San Diego Under Quarantine: Finding Our Voices

Aly Lee

There’s nothing quite like experiencing the city at sunset from the thirty-fifth floor of a corporate housing unit. 

The view is spectacular, obviously. San Diego has never been more gorgeous than when the golden tips of a fading sun paint every crevice of every building a gentle shade of pink. The skyline stretches into infinity as the Coronado Bridge melts man-made contraption into constant sea. It’s no wonder so many songs are dedicated to the magic of urban life.

But at the end of the day, the simple truth is that a city is just a city, no matter what language, location, or state of lavish it happens to be in. The amount of bright lights and towering buildings don’t breathe life into the hollow husks of concrete and plaster walls that line the carefully paved streets: the people do. The busy, complicated, sometimes questionable, but always entertaining lives of the people do.

I found myself watching over the people one particular evening. From the thirty-fifth floor of a corporate housing unit, to be exact. This may seem strange considering how most people would actively run away from the city during a worldwide pandemic, but sometimes there’s more than one kind of logic. And sometimes they can each be right in their own respective ways. 

So how does one find themself in perhaps the most random of locations on a casual Friday night, in the throes of a global crisis?

To put things simply, in the midst of quarantine, my family was losing it. In a bigger than just a “hey-you-stole-the-last-piece-of-pizza” way. We were exhausted. Not just of homework or each other’s company, but of the ugly fighting and feeling empty of hope for the near future. And instead of taking another walk around the block or opting for the selfish choice of foregoing self-isolation measures, we packed our bags, put on our hand-sewn face masks, and headed to the city. 

We parked in the designated lot and headed straight to our room, complying with all social distancing guidelines and taking the necessary precautions to ensure safety. It was essentially the exact same quarantine rules, but with a refreshing change of scenery. 

Now I am completely grateful and conscious of how fortunate I am to be able to spend the weekend in downtown San Diego when things at home get tricky. I acknowledge the privilege I have and the extent of the pandemic’s impacts on others around the world, but I have also come to find that the variety in these experiences does not need to cancel out seemingly “lesser” consequences. In other words, the way Coronavirus affects me and the way it affects a grandmother in Italy are two separate circumstances that are allowed to coexist without taking away from each other’s pain.

In any case, my family settled into temporary housing with little issue or concern. The balcony view was certainly breathtaking, and it was easily the nicest feature of the place. As a corner room, the view wrapped around the side of the building, offering perspectives that went off into two separate directions. Columns of skyscrapers towered both above and below us, and I imagined the scenery would look its best at night, once the sun had gone down and the streetlights were left to illuminate the paved roads. 

I was right, the view reached its peak after dark, but for completely different reasons.

At exactly 8 pm, the city erupted. Lights flickered from apartment windows in a rushed frenzy, crazed voices carried in the wind, laser light beams scanned the rooftops of the city. And in that moment, every voice was heard.

It was by no means beautiful. By every dictionary definition, it was mayhem. Crude frat boys leaned over balconies and whooped into the night, lonely cars caught in the roads offered obnoxious honks, and a few mistimed flashes of lights from the local library left neighboring buildings blinded.

And through the crowds and the chaos, the noise and the numbing, I screamed back.

Despite the comically and arguably awful performance given by the late citizens of downtown San Diego, the moment was perfect. I spent the rest of the night reliving how it felt to call into the open void that always called back twice as loud. To know that although we were no elegant musical flash mob from Italy, we were still there. We were still fighting. And that was enough.

I didn’t know it at the time, but the celebratory handful of minutes was an organized occurrence meant to show support for our city’s front line medical workers. It happened every night at 8 pm in order to thank them for the real risks and tireless dedication they poured into helping our community before themselves. Perhaps it was not much, but it was the one thing we could all offer from the required safety of our homes: our voices.

When the world began to settle back into its chaotic rhythm, I paused. I paused long enough to memorize the pattern of the streetlights and right turn only signs. To breathe in the rolling clouds of fog and feel the heartbeat of the city in every honk of a car horn. The pause lasted well into the morning, and I just stood there for hours, soaking in one of those precious moments that feels the same way your favorite song might if it was looped on repeat for a few hours in an empty room. Sad. Sweet. Triumphant. 

I only went back inside once the sun made its slow appearance again, climbing up from the skyline to wake the streets and call for a new day. I crawled into bed and let the light wash over me. I felt tired, but I also felt free.

So while sunsets and small cafes are nice, when I say I love my city, I really mean that I love the people in it. The ones who show up with their strobe lights and megaphones and scratchy voices when it matters. The ones who come together every night at exactly 8 pm to scream everything that six feet of space could never take away from us.