Neurons that fire together wire together. Things you do over and over again wear pathways in your brain. As a result, songs that I learned in preschool and sang to my daughter and now to my grandchildren are entrenched in my mind. As I sit to write this blog, one comes to mind: The Grand Old Duke of York. I will give you the lyrics from my head—they don’t match the actual ones I found when I looked online. (This is a family trait—my sister also sings songs we learned as children using words she figured out to fit that tune that isn’t necessarily the original lyrics).
“The Grand Old Duke of York, he had 10,000 men. He marched them halfway up the hill and halfway down again. And when you’re up, you’re up. And when you’re down, you’re down. But when you’re only halfway up, you’re neither up nor down.”
Right now I feel I’m in that halfway place. I was told in late March by the State Department to return to the United State or plan to stay in New Zealand indefinitely. Simultaneously, Air New Zealand announced that they were canceling flights to the United States from March 30-June 30. My original plan had been to stay in New Zealand until mid-May. Was it worthwhile to pay to stay in an Airbnb to be self-isolating? If I delayed, was I risking staying months beyond my original plan? How would that impact all the members of my family? How would that impact Exchange Family Center? If I left, would I be able to finish my project remotely? What would I face back in the US where the virus was not contained as well as in New Zealand?
After weighing the pros and cons, I made a decision. I would work from home in New Zealand March 23-27 and then try to complete my Axford Fellowship project during April remotely from Durham. When it was announced that New Zealand was going to be on Level 4 lockdown for four weeks, this reinforced my confidence in my decision—we would all be working remotely. I wrote an out of office message for my Oranga Tamariki email address, returned my Oranga Tamariki laptop and badge, packed up all the articles I’d need to bring home with me, left some thank you gifts at the Oranga Tamariki office and felt calmer because I had a plan. I would self-isolate with my daughter in our Wellington apartment and leave March 29th.
That calm feeling lasted for just a few days until I returned from a walk to the top of Mount Victoria to find multiple calls about a new restriction on domestic travel in New Zealand. My international flight left out of Auckland. Under the new rules, my flight to Auckland to connect with my international flight was considered non-essential travel. We would have to leave the next day for Auckland and stay in a hotel until my flight on Sunday. Instead of staying in our familiar environment with a stocked kitchen as we carefully packed up, we would be flinging things into suitcases in a rush and leaving the next day to figure out social isolation in a new space.
We wore masks and kept six feet away from everyone, except when we couldn’t during our airplane ride and bus ride to the hotel. We kept vigilantly wiping down every surface around us. And our new space ended up showing us a part of New Zealand we would otherwise have missed. We took walks along the coastal walkway to Ōtuataua Stonefields. We climbed up Mangere Mountain, a volcano. We ate the food we’d brought with from our apartment and then stopped in a convenience store and bought soup in a cup, cheese, crackers, and treats to supplement pricey room service. We sat in our hotel room and watched TV. The New Zealand government ran impressive advertisements about continuing to social isolate even though it was the weekend. I wondered if these walks we’d taken crossed the line between the allowable exercise and the forbidden tramping, as the Kiwis call hiking trips. And then we flew home.
Now I sit in my living room, working on my Axford Fellowship project. I email and Skype and gather information about how New Zealand is connecting families who show early signs of a need for support(s). I update my mentors about emerging themes and strategize about any next steps. Although my walks are now in Durham, my work is still in New Zealand. My Oranga Tamariki Evidence Centre colleagues are having their afternoon tea and doing trivia quizzes via Skype when I’m almost ready to go to sleep, but I pop on the computer to socialize with them. They worry that I am at risk from Covid 19 based on the spread of the virus in the US. I try to explain how things are so state-based here and how well North Carolina is protecting its people. But that’s very different from the nationally coordinated response they experience with a level system, regular updates, advertisements, infographics so that people know what to expect now and as things morph. Next week they will go down to Level 3, which might make it easier for me to set up interviews. I’m not sure what will happen here in response to Covid. I am here, but also still there—neither up nor down.