March 30, 2020 • 37 mins
While we all stay inside, each one of us is living our own story. Many of us are coping with the painful realities of a society in isolation. Jobs lost. Weddings canceled. Loved ones sick, or worse. We are confronting a new reality, and an uncertain future. First Contact host Laurie Segall has been in quarantine for weeks, and she’s been thinking a lot about community. Human connection. And then she had an idea: What if we cold-called strangers in quarantine, and just listened to what they had to say? About life, isolation, their hopes, and fears? Here’s what happened...
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
First Contact with Lorie Siegel is a production of Dot
Dot Dot Media and I Heart Radio. Hello. Hi, Hi,
I'm Julie. I'm Loriie, I love. This is my quarantine call.
(00:21):
Where are you I? I'm in New York. I've been
in self isolation. So I signed up for this out
of my own pure interest. And then I was going
to do a whole podcast episode based on calling people
in quarantine, and I was inspired by this app. Oh cool, Yeah,
so I think I just wanted like another adult to
talk to you. Really, I signed up. Hey, it's Lorie.
(00:47):
I'm recording this on Friday, March and I've been in quarantine.
I'm now self isolating and it's been around three weeks.
Time is pretty strange in self isolation, the days, the minutes,
it all just kind of has new meaning. That whole
sentence felt pretty weird to say, but let's be honest,
(01:11):
feels pretty weird. So let me set the scene for you, guys.
I'm here in New York City, where I was exposed
weeks ago to someone with coronavirus. No, don't worry about me.
I'm doing okay. I'm just fine. But I'm gonna be
honest with you, guys, things are pretty intense here if
you've read the news, and I know that they're intense
and a lot of places. So I've decided to dedicate
(01:35):
this episode to your stories. I'm recording from my apartment
with this thought. We need a community now more than ever.
Storytelling has always been my therapy, and Lord knows I
could use it right now, that sense of community. So
I asked all of you to share your stories. I said,
send in your voice memos, text me, tell me how
(01:57):
you're feeling. I'm listening. I loved what you guys had
to share. This episode of First Contact is devoted to you,
to your stories and what you're going through. We're going
to start with my inspiration for the episode. It's a
little bit weird. It's an app I heard about in
my early Quarantine days, which feels like a long time ago.
It's called Quarantine Chat. When you sign up, you randomly
(02:21):
get two calls a day from a stranger anywhere around
the world. Your phone rings and you're just on the
phone with someone else somewhere and quarantine. It's strange and
it's human. So I'm going to start us there. I
actually captured one of the calls, and yes, she said
we could record it. Welcome to Quarantine Chat. We're about
(02:45):
to put you on hold and connect you to someone
else anywhere in the world. You're prompt today is to
go look at the window and describe what you see
to your partner. I've gotten two calls on quarantine Chat
from different people. One person was in d C. One
person was in New Jersey. Haven't of you that I
signed up maybe just like an hour to maybe two hours.
(03:06):
Oh my god, So I'm your first quarantine call. I
feel a lot of pressure. I've you better entertaining. The
app launched just a couple of weeks ago, which again
feels like a long time ago at this point. It
was created by Max Hawkins and Danielle Baskin, both currently
self isolating on the West Coast. Well, Hi, where are
(03:30):
you guys? I'm currently in San Francisco. Oh cool, Oh awesome?
Well thank you for doing this. I went into quarantine
because I was exposed. Um so I've I've been hanging
out solo um and quarantine for over fourteen days now
and discovered this little thing someone told me about called
(03:53):
quarantine Chat. I don't know how to describe this to people.
But it is so amazing seeing you literally just get
this random call and it's like the school music and
then the next thing you know, you're speaking with somebody
who's also in quarantine. Yeah, it's interesting because when we
first started it, um the whole world was not in quarantine.
(04:14):
It was like, you know, people in China, we're in quarantine,
and Italy was just starting to be in quarantine. So
there are also some people that were self isolating, like
you decided to stay inside. So I thought like, oh, well,
you know, someone who is self isolating could get a
call from someone else and maybe if they're not self isolating,
it'll cheer them up, or they can talk about like
(04:36):
you know, things they're doing with their day and recipes
whatever and just like feel less alone. But since creating it,
like the whole world has kind of become locked down.
So like this app has reached I mean, what it's
in eight how many different time zones. It's it's all
over the world. I mean I've matched with you know,
someone in Berlin and in Spain and in France, and
(04:59):
that's with Hong two days ago, Paris, all of also
just like I mean, within this country, someone is saying like, oh,
I matched with someone in Tennessee and I actually have
never like talked someone in Tennessee. They were in l A. Yeah,
and so how you gusually does the app work? Yeah,
So you go to quarantine chat dot com and sign
(05:21):
up and then you get the app. And once you
have the app installed, you start receiving phone calls roughly
once or twice a day. And if you get the
call you pick up, it says quarantine Chat on the
caller I D. And when you pick up, you're connected
with a random person who is also called at the
same time somewhere else in the globe, and you get
(05:45):
a short prompt that gives you a topic of conversation.
You can follow that topic or ignore it, and then
you can talk for as long as you like and
it's totally free. If you don't have time, you can
ignore the call and your match will be sent to
someone so you don't have to worry about if you're
busy missing the call. Uh, there's just something really special.
(06:07):
I remember I was having a morning probably like day
four of like self isolation in New York. Like it's
not like we're in these large, large apartments unless you're
you know, doing incredibly incredibly well. And I was having
a moment and I got a call and it was
my first quarantine call, and I was like, all of
a sudden, I look at my phone when it rings,
it's this quarantine chat and I picked it up, and
(06:28):
I remember I was like sitting in my bed and
this woman answered. Her name was Kathy, and we had
a really good conversation. Of course, she was like, tell
me a little bit about yourself. I was like, well,
I'm self isolating alone. I'm not very domestic, so like,
you know, if if I'm cooking, send help. And I
said all these very self deprecating things. I was like,
how about you. She's like, well, I heard about this
app because this girl I follow in the media tweeted it.
(06:50):
Her name is Laurie. I was like, she was like,
what's your name? I was like Mary. I was like, well, um,
but but I told her it was me. But but
we ended up um having this incredibly human conversation about
mental health. And she was struggling a lot, I think,
mentally with this and what it meant, and you know,
(07:14):
and it was just I just could tell she just
wanted someone to talk to and so so I think
there there's something really interesting about hearing each other's voices again, Um,
at a time when I think we had we had
almost like stopped calling each other before. Yeah. I think
people I've talked to have described the experience as very
freeing because they have no knowledge of like who the
(07:37):
other person is, and they could talk about whatever they
feel like in that moment. And it's different than connecting
with someone through some channel where like you know the
whole bio, you know about that person, there's context in
your conversation, is like aimed about a particular thing, like
the idea that in the moment, if you want to
talk about a specific thing, you can this kind nice
(08:00):
yeah yeah, um. And and I also think it's it's
interesting because this this is a moment where there's a
lot of fear and and who knew that I'm just
hearing a stranger's voice every once in a while could
make you feel a little bit better, you know, totally
if you feel totally less alone, if you're um, you know,
you're worried about things, and you find out someone else
is worried about the same stuff, it sort of feels comforting. Yeah,
(08:23):
how many people across the world, Like, do you know
how many different countries you guys are in or how
many what's the current count max? Do you haven't looked
in a while? Ye? Look in real time. Yeah, we
got like a lot of people talking the phone right now. Actually, yeah,
because we triggered a couple. The call happened. The last
quarantine chat call happened around one thirty, so forty five
(08:45):
minutes ago. I just had one. I just to have
a woman in North Carolina. Yeah, yeah, that's really cool.
