4 pm. Wednesday, March 11. 

“It’s not about the cards you’re dealt, but how you play the hand.” – Randy Pausch

Jake Lynn and I were sitting in the UPO courtyard on a perfect day. The sun was shining, it was 75 degrees, all the Spanish students were in the courtyard laughing and talking and there was a slight breeze. We were cramming for a quiz after a long midterm on the social imaginaries (we don’t know either). 

He received a notification on his phone from 1 Second a Day, an app we both used to take one second videos every day we were in Sevilla, with that quote: “It’s not about the cards you’re dealt, but how you play the hand.”

We looked at each other, nervously laughed and walked into Tapas, thoughts of the coronavirus lingering in the back of our minds like dark clouds, as they always were. For two weeks, every email triggered anxiety. Is it from TCU? Is it all over? As much as I lived every day like it was my last, it was a hard way to live life: always prepared that everything you know will be gone in a moment’s notice.

It was our last class at UPO. 

I went to sleep early, determined to have a full night of sleep before my big St. Patrick’s Day weekend in Dublin. 

5 am. Thursday, March 12. 

My alarm buzzed. Per usual, I rolled over to hit snooze. When I lifted my phone, new messages were coming in faster than I could read them. 

Travel ban. Trump. Friday at midnight. All of Madrid is gone. Get home NOW. Wait, it doesn’t apply to United States citizens. Or does it? 

After seeing the travel ban did not apply to US citizens, I boarded my train and then my flight to London to connect to Dublin. It was when I landed in London, that I realized I was in too deep. 

Spain jumped to a level 3 travel advisory by the CDC, my program was automatically canceled, and my friends were booking flights home. And I was stuck in London!!! 

I watched my plane to Dublin take off while I cried, mourning the loss of Dublin, but most importantly my life in Sevilla. 

11 am. Friday, March 13. 

“You may delay, but time will not.”

I landed back in Sevilla with a whole week in front of me. I made a bucket list for the last week, sharing it with all of my friends. It included: jump in the river, find a bull to chase us and do not go to the gym. 

We only completed one of those items. 

Immediately upon arriving back, we met all of our friends for toast. We laughed easily, I drank sangria for breakfast (I knew my days were numbered, so I had to live like it) and we reminisced on good memories. 

After, we went to Plaza de España one of the most popular tourist sites in Sevilla. We were laughing, dancing and swinging on the swings. Here are our photos:

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We should have known something was off. It was empty.

Walking home from lunch we talked about our grand plans for the last week and speculated about what we would have for lunch. In the end, none of it mattered.

We walked in the door, Hallie wearing the yellow dress she almost caught malaria in (more on that later) and me with a flower in my hair from running in the park 10 minutes earlier. The whole family was gathered around the TV. Inma jumped up: “Spain is declaring a state of emergency. The President is speaking in 15 minutes.” 

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And then 1 Second a Day struck again with a quote. 

“You may delay, but time will not.” -Benjamin Franklin

That’s when we knew. We had to leave. Now. 

The rest is a blur. We pulled furniture as close as we could to the TV, and I sat beside Inma as I was inches away from Pedro Sanchez on the screen, my life seemingly in his hands. 

My life felt like it was spinning far beyond my control, and it was. The next few hours we called American Airlines, our parents and kissandfly.com (yes that is a real travel agency that I booked a ticket on). Our plane left the very next morning. We called all of our friends in Sevilla to organize a last-minute goodbye. 

Only a few could come. The nation was under a strict 14-day quarantine starting the next day. Everything closed. The streets were empty. We took an abundance of self-timer photos anyway, ate Jake’s Pringles and chose hasta luego instead of adiós.

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Three days earlier we lived normal lives. We called it just the flu, shaking our heads at the chaos and panic of others. Now it was real.

We were fleeing the epicenter of coronavirus. 

That was our hand. 

Now, how did we play it? 

We played our favorite Spanish songs, and danced in our room while we tossed all of our things worn and unworn into our huge bags. We found our collected memories from various countries and retold our best stories over and over again. We vlogged. We tried on our purple masks and washed our hands 1394730 times. We cried. We hugged. We had long talks at dinner, and they ended in both tears and smiles. We thought of everything we had to be thankful for. And we believed with all of our hearts that we would be back one day. 

We packed overnight, wore our yellow pants for the last time and tried to memorize the warm breeze brushing our skin, the sound of fast Spanish and the swift motion of the Guad, our favorite river. I tried to memorize the sound of the keys turning in the lock welcoming me home, the three people who became family and the Sevillanos I felt like I had known my whole life. 

We doused ourselves in Purell, wore Wuolah hats from Jesús’ company and packed the only way we know how to.

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We wrestled with the reality that our lives were being torn off like a Band-Aid. The future we took for granted was vaporized into a 14-day mandatory self-quarantine and then, a big question mark. 

However, the best adventures always start with a question mark. While one adventure is ending, another is sure to be beginning. 

Self-quarantine & social distancing. Maybe not quite my definition of adventure, but why not?

I don’t know how to play this hand right. I don’t know if there is a right way. But I do think it’s something unique and somehow beautiful that the entire world is together in isolation. A great paradox. We are all experiencing the same fear, anxiety and uncertainty. We are all struggling to figure out what it means to distance ourselves from human contact, to stop going to our favorite restaurants and bars, and assume an entirely new normal.

Yesterday, my host family did an online Zumba class in their living room in Sevilla. My mom and I did a yoga class in mine in Fayetteville. Humanity is one. We hurt together. We look for answers together. We heal together. At the end of the day, we’re all people trying to fight this virus.

So, how will we play this hand?