I’m a Bay Area native, born and raised in the South Bay. I didn’t realize how much that meant to me until I went out of state for college — and especially now that I can’t get back home.
Growing up, a cold day to me meant 60 degrees, Sunday mornings meant biking to the farmers market, and free time meant bodysurfing near Mavericks and hiking the breathtaking bluff-top coastline with my camera and my friends. My life changed radically when I left the Bay Area for my first year of college on the East Coast this past August, but I was okay with that.
Sign-up for The Bold Italic newsletter to get the best content about life in the Bay Area in your inbox every week. What could go wrong?
I wanted to discover something new. An adventure outside of the town where I’d spent the first 18 years of my life. I was ready to leave.
My extended family lives in the metro New York region. Our close connection and my frequent visits there while I was growing up made me, the California cousin, feel bicoastal. The tantalizing glimpses I got of New York, Boston, and the Jersey shore never seemed like enough.
Since my family is in the Bay Area and along the Eastern Seaboard and in other countries around the world, I never felt tied to a rock-solid notion that “home” was a physical place. And so, I wasn’t experiencing the crying jags of homesickness that some of my friends were going through, sometimes even before they left California for colleges in other states. I loved the Bay Area, but I didn’t feel like it was a defining part of my identity.
I loved my first semester of freshman year. Along with the rigorous and inspiring academics, it was great to experience a winter with snow and indulge in key New York experiences like Broadway, jaywalking, and pizza. But I took notice of the differences from back home — the food, the attitudes, the go-to activities.
Change takes some getting used to, but overall, it was a smooth transition to college. And I had the comfort of knowing I’d be back in California once freshman year wrapped up.
But then the coronavirus pandemic hit.
My university closed midsemester, and most students rushed to move out of our dorms and leave just as the beautiful magnolia trees on campus were beginning to bloom.
I crashed with nearby relatives for that first weekend of the university closure, expecting to hop on a plane to San Jose. But due to increasingly strict travel constraints, the statewide shelter-in-place order in California, and that I’d need to take a two-week self-isolation period (since my university reportedly had some positive cases), it wasn’t feasible to fly home. It still isn’t.
For now, I’m living on the East Coast for an indefinite period of time. During California’s statewide lockdown, I’m locked out. And it’s bringing up feelings I didn’t expect.
My college suitemates and I scattered to different states and countries. My roommate and I are now across the world from each other, in different time zones, making it challenging to keep up our plans to call each other once a week. Classes went 100% online, and the pandemic upended my whole expansive idea of college and replaced it with seeing my friends and professors through the narrow confines of a computer screen. The autonomy and independence of college, which was all about learning to live away from family — and which I was just starting to get the hang of — also suddenly stopped.
My friends and I are staying close, talking about how we’re dealing with this unprecedented situation. Those of us far away from family feel stranded and anxious about the uncertainty of when we’ll see them again. Others who did go back home are dealing with sharing rooms with siblings again and generally losing all of the independence we were working so hard to cultivate at college.
All college students are wondering if this crisis will end before the fall term starts in August or if — as some news reports have mentioned — this could go on for many more months. If that’s the case, should we take time off from school so we can have the full college experience of four years on our campuses? Or should we just continue going to college online?
There are no answers for us yet. Everything is up in the air right now. So, we’re all learning lessons of patience and compassion as the data changes daily or hourly, as essential workers and volunteers practice acts of heroism every day, and as we pitch in to help our families, neighbors, and communities get through these challenging times.
I know I’m lucky to have relatives providing me with a safe, loving place to live while the pandemic continues and that my university can manage virtual coursework.
On the other hand, I’m worried about my family on the West Coast, so much so that the parent-child dynamic has reversed: I’m calling and emailing my mom in California each day, the way worried parents usually call their college kids. And I can’t help feeling like I’m missing out on an unspoken Bay Area homebound solidarity with my family and friends who are there enduring the lockdown.
I’m also realizing that having the Bay Area as a “base” and knowing that I could always come back to it after my travels had provided me with a deep sense of security and belonging that I really never knew I had. A California security blanket meant that I could feel excited about leaving; I’d always have the Bay Area to return to. Until now.
In the midst of this worldwide crisis, my most serendipitous discovery is that although home is where the family is, it’s also where I was born and grew up. It’s the place that shaped my ideals, my aesthetics, and my sense of self.
Not knowing when I’ll be able to return to California is making me see that my Bay Area identity has been there, all along. I’m feeling grateful to have found gratitude in calling the Bay Area home.