So you guys just like sitting here, you can like
you're sitting in your own self isolation. You could like
trigger the um. Yeah, I mean I'm sort of a
switchboard operator because I handle if someone we get we know, um,
(09:06):
if a call got disconnected for some reason, like someone
loses their internet, I reconnect them. But man, I reconnect
them right now. So I'm I am a human switchboard operator.
But yeah, we can when a call happens, we like,
I can see our bandwidth being used. So how you
guys make sure that this doesn't turn into like phone
(09:28):
sex dot com? You know, I have, Uh, there's a
there's so many ways we prevent that from happening. I mean, right,
you can't call anyone yeah calls you. So if you're
desiring a specific type of interaction, you can't just hit next,
like hang up on someone. I want a new call.
You can just do next, next, next, next, next, until
(09:49):
I get someone who wants to respond to like this
particular kind of interaction I have. And I think having those,
you know, those these conversations are like, you know, they're precious.
You only get the call one to two times a day,
and so that is your only opportunity and so would
you wait, how do you want to spend that in
one call? I think there's also one of the like
(10:11):
the values that we try to maintain is having a
diversity of different sorts of people that you get matched with.
And so like if you get match with someone from
Ghana one day, or we wanted to be someone in
Missouri the next day and yeah, or like different kinds
of people to get different perspectives. And I hope that
that sort of mixing exposes you two different sorts of
(10:35):
people and ideas. Yeah, do you guys have any stories
that you'll remember if people you've spoken to? Oh surprised you? Yeah?
I mean every call feels so different, like I'm transported
into another world. But yeah, I've talked. I talked to
a makeup blogger in Dubai who was very She was
an intern at a company, and she was about when
she's planning on graduating in April, and she was hoping
(10:59):
to get higher hear but because she works in advertising
for restaurant chains, um like, um like du buy California
Pizza Kitchen, and uh they're not you know, restaurants are
kind of losing money so they can't do advertising. So
she's really afraid of like not getting her job. But yeah,
I talked to someone in Hiroshima whose friend has a
(11:20):
hostel and the hostel is closing and her friend is
trying to be really positive by only posting happy things
on Instagram, but inside feels very afraid. Um yeah, I
get these glimpses into how this virus is affecting people's
lives and all over the world, and it's kind of
(11:41):
similar stories but in you know, obvious different countries, which
is fascinating. Pretty early on, I connected with someone who
was like a student studying in Paris, and she told
me that like the night before she had found out
that her roommate had the virus and it had a
party like a couple nights prior, and everyone that was
(12:02):
there had to be quarantined and we're like waiting to
find out if they have been infected. And she was
just talking about how scary it is to know that,
like her roommate is next door and it's infected. It's
dangerous and what it's like to not know. Um, yeah, mhmm,
(12:23):
Yeah I went through that. I mean, I think for
me because I, um, I was exposed and then it
was just like you just wait, right, Like, you just
sit and you wait and you wonder, um like am
I going to be okay? And man like does that
do things to your head? So that's when I had
my first quarantine chat call. But um, but yeah, that
(12:44):
that's it's extraordinarily scary. And then of course it's it's
coupled with this idea of like, well, I'm also really
worried about my friend who had it, and I also
want to show them so much love and support. And
then it's also I'm worried about my parents and now
I can't go be near my parents because I could
harm them. I mean, it's extraordinarily human questions that, Um,
(13:05):
what's interesting about what you guys are doing is like
we're all facing them in some capacity no matter where
we are, and I think it's devastating and also it's
really extraordinary and human too. So m h, who knows
how long we're all going to be in this um?
Where do you? Where do you want this to go?
It's interesting. Yeah, I'm kind of curious how spending what
(13:27):
sort of effects after say, we're all out of quarantine
at some point, like, will we continue these sorts of
interesting digital communication habits that we've all developed during quarantine.
I don't know. I mean I think like I would after,
you know, if I can still go out in the world.
Of course I enjoy talking to people on the phone.
Will I continue to have these relationships with people all
(13:49):
over the world and just discussed like what we're doing
in our lives even after we're all out. I'm excited
to see if people meet in person. Yeah, I hope
that when this is over, we all hold that UM
in some capacity and hold that sense of humanity and
love and care for each other, because I definitely, UM,
I definitely think that's pretty important. So you know, I'm
(14:10):
on maybe I'll get connected with you guys again, maybe
we'll do this all over Quarantine Chat. But by the way,
this whole podcast episode, I'm just going to call people
in quarantine because I'm totally copying you guys. I think
it's great. So anything left to be said, oh mm hmm, yeah.
I mean, I feel like if anyone is afraid to
(14:30):
talk on the phone or like fuels hesitant to pick
it up, Like it's surprisingly easy to talk to people,
which people might not it might be like hesitant. I mean,
we're we've designed it. We designed it for introverts in mind.
And there's a question at the beginning of the call,
and you know the person on the other end wants
to listen to Typically you both want to have a conversation.
(14:52):
So I encourage anyone who's phone rings and they're life.
I don't know, just like try it. Okay, we've got
to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors
more with my guest after the break. My first week
(15:17):
in quarantine, people sent voice memos describing their experience in
self isolation. We had a bunch of folks and the men,
and there was one that really struck me. I want
to play it for you guys. It called to question
the ethics of this moment and our own moral compass
(15:38):
this past weekend when I had to work, so I
should probably have said that it's a gym that I
work out, it's testing my ethics quite a bit. I
did everything in my power that I could to make
it as sanitary as possible, especially considering that the population
that goes there's a little bit on the older side.
(16:00):
So that's also another conundrum. I guess you could say,
but I can't pay my bills unless I work. I
have a significant I mean, most of my income goes
towards paying those bills, and I can't pay them if
I don't work. But that then, I mean, there's another
(16:23):
voice in my head that says, that's extremely selfish and
unethical of you, because you're directly endangering people's lives by
you working. Um, as you can see, that job put
me in quite a conundrum. Hi, I so appreciate you
(16:45):
sending in that voice memo. I listened to it immediately
and I was really moved by it, So thank you. Yeah. No,
of course I wasn't to be honest, I wasn't really
expecting to hear back. I just kind of wanted to
let you guys know, and it was cool. Thank you
for offering that. It's kind of cool to be known
or know that you're being heard. So thank you. Well, Hi,
(17:09):
You're welcome and high from my isolation. Um, let me
let me start with your not alone. We're all unfortunately
kind of in this together. But there's you know, there's
some humanity in that. And I've I'm self isolating in
my place here in New York. And you sent us
a voice memo and you talk about starting with your work.
