We ended up living in the Stanford Hospital parking lot for a stint during the pandemic lock down. We managed to find beauty and magic despite the odd circumstance, it’s pandemic van life after all. There were two main concerns of living there full-time, sanitation and security. That’s aside from the even bigger concerns of our crumbling democracy.
Stanford Parking Lot Van Life During the Pandemic
Backstory: before covid-19 came into reality, finishing residency at Stanford was by far the worst decision we ever made. Then it really got even more real. Did Stanford step up during the ongoing covid-19 pandemic? Not at first. This was the same lousy hospital system that told us we couldn’t get family housing because we had 3 pets, and there was nowhere in the state of California that would rent to us with 3 pets. (Trust me, we tried very hard!)
So when covid-19 rolled around March 2020, we lived in the van at the Stanford Parking lot. Let me tell you, parking lot van life is not fun. But since freedom is being stripped away from us faster than the speed of light, in this covid-19 reality, we get to live in a parking lot if we want to stay together. Usually we only popped on over to the Stanford parking lot to visit Dad just a night or two before a van camping adventure. In March, we got to live as an entire family in the Stanford Hospital Parking lot. We thought it would only last a few weeks.
Finishing Residency
Sprinterdad has had this exact spot since 2018. It has been his van home all this time. Then, all of us had to “shelter at vome“(van home). Luckily the Stanford campus is nice. It is possible to make a bright time of it, despite the gloom. By March 27, 2020, Stanford Medicine started providing hotel rooms for staff living over 1 hour from campus. In March, there were not face mask requirements. In May and June, there will be. Should families living in a van be required to wear masks outside of their van? Should homeless people have to wear masks 24 hours a day?
We Roll Together
Why do we all live in the hospital parking lot – not just Dad? Solidarity. Sprinterdad is an emergency medicine resident, almost finished with a grueling 10-year journey of medical training. In March, things were so uncertain, on how serious covid-19 was. What level of pandemic it would shape up to be. This is the period where tent hospitals were being assembled by the California National Guard. The only choice: stay together, live pandemic van life. Not even a question.
Now of course, those hospitals were torn right back down with really no patients. Even though there is supposed to be a surge in the fall? Isn’t it smart economics to leave them up, for what is to come in just four short months? I suppose evil tech, media, pharmaceutical companies, and our fully corrupted representatives, are much smarter than me figuring out how to completely drain the middle-class taxpayer.
We Are All Human
Why are we so stubborn? Well-meaning friends have asked why we aren’t staying home in Oregon while Sprinterdad lives for months in the van alone. Why? ER doctors are, um, human? Humans deserve emotional support during stressful times. Nurses and doctors families are human, too. To tear a family apart for months because of a pandemic, where one family member is working on the ‘front lines?’ Without being under military orders? Ludicrous.
Last time I checked medical residents had basic human rights. Or, is right to a family not something included in the post-pandemic fascist reality either? Let’s just put the medical workers in ‘quarantine camps.’ I am sure Stanford would be the first institution to jump at the chance to treat their low-paid workers like expendable cattle.
Birthright of Freedom
Why are we so militant about our inherent freedoms? Sprinterdad and I are both veterans. We already did involuntary deployment. Now we are civilians. The last time I checked hospital workers also aren’t part of an involuntary wartime draft. But this reality sure is treating them this way. Judges ordering children separated from their doctor mothers, for instance. But, Covid-19. Sorry, no pandemic virus, or flu, in human history has required families to be involuntarily separated.
Pandemic van life was not glamorous. Don’t get me wrong. I love van life. Van life is the best life. I love looking out at the trees, opening up the door to a gust of fresh air. I even love van life when its rainy and cold. It means freedom. But pandemic van life is a little different.
