too, at least compared to Beijing. Now, at 8:48, I hear buses in the distance, I am just now hearing a plane, there are a few cars backing up with that incessant beep that accompanies reverse and some clattering of boards or some sort of manual labor going on. And now a motorcycle. Now a honk. But not much considering I am in the middle of a country of a billion and a half people.

 

We woke up this morning to no new texts from our unwell Charlotte who stayed back in Beijing to take an extra week of classes to prepare for her senior essay, meaning she slept through the feverish night and hopefully she is on the back end of whatever is getting her. We also woke up to news in the NYT that the Chinese vaccines are much less effective than all the others worldwide with, perhaps the exception of the Russian Sputnik. The vaccine we received, Sinovac, was also called out to be 20% less effective than the other vaccine available here, Sinopharm. So there you have it. We are somewhat protected, but a lot less safe than we thought we were. Ugh.

 

Not knowing is often so much better than knowing, even if it kills you sooner. Ha! I just think of all the time I have spent both reading and prognosticating/worrying about news, and I wonder if I couldn’t have written a bestseller during that Trumpian time instead. Certainly, I could have been much happier, and not much in my actual life would have changed, not knowing. That’s the thing. I know I am meant to be a global citizen and informed and all that, but why exactly? I actually feel that I would likely be living a purer, more holistic life if I did not have all the knowledge of the world banging at my doorstep and begging me to let it in, which I have been prone to do. And still it calls. “Look at how everything is going to hell! You can’t do anything about it, but come and absorb all the mayhem, death, destruction, evil and despondency! It’s free for the looking! Really! It’ll make you a better person!”

Really now? I fear I have done myself a great disservice and lost much time in the pursuit of knowledge and staying current. On top of my writing, this summer I wish to read voraciously – fiction, beautiful fiction that tumbles me around in the warmth of its characters and treats me to adventures and experiences and emotions that I wouldn’t have otherwise. I want to be titillated by words and swept to faraway places sans plane rides and masks.

 

The church bells (in China!) just rang nine times and I went to knock on the door of our daughter and her friend to wake them up. It’s time to commence a day that will begin with breakfast and going to the beer factory!

 

On the way back to my writing aerie, through the little sitting area, I saw Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit and Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections. I’m not the only one who loves to read tomes: endless description of minutiae, but somehow all beautifully rendered, even in it’s all misery and diurnal ramblings. When I saw Franzen’s book, I actually thought, “Oh, I wish I hadn’t already read it so I could enjoy it for the first time.” It’s one of my all-time favorite novels even though nothing of note occurs in it that I can recall. 

 

So the keyboard is growing hot as am I so I will probably cease my ramble-write soon and head down to breakfast. I have a Kindle full of books on my phone. There will be no excuse to not lose myself in the actual joy of this trip or on another page-turning one if I need a break from present reality.

 

A dove has just alit on a tar-paper-used-to-be-tiled roof in front of me. It is strutting and now pecking at its body, fluttering a bit, flailing its tail. Now walking again, each step an orchestration, A wing lift and a flight down to a lower ledge. And off it goes, with a soft whiffle.

 

Close observation might just be my ticket to peace. Now I hear cooing, full throated, right from the breast of a bird. And I am noticing how birds swoop, but tend not to fly far. From roof top to roof top. That said, one just flew farther afield than I can now see so perhaps this is not always so. And one just flew directly over my head as I was writing this last sentence. I noticed only because of the shadow that fell on my typing hands. How lovely. Today I will watch and listen to the birds. They will be the touchstone and meditation for my day.