You had a real conflict with your work, and you
(17:30):
talked about kind of this decision and you said, do
I stay because your gym wasn't closing down? And do
I put other people at risk? Or do I risk
not being able to pay my bills and keep people
safe myself included. So what did you decide to ultimately do? Uh? Well,
(17:50):
it was not too long after that call, uh being
in California or not called, but the memo Gavin Newson,
impose the shelter in place order. I was conflicted because
one of the workplaces is a small business and they
(18:12):
were very reluctant, and I understand where they're coming from.
I guess it's it's a lot of people. There's a
lot of uncertainty on the financial side of things for people,
and I get that so kind of a background that
I work at, Like the one gym was kind of
more that corporate style gym, and another this other gym
(18:32):
was across fit gym or functional fitness, and there was
an awesome community there. You developed deep personal relationships and
it's almost like your family in a way. And if
even one of them something bad happened, something serious happened,
(18:55):
how would I be able to live with that? It
was inflicting in that because of being a younger person.
One of the gyms I worked at was um the
demographics were did tend to be older, older individuals, and
I know that the risk is lower for younger people.
(19:15):
That doesn't mean that bad things haven't happened for younger people,
but it's that that question of what if I have it,
Maybe I'm asymptomatic, right, and I passed it along to
one of them, But the thought of that, I just
thought it was immoral, I guess, and I started to
(19:36):
push back and saying, hey, we I'm not going to
coach anymore. Like I laid it out there for them.
I didn't feel comfortable, but it kind of coincided luckily
with Newsom's order too, So I guess the universe was
kind of looking out for us in a way. I
guess I think that voice memo and what you said
(19:59):
to us was a little bit of like a moment
and and so kind of capturing the psychology around perhaps
what makes you go in and do that when you
don't have a hundred percent all the facts, but you've
got the feeling and some pushback and some real questions.
I think it's really interesting, um and and and perhaps
says something about you. Yeah, I don't know. It's it's
(20:21):
kind of when you said that, you know they're looking
at the moments, and it instantly reminded me of to
kind of get cliche again the Steve Jobs connect the dots.
It's easy to connect the dots looking backwards. That people
forget that you can't connect the dots looking forward. You
may not even know what the dots are. Yeah, I
(20:44):
think about this moment is a lot of dots, right like,
and I think for every human being it's like we're
all living our own story in a way, and collectively
where you have to do it without not a lot
of answers. So I think you know, this idea of
of understanding the quest in a little bit and sitting
with this uncertainty and being able to make some decisions
around it. Um is really interesting. Um Um. Do you
(21:07):
have like family? Are you married? I'm single. I have family.
Luckily they're all local, about a ten minute drive away.
So is it hard? I know a lot of people
are self isolating with family with significant others. Is it
hard for you to do it without somebody? Do you
(21:28):
ask yourself those questions? Are you okay with the solo
nature of it? I guess it kind of there's a
stark difference now from the loneliness here too when you
go like before, you know, I'd interact with people at
the gym and get out and about, but now it's
(21:48):
like the only time that there's any interaction is that
like the grocery store, and I even know it. For me,
it was kind of like I had to take a
double take because I was walking down the aisle and
somebody like turned a corner and it was kind of
like whoa, and I like took the biggest sidestep I've
(22:11):
ever taken in my life. And after I did that,
I just stood there. First. I was like, did I
really just do that? But it was it was kind
of like that subconscious reaction. Are you afraid? Yeah, I'm
not afraid to admit that. I'm very uncertain, I guess,
you could say, but there's nothing wrong with that, I guess.
(22:36):
And I feel like people tend to want to put
on a front like they know what's going on, but
sometimes you just don't. And there's a lot of variables
out of our control. And it's not realizing that and
then taking action where you can, I think, is it's
(22:57):
not only calming at it. It shows you that you
do have you do have some power to affect not
only yourselves, with the people around you. All right, let's
(23:18):
zoom out to Spain. My next quarantine call is with
Pablo Sanchez Blanco. He's living in a small town close
to Madrid. Like many of us, he's worried about his parents.
It's personal. Several of his family members are working in
local hospitals, overwhelmed with patients, often unprotected, and putting their
(23:40):
own lives at risk to save others. Hey, how are
you hello, I'm good? How are yours? Good? Good? Um? Wow,
thanks for doing this. I know you're in You're in
Madrid right now, right past maybe like little cities surround
in myriad and I live in Alkaline, and which is
(24:03):
like twenty kilometers away from a thank you for having
me here. I think it's great to have the opportunity
to speak with people from other countries, especially in a
situation like this, which is worldwide. And I'm very into
this situation now because, for example, my girlfriend sus a doctor,
my mom, she works, she lives the kids, and in
(24:24):
the hospital here in my city. My father has been
a doctor as well for thirty years, and we're seeing
how they're struggling, not even daily, hourly, so hourre why
our're there giving everything they have to try to to
get us out of this. Yeah, So so tell me, um,
(24:46):
let's start with you. Are you self isolating? Yeah? Everyone
is self isolating, And so before I kind of dig
into all of it, I just I want to ask
you kind of a basic question, like how are you doing.
I'm doing good? Um. I think you try to innovate
(25:07):
within your house right too. I'm communicating more with my
family and I'm getting closer to my neighbors, and I
think I'm on one side. You see all this information
coming from the media and TV, which is bad, really bad,
and it's getting worse and worse than worse, which kind
(25:28):
of depressed you a bit. But then you go out
at eight pm every day, goes out and claps to
all the people which is working for us, and it
what do you do? You go out and clap every day?
Eight yeah? Everyone to set that scene, I don't know
what that looks like. What do you do? Everyone? Everyone
(25:51):
at eight pm goes outside in the windows out claps.
