I shot up from my bed at 6 a.m.— after suddenly remembering a detail about contact tracing policy in my sleep. I rushed to my desk to jot it down. My notebook that laid open was filled with scribbled notes on PCR, antibody, and antigen tests, in addition to hand-drawn graphs illustrating the effects of COVID testing delays on contact tracing that I struggled to even comprehend. I stretched my sore limbs from working out early the morning before and looked down from my vast glass window in the new EVGR residence. The smoke from recent wildfires added an unusual dimension of solemnity to Stanford's campus, with Hoover Tower's majesty slightly softened in a misty gray hue.
This is the seventh month of quarantine and it is becoming alarmingly easy to surrender to a world of disease and desperation. "History will commiserate with the youth of your generation," I was so informed. The uncertainty that shrouds my generation exceeds that for the youth of 2009, and arguably of 1968 as well. It is futile indulging in my COVID-deprived fantasies: I could have been marveling at the sunset by Lake Léman in Geneva for my internship with the United Nations, or imagining the shape of a high draw to win the match at a golf tournament. Instead, I finished writing up recommendations for contact tracing and packed up a mask for the day.
It suddenly dawned upon me, as I prepared for the full day of research and golf practice ahead, how sheerly privileged I have been with this pandemic that has already taken nearly 900,000 lives.
My golf story started when the lockdown for SARS-CoV-1 in 2004, in Beijing, China introduced the sport into my life. The pandemic that disrupted an entire society exempted golf as a permissible activity, thereby irrevocably reshaping the temporality and spatiality of my world. Since the afternoon of May 2 sixteen years ago, my perception of time has been marked with anything as precise as getting up at 6:07 a.m. for training, or as abstract as preparing to peak in May for NCAA Nationals. Similarly, I have known quaint towns and vibrant metropolises across the globe, but only for their airports and golf courses. Golf has become so ingrained in my life, that I felt entitled to the excitement, the endeavor, and the pursuit of excellence in the challenging game—naturally, until 2020 when SARS-CoV-2 shook the world.
Dr. Condoleezza Rice has reiterated that "your education is not an entitlement but a privilege." While I constantly reminded myself of how fortunate I am to receive a Stanford education, it took a global pandemic for me to remember that everything associated with golf, analogous to my education, was a privilege that could be stripped from me at any moment. Everything I adored and dreaded about golf--all the hitting sessions off purely mowed Bentgrass, late-night flashlight-facilitated putting drills, and red-eye flights back to campus followed by early morning classes--could be taken away without notice. It only took one encounter with a dutiful public safety officer at our varsity golf training complex for me to realize: to be able to play golf is an absolute privilege, and to be able to play on the Stanford Women's Golf team was exceedingly more so. In a public health crisis where we walk the fine line of maintaining safety while safeguarding civil liberties, trying to hit a few six irons was deemed luxurious at best. With the compounded effects of being unable to practice per county guidelines, and uncertain of additionally granted eligibility on the team, I realized fully and deeply the threat of losing my privilege of playing golf.
One night, in the early stages of quarantine, I looked up from the Word document on my screen at nearly 6pm. I had neither moved for an entire day nor had truly interacted with anyone for multiple. In that vulnerable moment of intense solitude, I allowed emotions of frustration and helplessness to overwhelm me. I decided to go for a walk—It was sweltering hot outside, and even seeing vintage posters of Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn by a closed Stanford Theatre failed to delight me. This must be the most depressing moment I have known, I thought. Suddenly, an honest voice in my mind whispered "You're lying. You have certainly felt worse in the past."—it did not take much effort to remember one of the first tournaments I played in after a dreadful ACL injury in my left knee in 2015. While representing the Chinese National Team, I blocked all of my iron shots to the right, could not make a single putt, and shot a score that makes me cringe even five years later today. That was viscerally so much more painful. At least, deep in the COVID-19 lockdown, I was still confident that I could sneak out onto the golf course and hit my iron shots straight. Upon that thought, I burst out laughing on the dimly lit University Avenue, and never quite slipped into the trap of self-misery again. Little did I know how grateful I could be for that one terrible round of golf.
When I received the news of our facility's reopening and my secured spot on the team again in 2020-2021 as a fifth year athlete and second-year master's student, I decided without hesitation to hold on to the precious privilege that I once thought I had lost. Evidently, I eagerly hoped for another chance at winning the NCAA Championship with my team after falling just short in the past few years—in particular, the quarterfinal match with Duke in 2019 where, following my loss at 9 p.m. in the darkness after 24 grueling holes, our season ended. Even now, I can still feel the sting in my nose and tears welling up in my eyes as my opponent's ball rolled into the hole. Initially, COVID had deprived me of that ambition, as a golf career that started because of a pandemic was threatened to end by another one, anticlimactically yet fittingly so. In an incredible turn of events, my teammates and I will have the chance to build upon a spark of hope that a potential spring season in 2021 has reignited.
As importantly, the lockdown has proved to me the fluidity of temporality and the permeance of spatiality, as I earnestly needed to relive a regimented schedule in non-confining physical surroundings. In these months after March that seamlessly blended altogether, too many times I would catch myself staring at my barely changed Whoop screen at 6 p.m., wondering how time has effortlessly outpaced me as I remained glued to a comfortable armchair. Too many times I would rather feel the pinch in my feet near the end of my 12k run around campus than observe the ceilings and walls closing in on the ever-diminishing space of my small dorm room. I am privileged nonetheless—the experience of recapturing something you were convinced to have lost indeed feels much more invigorating than numbly holding on to an entitlement. While it is true that I could no longer work for the UN in Geneva, my research on Covid-19 has educated me so extensively on what constitutes an effective response to the pandemic, both clinically and politically. For the first time, I knew that I was pursuing relevant work. While I still lived in the same world of disease and desperation, for the first time, I knew that I was contributing towards healing it.
As I pondered over the quintessential question of what if the world never returns to being normal again, my very wise professor simply laughed, and said, "The world has never been normal. We were always dealing with something; you just never realized." Perhaps history will indeed want to commiserate with the youth of my generation, for the utter uncertainty that we face. I never quite intend to be a recipient of commiseration, though. Therefore, I refreshed the news, rewrote paragraphs in my research after the federal government had revamped their guidelines for the CDC yet again, and headed towards the golf course.
Perhaps history will mark the youth of my generation with remembrance instead.