We are not meant to live in isolation. What makes us healthy and whole are the connections we form with one another.  With our families. Our friends. Our colleagues and our community…  The thing we need the most to feel healthy has become harder to get.

After more than 30 years in the field of social work, I know one thing to be true. We do not need to be victims to our situation. We have choices to make, each and every day about how we want to live our lives. How we choose to show up for ourselves and each other.

One of the hardest things about this time for me has been the loss of travel, the opportunity to explore. If you know me, you know I love to travel. Give me a passport and a seat on a plane or in a car and I’m on my way, ready for what comes next. I thought it might be fun to travel, however virtually, around the US and yes, even abroad, to visit with people and hear how they’re doing during this difficult time. Over the next few weeks I’d like to bring you a glimpse of what life is like for our friends and neighbors in other places.

Today we travel to Bolinas, California to meet Kristina and Andre.

Welcome Kristina and Andre. Tell us what life is like where you live. We’ve lived in Bolinas for 5 years. Kristina grew up in Bolinas and we decided that we wanted to move there before we started a family. We were in San Francisco before that and it was a big adjustment. Especially for Andre.

Bolinas is a small town of about 1600 people in West Marin County. It’s famous (or infamous) for being reclusive despite having a lot of tourism, including surfers. It’s the kind of town that if you grew up here, you will run into a lot of people you know.

How have you been affected by the pandemic?  Both of us are nurses and therefore, designated essential workers. Kris works at UCSF (the hospital at the University of California, San Francisco) on a medical unit as a staff nurse while Andre is a RN medical case manager at a homeless shelter for homeless people coming out of the local hospitals. So, since the shelter in place order in March we’ve continued going into work.

At the homeless shelter where Andre works, the residents have acclimated to the requirements of shelter in place and social distancing. They move through the program, from emergency shelter to transitional and finally, those that are able, to permanent housing during this pandemic. No new residents have been admitted to the shelter since March per the County Public Health office. Residents wear masks like everyone else. COVID testing has been offered to residents and so far, there have been no positives. 

Although no new residents have been admitted to the shelter, the county where we live has a program that allows the most medically vulnerable to be admitted to local motel rooms. This is through a state program called Project Room Key.

At UCSF where Kristina works, she has had COVID rule outs on her floor but no one has tested positive. Elective surgeries had stopped, but have returned over the past few weeks as the curve in California has flattened. However, due to lack of revenue during the pandemic, there may be staffing cuts coming.

What has been the hardest thing for you to deal with? We live with Kristina’s father, but because he is at high risk for COVID-19 we have had limited contact with him-which has been difficult. We have a 20 month-old and he has missed seeing his grandpa. Now that things have relaxed a bit, we have expanded our quarantine circle to include Kristina’s father, so that’s been nice.

What have you appreciated during this period? Being able to stay healthy and keep each other safe despite going into work. 

What are you doing to keep yourself emotionally healthy during this time?  Kristina takes our child and our dog out for a walk every morning to the beach and it’s been a beneficial practice.  Andre likes to read and write and watch movies, so you can see, we have different styles!

Do you have any recommendations for others? Take care of each other and yourselves. We’ve had many friends whose careers and livelihoods have been altered due to this pandemic and have used this as a source of reflection. It’s been hard for some to embrace the recommendations but it’s important to follow them because we are probably going to be living with this for maybe up to another year. 

Thank you Andre and Kris, for inspiring us today.

Would you like to be featured in our guest interview posts? We want to hear from you! Email me at suzanne@suzannemaggio.com.