But you can hear like thousands of people clapping in
their buildings in their windows, and the Baltimists. It kind
of brings you up. People start playing music after that,
and you get parties in the windows, these people drinking
in the window, saying hell to neighbors. Neighbors too. I
(26:13):
didn't even speak in my life and now meeting them
through the window. So it's is bad. The cities is
really bad. That you kind of have this environment and
you're sharing this with everyone. How is it impacting you personally? Um? Personally,
I think it's a really stressing situation. So for example,
(26:36):
my mom in the hospital, the fact that they don't
have materials at all. They don't have masks, they don't
have frowns, they don't have anything to protect themselves. It
kind of stressed you out. So I'm I'm stressed for
all these people who especially in a country like Spain
or Italy, our our brothers. There this these old people,
(27:01):
they've been fighting a lot to get us out of
many political things, really bad things. And now when they
can retire and rest and this comes right. And but
for me personally, I'm good. It's getting stressed by all
this thing and kinds of if it's going up and
(27:22):
happen up and you don't see the light at the
end of the tunnel. You see your mom is in
the hospital. Um, what is she telling you? She's she's
people in hospitals now, they're they're so strong, so strong,
she's telling me. For example, in in the hospital here
in my city, hospital of Alcala, which two days ago
(27:46):
it was the hospital with more debts. In the beginning,
you get people from other cities, which has been so
many people is getting infected in one city. Everyone is
going to the hospital of the city surrounding and then
so they see these waves of people coming. They don't
have materials, so they are all infected. They will be
(28:09):
all infected. Fourteen percent of the health public workers here
in Spain are infected, and they don't have even test
to test theirselves. My mom, for example, she couldn't test
herself to see if she's infected. They're getting she she leads,
They gets in here in the hospital, and yesterday I
think it was six people called for a leave because
(28:33):
they were infected. They know many of them are infected,
and they're still going to work and they're doing sixteen
hour sieves to twenty four hour sieves. They're asking for help.
They're getting now help, but it's too late. Now it's
already collapsed. They have people in the floor in the
hospitals and they have to decide her colleagues, her doctors,
(28:55):
and how stressful is for you. And there was a
woman yesterday and old ladies. She she recorded a video
for sale and asking for help because her husband got
into the hospital. He was like seventy or sixty five
and he was really bad. And a man was forty
(29:17):
years old came into the hospital as well. Intensive care.
Of course they're going straight to intensive care, and and
doctors they have to decide, so we go for this
old man with his forty instead of this guy. So
they will tell you, okay, you can take now your
husband home and he will die at home, that's for sure.
And this decision for the people who is working in
(29:39):
the hospitals is really bad. Has your mom talked about
having to make those types of decisions, are having to
witness them? Yeah, and their witnessing now as well people
from university, because they're getting people from university working into hospitals.
So here in Spain, medicine is six years. They're getting
people from the fifth and the sixth year working into
(30:00):
the hospital. And and these young people they're specially scared
because they're seeing now all the corpses bringing down and
they cannot even take it. So they they open a
huge model we have in Madriff to take all the corpses.
And you see this all coming down from the hospital
(30:20):
into the truck the military trucks, and you see all
these military trucks going around the city. Is bad. So
this is what I was saying, that is making you
seeing all this kind you try to keep up, but
seeing all these things going up and up and up
kind of affects you. It's like my whole career. I
(30:42):
can interview people from Afar right and uh and um
and thank god that's awful, and have so much empathy.
And I think maybe the scariest part of this interview,
even for me, is thinking like, um, it's here, you know,
it's it's maybe a couple of weeks away, um from
(31:03):
from from me being able to describe the scene that
you just described to me. I could be describing it
to you. I I, um, think about the fear and
all of this and and you know, and I think
there's just so much fear. Yeah, this is so yourself
isolating you. You're good, you try to pain, you try to,
(31:24):
but you can feel the fear growing up and growing up.
And this is what I love about being here with
you guys, talking to you. Let's trying to to tell
you what we did bad and so please don't do it.
Please don't believe that it's just a flu something else.
And the sooner you go home and isolate yourself and
(31:48):
make your elders twiceolate as well, it's the better for everyone,
because yeah, we're one week away from Italy. I think
we can be wiser than governments here and the weapon
that we have is what you just said, empathy, and
it's empathy for for all of us together, and also
empathy for the people which is working in hospitals or
(32:09):
people which is working outside or in supermarkets because they're
still open. We need to have this empathy for them
and stay at our houses because they just can't handle
any more people in hospitals, et cetera. So I think
this is the biggest weapon we have, empathy. What do
you do, um, when you're really afraid? You have your
(32:30):
mom is working in the hospital, this is really close
to you. What do you do when you're afraid? I
talked to her. She she has like this ability to
to be like, it's just one more day and it
will be over. You know. We try to think about that,
it will be over, It will be over. What is
the hardest part for you? For me, the hardest part
(32:55):
is to for example, now we're seeing the news. I
think the hardest parties too, because my people in hospitals
which are in intensive care and they cannot speak to
their families and they will die alone because no one
can go inside, and they will die alone. They wouldn't
(33:17):
they will not have a funeral. Funerals are forbidden for
corona virus deaths, so in my young families that they
couldn't even say, not even good bye. It's not just
just go to the hospital with them, to urgency and
and that's it. Back, M what do you want people
to know? What do you think is important? What I
(33:38):
would tell you is that first, and I know it's hard,
don't be scare, do not panic. But I think that
the biggest thing that we can do is just to
stay on our houses. You know, our grandfathers they were
called to war and we're called to stay in our houses.
So it's just to stay at home. How has this
(34:00):
changed you? And I think it's soon still for me too.
Well it's not so. I think when after this, Mia
and everyone, I think we will all not love but
try to say how much we love to our parents
and elders because now we see them at a real risk. Okay,
(34:30):
we've got to take a quick break to hear from
our sponsors. Thank you guys for sharing your stories with me.
And I want to end with a quote. This is
(34:50):
one of my favorites. It's something I've lived by as
a journalist. It's by Joan Didion, who's just one of
my favorite authors, she says, we tell our selves stories
in order to live well. We're all in the same
story this go around. We're all experiencing love, courage, anxiety, fear,
(35:14):
and hopefully, above all, empathy. What an extraordinary thing that
the through line of all of this is that although
we may be socially distant, collectively, we can work together,
stay inside and save each other. Thank you to everyone
who reached out to me. I love hearing from you,
(35:34):
and special thanks to Danielle, Max, Joe, Julie, Pablo and Brett.
Your stories, your courage, and your resilience keep me going
to So I'm gonna throw this out there and these
times of social distancing, when everything feels completely unknown. I've
always believed it's important to stay connected, but I believe
(35:57):
that now more than ever. And I say this and
I really mean it. Reach out to us, reach out
to me, keep an eye out on our social media.
We're gonna have ways to participate. You can text me
five zero three four zero. Also, if you have anything
(36:17):
you're thinking about, if you're sitting in self isolation, if
you're in your head, if you want to say something,
you've got questions, send me a voice memo to First
Contact Podcast at gmail dot com. I want to do
my best to be there for everyone during this tough time.
I want you guys to know we are listening. We'll
also be hosting zoom town halls on different issues during
(36:39):
this time, so follow along and participate for some human
ish contact. You can connect with me. I'm self isolating here.
I'm at Lori Siegel on Twitter and Instagram. The show
is at First Contact Podcast. On Instagram and on Twitter,
you can find us. We're at First Contact Pod. First
Contact of production of Dot dot dot Media, Executive produced
(37:01):
by Laurie Siegel and Derek Dodge. I will say we're
being creative and executive producing this from home and self
isolation at the moment. This episode was produced and edited
by Sabine Jansen and Jack Regan. The original theme music
is by Xander Singh. I'm sending my thoughts to each
and every one of you, guys, and so is our
whole First Contact crew during this time. I hope that
(37:24):
everyone is staying home, staying healthy, and staying human. First
Contact with Lorie Siegel as a production of Dot dot
Dot Media and I Heart Radio
First Contact with Lorie Siegel is a production of Dot
Dot Dot Media and I Heart Radio. Hello. Hi, Hi,
I'm Julie. I'm Loriie, I love. This is my quarantine call.