Pandemic Van Life Concern of Sanitation
Onto the two main concerns of sanitation and security. Pandemic van life really does mean a higher risk of contagion and insecurity, especially if you don’t have sanitation. Which is why I’m glad we so far only had to do it for a blip in March. I am really not looking forward to doing it again in May and June. But the KOA’s and the campgrounds won’t be open, as we were hoping.
First, higher risk of contagion. ER doctors, including mine, believe that sanitization is of the utmost importance during a pandemic. So that any virus doesn’t spread. The van is about 100 sqft. Imagine the close quarters (in which we love being cozy in non-pandemic situations). We have 4 people and 3 pets. No adequate plumbing. Running water, but no hot water. No shower. Whatever. I’m fine with it.
Pandemic Van Life Concern of Security
The second main concern, security. I really do not like at all, and is always profoundly more stressful, is insecurity. The threat of having someone tell you that you have to leave. You can’t be where you are. Even if you are a fucking doctor, working in a fucking hospital, during a fucking pandemic. To be clear, this insecurity is not inherent in living in a van itself. Usually you can park vans in fun camping spots. Then you are safe. But in parking lots, or when all campgrounds are shut down because of a pandemic, things get real.
Let’s talk about sheep with no intelligence law enforcement. Police are not on our side here. They never are during a fascist take over. They will even treat residents (doctors) doing nothing wrong like crap. I’ll tell our traveling home from essential work story.
We Care About Heroes and Essential Workers Is a Lie
On March 23, after Sprinterdad got off his last ER shift we headed back to Oregon to restock the van. Executive orders had been issued. (1) essential personnel are allowed to commute home. (2) All campgrounds are closed. Yes, we were kicked out of a sleeping spot by a cop that told us to go to a closed campground. Kicked out of a spot that did not say no parking. A spot we verified was ‘safe.’
This was at 10 pm at night with our children trying to sleep in bed. The Ft. Bragg, California, heartless police officer told us we must leave, even after we explained Sprinterdad is a doctor, an essential personnel, just trying to commute home. Let me repeat, he is an “essential first responder” in this pandemic, which is why all the campgrounds are shut down! The Ft. Bragg cop didn’t give a shit.
We did not stop in any small towns. Our children were confined to the van other than to stretch and walk in nature with no other people around. We made extra sure to be cautious, and extra respectful. We clearly said we are a medical family trying to get home. Essential personnel, trying to commute home. Still we were kicked out. So I can’t wait for that to happen again. It will. That is what happens in a fascist takeover. The message is clear here: a doctor, essential personnel, that has a home in a different state, cannot actually commute home safely.
Not a War on a Virus, a War on Humanity
This is a taste of what would result if we continue to move towards a police state. No intelligence. Essential personnel are only essential in their hospital building. If they live that building, if they travel home, they are spit on. This is a war on humanity, common norms and decency.
Luckily, Stanford knows medical staff are living in vans, and have historically let them live without bother. I guess Stanford Hospital doesn’t want to lose qualified medical staff because the cost of living is so high they can’t afford to live anywhere close to where they work? Many Stanford nurses fly into California as they live in different states scattered across the US, and they continue to do so during the pandemic. Talk about interstate covid-19 spread. This whole “shelter in place” seems ineffective when you think of the inconsistencies here. Medical staff traveling all over the country?
Humanity and Nature
There are some things even pandemics can’t touch. The beauty and magic of nature. One of the only saving graces left in this brave new world. The Stanford campus was eerily quiet and beautiful. You can here the whisper off the trees. Beautiful empty walking paths to go on with our happy German Shepard. She always lifts our spirits. That’s what dogs do best. Our old beloved cats, Vata and Pitta, weren’t happy about the whole thing. Being stuffed into the van for many weeks on end, with shrieking and bouncing children. But they adjust to van life disdainfully.