(00:21):
Where are you I? I'm in New York. I've been
in self isolation. So I signed up for this out
of my own pure interest. And then I was going
to do a whole podcast episode based on calling people
in quarantine, and I was inspired by this app. Oh cool, Yeah,
so I think I just wanted like another adult to
talk to you. Really, I signed up. Hey, it's Lorie.
(00:47):
I'm recording this on Friday, March and I've been in quarantine.
I'm now self isolating and it's been around three weeks.
Time is pretty strange in self isolation, the days, the minutes,
it all just kind of has new meaning. That whole
sentence felt pretty weird to say, but let's be honest,
(01:11):
feels pretty weird. So let me set the scene for you, guys.
I'm here in New York City, where I was exposed
weeks ago to someone with coronavirus. No, don't worry about me.
I'm doing okay. I'm just fine. But I'm gonna be
honest with you, guys, things are pretty intense here if
you've read the news, and I know that they're intense
and a lot of places. So I've decided to dedicate
(01:35):
this episode to your stories. I'm recording from my apartment
with this thought. We need a community now more than ever.
Storytelling has always been my therapy, and Lord knows I
could use it right now, that sense of community. So
I asked all of you to share your stories. I said,
send in your voice memos, text me, tell me how
(01:57):
you're feeling. I'm listening. I loved what you guys had
to share. This episode of First Contact is devoted to you,
to your stories and what you're going through. We're going
to start with my inspiration for the episode. It's a
little bit weird. It's an app I heard about in
my early Quarantine days, which feels like a long time ago.
It's called Quarantine Chat. When you sign up, you randomly
(02:21):
get two calls a day from a stranger anywhere around
the world. Your phone rings and you're just on the
phone with someone else somewhere and quarantine. It's strange and
it's human. So I'm going to start us there. I
actually captured one of the calls, and yes, she said
we could record it. Welcome to Quarantine Chat. We're about
(02:45):
to put you on hold and connect you to someone
else anywhere in the world. You're prompt today is to
go look at the window and describe what you see
to your partner. I've gotten two calls on quarantine Chat
from different people. One person was in d C. One
person was in New Jersey. Haven't of you that I
signed up maybe just like an hour to maybe two hours.
(03:06):
Oh my god, So I'm your first quarantine call. I
feel a lot of pressure. I've you better entertaining. The
app launched just a couple of weeks ago, which again
feels like a long time ago at this point. It
was created by Max Hawkins and Danielle Baskin, both currently
self isolating on the West Coast. Well, Hi, where are
(03:30):
you guys? I'm currently in San Francisco. Oh cool, Oh awesome?
Well thank you for doing this. I went into quarantine
because I was exposed. Um so I've I've been hanging
out solo um and quarantine for over fourteen days now
and discovered this little thing someone told me about called
(03:53):
quarantine Chat. I don't know how to describe this to people.
But it is so amazing seeing you literally just get
this random call and it's like the school music and
then the next thing you know, you're speaking with somebody
who's also in quarantine. Yeah, it's interesting because when we
first started it, um the whole world was not in quarantine.
(04:14):
It was like, you know, people in China, we're in quarantine,
and Italy was just starting to be in quarantine. So
there are also some people that were self isolating, like
you decided to stay inside. So I thought like, oh, well,
you know, someone who is self isolating could get a
call from someone else and maybe if they're not self isolating,
it'll cheer them up, or they can talk about like
(04:36):
you know, things they're doing with their day and recipes
whatever and just like feel less alone. But since creating it,
like the whole world has kind of become locked down.
So like this app has reached I mean, what it's
in eight how many different time zones. It's it's all
over the world. I mean I've matched with you know,
someone in Berlin and in Spain and in France, and
(04:59):
that's with Hong two days ago, Paris, all of also
just like I mean, within this country, someone is saying like, oh,
I matched with someone in Tennessee and I actually have
never like talked someone in Tennessee. They were in l A. Yeah,
and so how you gusually does the app work? Yeah,
So you go to quarantine chat dot com and sign
(05:21):
up and then you get the app. And once you
have the app installed, you start receiving phone calls roughly
once or twice a day. And if you get the
call you pick up, it says quarantine Chat on the
caller I D. And when you pick up, you're connected
with a random person who is also called at the
same time somewhere else in the globe, and you get
(05:45):
a short prompt that gives you a topic of conversation.
You can follow that topic or ignore it, and then
you can talk for as long as you like and
it's totally free. If you don't have time, you can
ignore the call and your match will be sent to
someone so you don't have to worry about if you're
busy missing the call. Uh, there's just something really special.
(06:07):
I remember I was having a morning probably like day
four of like self isolation in New York. Like it's
not like we're in these large, large apartments unless you're
you know, doing incredibly incredibly well. And I was having
a moment and I got a call and it was
my first quarantine call, and I was like, all of
a sudden, I look at my phone when it rings,
it's this quarantine chat and I picked it up, and
(06:28):
I remember I was like sitting in my bed and
this woman answered. Her name was Kathy, and we had
a really good conversation. Of course, she was like, tell
me a little bit about yourself. I was like, well,
I'm self isolating alone. I'm not very domestic, so like,
you know, if if I'm cooking, send help. And I
said all these very self deprecating things. I was like,
how about you. She's like, well, I heard about this
app because this girl I follow in the media tweeted it.
(06:50):
Her name is Laurie. I was like, she was like,
what's your name? I was like Mary. I was like, well, um,
but but I told her it was me. But but
we ended up um having this incredibly human conversation about
mental health. And she was struggling a lot, I think,
mentally with this and what it meant, and you know,
(07:14):
and it was just I just could tell she just
wanted someone to talk to and so so I think
there there's something really interesting about hearing each other's voices again, Um,
at a time when I think we had we had
almost like stopped calling each other before. Yeah. I think
people I've talked to have described the experience as very
freeing because they have no knowledge of like who the
(07:37):
other person is, and they could talk about whatever they
feel like in that moment. And it's different than connecting
with someone through some channel where like you know the
whole bio, you know about that person, there's context in
your conversation, is like aimed about a particular thing, like
the idea that in the moment, if you want to
talk about a specific thing, you can this kind nice
(08:00):
yeah yeah, um. And and I also think it's it's
interesting because this this is a moment where there's a
lot of fear and and who knew that I'm just
hearing a stranger's voice every once in a while could
make you feel a little bit better, you know, totally
if you feel totally less alone, if you're um, you know,
you're worried about things, and you find out someone else
is worried about the same stuff, it sort of feels comforting. Yeah,
(08:23):
how many people across the world, Like, do you know
how many different countries you guys are in or how
many what's the current count max? Do you haven't looked
in a while? Ye? Look in real time. Yeah, we
got like a lot of people talking the phone right now. Actually, yeah,
because we triggered a couple. The call happened. The last
quarantine chat call happened around one thirty, so forty five
(08:45):
minutes ago. I just had one. I just to have
a woman in North Carolina. Yeah, yeah, that's really cool.
So you guys just like sitting here, you can like
you're sitting in your own self isolation. You could like
trigger the um. Yeah, I mean I'm sort of a
switchboard operator because I handle if someone we get we know, um,
(09:06):
if a call got disconnected for some reason, like someone
loses their internet, I reconnect them. But man, I reconnect
them right now. So I'm I am a human switchboard operator.
But yeah, we can when a call happens, we like,
I can see our bandwidth being used. So how you
guys make sure that this doesn't turn into like phone
(09:28):
sex dot com? You know, I have, Uh, there's a
there's so many ways we prevent that from happening. I mean, right,
you can't call anyone yeah calls you. So if you're
desiring a specific type of interaction, you can't just hit next,
like hang up on someone. I want a new call.
You can just do next, next, next, next, next, until
(09:49):
I get someone who wants to respond to like this
particular kind of interaction I have. And I think having those,
you know, those these conversations are like, you know, they're precious.
You only get the call one to two times a day,
and so that is your only opportunity and so would
you wait, how do you want to spend that in
one call? I think there's also one of the like
(10:11):
the values that we try to maintain is having a
diversity of different sorts of people that you get matched with.
And so like if you get match with someone from
Ghana one day, or we wanted to be someone in
Missouri the next day and yeah, or like different kinds
of people to get different perspectives. And I hope that
that sort of mixing exposes you two different sorts of
(10:35):
people and ideas. Yeah, do you guys have any stories
that you'll remember if people you've spoken to? Oh surprised you? Yeah?
I mean every call feels so different, like I'm transported
into another world. But yeah, I've talked. I talked to
a makeup blogger in Dubai who was very She was
an intern at a company, and she was about when
she's planning on graduating in April, and she was hoping
(10:59):
to get higher hear but because she works in advertising
for restaurant chains, um like, um like du buy California
Pizza Kitchen, and uh they're not you know, restaurants are
kind of losing money so they can't do advertising. So
she's really afraid of like not getting her job. But yeah,
I talked to someone in Hiroshima whose friend has a
(11:20):
hostel and the hostel is closing and her friend is
trying to be really positive by only posting happy things
on Instagram, but inside feels very afraid. Um yeah, I
get these glimpses into how this virus is affecting people's
lives and all over the world, and it's kind of
(11:41):
similar stories but in you know, obvious different countries, which
is fascinating. Pretty early on, I connected with someone who
was like a student studying in Paris, and she told
me that like the night before she had found out
that her roommate had the virus and it had a
party like a couple nights prior, and everyone that was
(12:02):
there had to be quarantined and we're like waiting to
find out if they have been infected. And she was
just talking about how scary it is to know that,
like her roommate is next door and it's infected. It's
dangerous and what it's like to not know. Um, yeah, mhmm,
(12:23):
Yeah I went through that. I mean, I think for
me because I, um, I was exposed and then it
was just like you just wait, right, Like, you just
sit and you wait and you wonder, um like am
I going to be okay? And man like does that
do things to your head? So that's when I had
my first quarantine chat call. But um, but yeah, that
(12:44):
that's it's extraordinarily scary. And then of course it's it's
coupled with this idea of like, well, I'm also really
worried about my friend who had it, and I also
want to show them so much love and support. And
then it's also I'm worried about my parents and now
I can't go be near my parents because I could
harm them. I mean, it's extraordinarily human questions that, Um,
(13:05):
what's interesting about what you guys are doing is like
we're all facing them in some capacity no matter where
we are, and I think it's devastating and also it's
really extraordinary and human too. So m h, who knows
how long we're all going to be in this um?
Where do you? Where do you want this to go?
It's interesting. Yeah, I'm kind of curious how spending what
(13:27):
sort of effects after say, we're all out of quarantine
at some point, like, will we continue these sorts of
interesting digital communication habits that we've all developed during quarantine.
I don't know. I mean I think like I would after,
you know, if I can still go out in the world.
Of course I enjoy talking to people on the phone.
Will I continue to have these relationships with people all
(13:49):
over the world and just discussed like what we're doing
in our lives even after we're all out. I'm excited
to see if people meet in person. Yeah, I hope
that when this is over, we all hold that UM
in some capacity and hold that sense of humanity and
love and care for each other, because I definitely, UM,
I definitely think that's pretty important. So you know, I'm
(14:10):
on maybe I'll get connected with you guys again, maybe
we'll do this all over Quarantine Chat. But by the way,
this whole podcast episode, I'm just going to call people
in quarantine because I'm totally copying you guys. I think
it's great. So anything left to be said, oh mm hmm, yeah.
I mean, I feel like if anyone is afraid to
(14:30):
talk on the phone or like fuels hesitant to pick
it up, Like it's surprisingly easy to talk to people,
which people might not it might be like hesitant. I mean,
we're we've designed it. We designed it for introverts in mind.
And there's a question at the beginning of the call,
and you know the person on the other end wants
to listen to Typically you both want to have a conversation.
(14:52):
So I encourage anyone who's phone rings and they're life.
I don't know, just like try it. Okay, we've got
to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors
more with my guest after the break. My first week
(15:17):
in quarantine, people sent voice memos describing their experience in
self isolation. We had a bunch of folks and the men,
and there was one that really struck me. I want
to play it for you guys. It called to question
the ethics of this moment and our own moral compass
(15:38):
this past weekend when I had to work, so I
should probably have said that it's a gym that I
work out, it's testing my ethics quite a bit. I
did everything in my power that I could to make
it as sanitary as possible, especially considering that the population
that goes there's a little bit on the older side.
(16:00):
So that's also another conundrum. I guess you could say,
but I can't pay my bills unless I work. I
have a significant I mean, most of my income goes
towards paying those bills, and I can't pay them if
I don't work. But that then, I mean, there's another
(16:23):
voice in my head that says, that's extremely selfish and
unethical of you, because you're directly endangering people's lives by
you working. Um, as you can see, that job put
me in quite a conundrum. Hi, I so appreciate you
(16:45):
sending in that voice memo. I listened to it immediately
and I was really moved by it, So thank you. Yeah. No,
of course I wasn't to be honest, I wasn't really
expecting to hear back. I just kind of wanted to
let you guys know, and it was cool. Thank you
for offering that. It's kind of cool to be known
or know that you're being heard. So thank you. Well, Hi,
(17:09):
You're welcome and high from my isolation. Um, let me
let me start with your not alone. We're all unfortunately
kind of in this together. But there's you know, there's
some humanity in that. And I've I'm self isolating in
my place here in New York. And you sent us
a voice memo and you talk about starting with your work.