The pandemic, bringing a new level of insecurity, and contagion was mentally placed aside. We must live, and live our best van life. We would rather have been grungy and germy in our vome, then apart. Sure, if our children had any health issues, it would be a different story. I do have pre-existing conditions. Not ones I feel would risk it all to stay together. My heart is with all those parents and guardians who have children that have pre-existing conditions. Sprinterdad and I are not without a few of those conditions they say effect covid-19 severity. One of my favorite quotes lays out clearly our belief, “I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.” – Thomas Jefferson.
Freedom. This doesn’t ever stop applying to reality. Even covid-19 reality. And the next pandemic. And any pandemic evermore that will inevitability happen. Indeed, “I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery” is a translation of a Latin phrase that Thomas Jefferson used: “Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem” in a letter to James Madison. It has also been translated as, “I prefer the tumult of liberty to the quiet of servitude.” It just speaks for itself. I hope we don’t forget the sacrifices of the many brave before us, because of fear.
What’s Next?
What’s the road ahead for all of us? Honestly, no ones knows how this is going to play out, individually and collectively. The only thing I can think to do is teach our children that though big fear, and big risk, we follow our hearts. Do the next right thing. Social distancing is easy in a parking lot. Most other people don’t live there! The Stanford campus was a ghost town. Plenty of room on the trails for anyone who wants to do the “essential activity” allowed by the executive order of daily exercise or dog walking. I imagine when our children are grown up this will be a strange memory for them. Our family living in the van next to the ER during a pandemic, where there is a “shelter at home” order.
Inconsistencies Everywhere
What nature is “risky” in a covid-19 normalized reality? Let’s compare picnic benches located in certain areas of the Stanford campus. First, we had access to abandoned picnic benches overrun with weeds, quiet forests with flowers and rabbits, right next to a parking garage. Maybe they weren’t even supposed to still be there. Then, you find the the ‘high-end’ picnic benches. That were definitely supposed to be there, by all the desirable places at Stanford. Those, fancy nature spots were all cordoned off with “CAUTION” tape.
Note to self: picnic benches in overgrown weeds by parking garages are SAFE from coronavirus. Picnic benches in lovely landscaped places near campus center are in DANGER of coronavirus. Covid-19 does not live on the fringe of society, apparently. Let’s all stay on the fringe.
Pandemic Van Life Living on the Fringe
Magic on the fringe. The deserted picnic benches became alive again with our family playing games of charades. The forests and fields were filled with laughter in games of tag and tickle monster (a family favorite). These are hauntingly empty beautiful nature spaces. Right next to the hospital where Daddy is masking up.
All we know is we have to stay together through this pandemic. What comforts during this time of uncertainty, for us all, is timeless wisdom. One of my favorites: “The bad news is you’re falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is there’s no ground.” -Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche.
Nothing to Do But Live
Magical days can always be had. We wandered in a near empty Stanford campus, waiting for Daddy to be off-shift. We found wildflowers, plaques, magnificent trees, lampposts that remind of a time once passed. Then, after our allowed “essential activity,” we “sheltered at vome,” cuddled together tightly, in a quiet blanket of darkness. A speck in the vast universe. An earth we all share as one humanity, all of us dreaming together under the stars, from our homes, apartments, tents, and vans. We all equally matter.
I just hope our medical system, and economic system, recognize this in the apocalyptic weeks to come. I hope my children see the brightest of the human spirit. Rather than the indifference that has been well-worn. Being the wife of an ER doctor as the pandemic unfolds has taught me that we can only make the best choices we can within our current circumstances. But we still have each other. For that I am grateful, for that is everything.
All Is Well
What comes to mind during this strange time is one of our family’s favorite movies, Cloud Atlas (2012). Our favorite quote: “… Wish I could make you see this brightness. Don’t worry, all is well. All is so perfectly, damnably well. I understand now that boundaries between noise and sound are conventions. All boundaries are conventions, waiting to be transcended. One may transcend any convention if only one can first conceive of doing so. Moments like this, I can feel your heart beating as clearly as I feel my own, and I know that separation is an illusion. My life extends far beyond the limitations of me.” – Cloud Atlas