You had a real conflict with your work, and you
(17:30):
talked about kind of this decision and you said, do
I stay because your gym wasn't closing down? And do
I put other people at risk? Or do I risk
not being able to pay my bills and keep people
safe myself included. So what did you decide to ultimately do? Uh? Well,
(17:50):
it was not too long after that call, uh being
in California or not called, but the memo Gavin Newson,
impose the shelter in place order. I was conflicted because
one of the workplaces is a small business and they
(18:12):
were very reluctant, and I understand where they're coming from.
I guess it's it's a lot of people. There's a
lot of uncertainty on the financial side of things for people,
and I get that so kind of a background that
I work at, Like the one gym was kind of
more that corporate style gym, and another this other gym
(18:32):
was across fit gym or functional fitness, and there was
an awesome community there. You developed deep personal relationships and
it's almost like your family in a way. And if
even one of them something bad happened, something serious happened,
(18:55):
how would I be able to live with that? It
was inflicting in that because of being a younger person.
One of the gyms I worked at was um the
demographics were did tend to be older, older individuals, and
I know that the risk is lower for younger people.
(19:15):
That doesn't mean that bad things haven't happened for younger people,
but it's that that question of what if I have it,
Maybe I'm asymptomatic, right, and I passed it along to
one of them, But the thought of that, I just
thought it was immoral, I guess, and I started to
(19:36):
push back and saying, hey, we I'm not going to
coach anymore. Like I laid it out there for them.
I didn't feel comfortable, but it kind of coincided luckily
with Newsom's order too, So I guess the universe was
kind of looking out for us in a way. I
guess I think that voice memo and what you said
(19:59):
to us was a little bit of like a moment
and and so kind of capturing the psychology around perhaps
what makes you go in and do that when you
don't have a hundred percent all the facts, but you've
got the feeling and some pushback and some real questions.
I think it's really interesting, um and and and perhaps
says something about you. Yeah, I don't know. It's it's
(20:21):
kind of when you said that, you know they're looking
at the moments, and it instantly reminded me of to
kind of get cliche again the Steve Jobs connect the dots.
It's easy to connect the dots looking backwards. That people
forget that you can't connect the dots looking forward. You
may not even know what the dots are. Yeah, I
(20:44):
think about this moment is a lot of dots, right like,
and I think for every human being it's like we're
all living our own story in a way, and collectively
where you have to do it without not a lot
of answers. So I think you know, this idea of
of understanding the quest in a little bit and sitting
with this uncertainty and being able to make some decisions
around it. Um is really interesting. Um Um. Do you
(21:07):
have like family? Are you married? I'm single. I have family.
Luckily they're all local, about a ten minute drive away.
So is it hard? I know a lot of people
are self isolating with family with significant others. Is it
hard for you to do it without somebody? Do you
(21:28):
ask yourself those questions? Are you okay with the solo
nature of it? I guess it kind of there's a
stark difference now from the loneliness here too when you
go like before, you know, I'd interact with people at
the gym and get out and about, but now it's
(21:48):
like the only time that there's any interaction is that
like the grocery store, and I even know it. For me,
it was kind of like I had to take a
double take because I was walking down the aisle and
somebody like turned a corner and it was kind of
like whoa, and I like took the biggest sidestep I've
(22:11):
ever taken in my life. And after I did that,
I just stood there. First. I was like, did I
really just do that? But it was it was kind
of like that subconscious reaction. Are you afraid? Yeah, I'm
not afraid to admit that. I'm very uncertain, I guess,
you could say, but there's nothing wrong with that, I guess.
(22:36):
And I feel like people tend to want to put
on a front like they know what's going on, but
sometimes you just don't. And there's a lot of variables
out of our control. And it's not realizing that and
then taking action where you can, I think, is it's
(22:57):
not only calming at it. It shows you that you
do have you do have some power to affect not
only yourselves, with the people around you. All right, let's
(23:18):
zoom out to Spain. My next quarantine call is with
Pablo Sanchez Blanco. He's living in a small town close
to Madrid. Like many of us, he's worried about his parents.
It's personal. Several of his family members are working in
local hospitals, overwhelmed with patients, often unprotected, and putting their
(23:40):
own lives at risk to save others. Hey, how are
you hello, I'm good? How are yours? Good? Good? Um? Wow,
thanks for doing this. I know you're in You're in
Madrid right now, right past maybe like little cities surround
in myriad and I live in Alkaline, and which is
(24:03):
like twenty kilometers away from a thank you for having
me here. I think it's great to have the opportunity
to speak with people from other countries, especially in a
situation like this, which is worldwide. And I'm very into
this situation now because, for example, my girlfriend sus a doctor,
my mom, she works, she lives the kids, and in
(24:24):
the hospital here in my city. My father has been
a doctor as well for thirty years, and we're seeing
how they're struggling, not even daily, hourly, so hourre why
our're there giving everything they have to try to to
get us out of this. Yeah, So so tell me, um,
(24:46):
let's start with you. Are you self isolating? Yeah? Everyone
is self isolating, And so before I kind of dig
into all of it, I just I want to ask
you kind of a basic question, like how are you doing.
I'm doing good? Um. I think you try to innovate
(25:07):
within your house right too. I'm communicating more with my
family and I'm getting closer to my neighbors, and I
think I'm on one side. You see all this information
coming from the media and TV, which is bad, really bad,
and it's getting worse and worse than worse, which kind
(25:28):
of depressed you a bit. But then you go out
at eight pm every day, goes out and claps to
all the people which is working for us, and it
what do you do? You go out and clap every day?
Eight yeah? Everyone to set that scene, I don't know
what that looks like. What do you do? Everyone? Everyone
(25:51):
at eight pm goes outside in the windows out claps.
But you can hear like thousands of people clapping in
their buildings in their windows, and the Baltimists. It kind
of brings you up. People start playing music after that,
and you get parties in the windows, these people drinking
in the window, saying hell to neighbors. Neighbors too. I
(26:13):
didn't even speak in my life and now meeting them
through the window. So it's is bad. The cities is
really bad. That you kind of have this environment and
you're sharing this with everyone. How is it impacting you personally? Um? Personally,
I think it's a really stressing situation. So for example,
(26:36):
my mom in the hospital, the fact that they don't
have materials at all. They don't have masks, they don't
have frowns, they don't have anything to protect themselves. It
kind of stressed you out. So I'm I'm stressed for
all these people who especially in a country like Spain
or Italy, our our brothers. There this these old people,
(27:01):
they've been fighting a lot to get us out of
many political things, really bad things. And now when they
can retire and rest and this comes right. And but
for me personally, I'm good. It's getting stressed by all
this thing and kinds of if it's going up and
(27:22):
happen up and you don't see the light at the
end of the tunnel. You see your mom is in
the hospital. Um, what is she telling you? She's she's
people in hospitals now, they're they're so strong, so strong,
she's telling me. For example, in in the hospital here
in my city, hospital of Alcala, which two days ago
(27:46):
it was the hospital with more debts. In the beginning,
you get people from other cities, which has been so
many people is getting infected in one city. Everyone is
going to the hospital of the city surrounding and then
so they see these waves of people coming. They don't
have materials, so they are all infected. They will be
(28:09):
all infected. Fourteen percent of the health public workers here
in Spain are infected, and they don't have even test
to test theirselves. My mom, for example, she couldn't test
herself to see if she's infected. They're getting she she leads,
They gets in here in the hospital, and yesterday I
think it was six people called for a leave because
(28:33):
they were infected. They know many of them are infected,
and they're still going to work and they're doing sixteen
hour sieves to twenty four hour sieves. They're asking for help.
They're getting now help, but it's too late. Now it's
already collapsed. They have people in the floor in the
hospitals and they have to decide her colleagues, her doctors,
(28:55):
and how stressful is for you. And there was a
woman yesterday and old ladies. She she recorded a video
for sale and asking for help because her husband got
into the hospital. He was like seventy or sixty five
and he was really bad. And a man was forty
(29:17):
years old came into the hospital as well. Intensive care.
Of course they're going straight to intensive care, and and
doctors they have to decide, so we go for this
old man with his forty instead of this guy. So
they will tell you, okay, you can take now your
husband home and he will die at home, that's for sure.
And this decision for the people who is working in
(29:39):
the hospitals is really bad. Has your mom talked about
having to make those types of decisions, are having to
witness them? Yeah, and their witnessing now as well people
from university, because they're getting people from university working into hospitals.
So here in Spain, medicine is six years. They're getting
people from the fifth and the sixth year working into
(30:00):
the hospital. And and these young people they're specially scared
because they're seeing now all the corpses bringing down and
they cannot even take it. So they they open a
huge model we have in Madriff to take all the corpses.
And you see this all coming down from the hospital
(30:20):
into the truck the military trucks, and you see all
these military trucks going around the city. Is bad. So
this is what I was saying, that is making you
seeing all this kind you try to keep up, but
seeing all these things going up and up and up
kind of affects you. It's like my whole career. I
(30:42):
can interview people from Afar right and uh and um
and thank god that's awful, and have so much empathy.
And I think maybe the scariest part of this interview,
even for me, is thinking like, um, it's here, you know,
it's it's maybe a couple of weeks away, um from
(31:03):
from from me being able to describe the scene that
you just described to me. I could be describing it
to you. I I, um, think about the fear and
all of this and and you know, and I think
there's just so much fear. Yeah, this is so yourself
isolating you. You're good, you try to pain, you try to,
(31:24):
but you can feel the fear growing up and growing up.
And this is what I love about being here with
you guys, talking to you. Let's trying to to tell
you what we did bad and so please don't do it.
Please don't believe that it's just a flu something else.
And the sooner you go home and isolate yourself and
(31:48):
make your elders twiceolate as well, it's the better for everyone,
because yeah, we're one week away from Italy. I think
we can be wiser than governments here and the weapon
that we have is what you just said, empathy, and
it's empathy for for all of us together, and also
empathy for the people which is working in hospitals or
(32:09):
people which is working outside or in supermarkets because they're
still open. We need to have this empathy for them
and stay at our houses because they just can't handle
any more people in hospitals, et cetera. So I think
this is the biggest weapon we have, empathy. What do
you do, um, when you're really afraid? You have your
(32:30):
mom is working in the hospital, this is really close
to you. What do you do when you're afraid? I
talked to her. She she has like this ability to
to be like, it's just one more day and it
will be over. You know. We try to think about that,
it will be over, It will be over. What is
the hardest part for you? For me, the hardest part
(32:55):
is to for example, now we're seeing the news. I
think the hardest parties too, because my people in hospitals
which are in intensive care and they cannot speak to
their families and they will die alone because no one
can go inside, and they will die alone. They wouldn't
(33:17):
they will not have a funeral. Funerals are forbidden for
corona virus deaths, so in my young families that they
couldn't even say, not even good bye. It's not just
just go to the hospital with them, to urgency and
and that's it. Back, M what do you want people
to know? What do you think is important? What I
(33:38):
would tell you is that first, and I know it's hard,
don't be scare, do not panic. But I think that
the biggest thing that we can do is just to
stay on our houses. You know, our grandfathers they were
called to war and we're called to stay in our houses.
So it's just to stay at home. How has this
(34:00):
changed you? And I think it's soon still for me too.
Well it's not so. I think when after this, Mia
and everyone, I think we will all not love but
try to say how much we love to our parents
and elders because now we see them at a real risk. Okay,
(34:30):
we've got to take a quick break to hear from
our sponsors. Thank you guys for sharing your stories with me.
And I want to end with a quote. This is
(34:50):
one of my favorites. It's something I've lived by as
a journalist. It's by Joan Didion, who's just one of
my favorite authors, she says, we tell our selves stories
in order to live well. We're all in the same
story this go around. We're all experiencing love, courage, anxiety, fear,
(35:14):
and hopefully, above all, empathy. What an extraordinary thing that
the through line of all of this is that although
we may be socially distant, collectively, we can work together,
stay inside and save each other. Thank you to everyone
who reached out to me. I love hearing from you,
(35:34):
and special thanks to Danielle, Max, Joe, Julie, Pablo and Brett.
Your stories, your courage, and your resilience keep me going
to So I'm gonna throw this out there and these
times of social distancing, when everything feels completely unknown. I've
always believed it's important to stay connected, but I believe
(35:57):
that now more than ever. And I say this and
I really mean it. Reach out to us, reach out
to me, keep an eye out on our social media.
We're gonna have ways to participate. You can text me
five zero three four zero. Also, if you have anything
(36:17):
you're thinking about, if you're sitting in self isolation, if
you're in your head, if you want to say something,
you've got questions, send me a voice memo to First
Contact Podcast at gmail dot com. I want to do
my best to be there for everyone during this tough time.
I want you guys to know we are listening. We'll
also be hosting zoom town halls on different issues during
(36:39):
this time, so follow along and participate for some human
ish contact. You can connect with me. I'm self isolating here.
I'm at Lori Siegel on Twitter and Instagram. The show
is at First Contact Podcast. On Instagram and on Twitter,
you can find us. We're at First Contact Pod. First
Contact of production of Dot dot dot Media, Executive produced
(37:01):
by Laurie Siegel and Derek Dodge. I will say we're
being creative and executive producing this from home and self
isolation at the moment. This episode was produced and edited
by Sabine Jansen and Jack Regan. The original theme music
is by Xander Singh. I'm sending my thoughts to each
and every one of you, guys, and so is our
whole First Contact crew during this time. I hope that
(37:24):
everyone is staying home, staying healthy, and staying human. First
Contact with Lorie Siegel as a production of Dot dot
Dot Media and I Heart Radio
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