THOSE LIVING IN BETWEEN

Lily was the first to go. She fought to stay, arguing that she had spent too much time, too many tears and too many dreams on studying at the Danish School of Media and Journalism to go home, especially when precautions were already being taken in Denmark to limit the virus’ spread. Her home university was adamant. Refusal would result in the loss of financial aid, the backbone that props up any American college student’s hope for an education.

So, she went home. She went home, and I started making pictures. I turned my lens on my fellow students—my new friends—during a time of stress and uncertainty when many of them would be called back to their home countries and forced to leave Denmark.

We had received strict orders from our mentors regarding the pictures we could make. Continue social distancing practices. No entering subjects’ rooms or places of work. No in-person interviews. Maintain our space whenever possible. I did my best to translate that into the photographs, often forcing myself to stand far away from them and use a long lens to create an artificial closeness. That was the most difficult part. When smiles turned to tears and laughing turned to longing, I could not hug my friends. I could not touch them, and I could not comfort them. And they could not comfort me as I processed my own emotions. This is what the virus took away from us, long before anyone had to go home.

This project began with the desire to document my fellow students during this time—a time when they were caught between one home and another. Like many projects do, it quickly evolved into something else. As more and more people left, and as I received my own phone call ordering me to return to the United States, this series became something much more personal than documentation: it became a way to say goodbye, to wonderful people I may never see again.

Tristen Rouse

My university is calling me back, and frankly, I’m beyond upset about it. When this all started, it seemed like such a small and distant issue. In less than 24 hours, I went from having a choice on whether to stay or go to being told I had to be home by Friday. It was a nightmare. I feel like I’m giving up so much.

I’ve been planning to do this semester abroad since high school, and now I feel like the world is working against me so hard. I got to make all these wonderful memories and get to know all these amazing people. Now I have to leave them, and I really shouldn’t be seeing them and saying goodbye to them. But we’re all kind of breaking the rules. I think the rules matter less when something hurts your heart.

I’m devastated, exhausted, anxious, stressed, overwhelmed and so many other things. I want to stay, but I can’t so I’m really hoping I get to come back. Somehow, that doesn’t seem very likely.

Since my first semester, I was waiting for this experience – and now I have to say goodbye to people who could become friends way too early, instead of making the memories everybody told me about. I am staying and crossing fingers that the worst part of the crisis will be over soon, but I know that a lot of these people I started to get to know better will probably not return. It makes my quarantine time even worse to think about that and always leaves me with a feeling of emptiness.

I often call my parents to keep them updated and get to know what is going on at home. My mum was a little bit worried about me when the whole corona thing started to become serious, but she is fine with my decision to stay. I am sure I would have thought more about going home otherwise. It feels like everybody in my life tries to be positive and so do I. But at the moment, I just feel like corona stole my semester abroad.

Denicia Dixon, USA

I have mixed emotions about how I’m feeling and dealing with everything. My biggest concern is actually making it back to the States and not being able to get in. You see, I don’t have that much support back home. I support myself. So, it’s kind of like I am making all these decisions by myself with the help or opinion of no one. I have dual citizenship because I was born in Canada and raised in California. All my documentation says that I am a Canadian citizen. My mother lost my American proof of citizenship and it has been hard to obtain ever since. I may have to go to Canada. I’m not stressed or panicking, just a bit scared. But for some reason, I just know that this will all work out and everything will be just fine.

Dasha Vilchinskaia, Russia

There is a Soviet documentary about psyche. The movie consists of various experiments, some of them showing how the decisions we make depend on other people’s opinions. So, in one experiment, a group of kindergarten children is shown two toy pyramids, a black and a white one. Every child in the group apart from one boy was told to say that both of the pyramids are white. The teacher starts asking them the question: what color are the pyramids? The children respond: both are white. And when it comes to that boy, he is looking absolutely confused and replies: both are white.

These are children, but the funniest part is when the same experiment is held on the adults. The result is the same, a mature man, clearly seeing a black and a white pyramid follows the group and says that both are white. I remember seeing this documentary when I was a sophomore and questioning myself, how on earth is it possible to lose common sense so easily? Today, with this whole corona situation, I am not questioning myself anymore.

Today, I am one of those kindergarten boys looking at the pyramids and hearing everybody around me say that both are white. Two weeks ago, my British friends and I canceled our trip to Berlin. We got scared. Not of the virus, but of the possibility that we’d be put on quarantine after we came back. I guess this was the first time I saw two white pyramids.

As I write this, neither the Australian government or my home university has demanded my return. It would have been safer to stay in Denmark than to stay in Australia. But, a few days ago my roommate burst out of his room after a long conversation with his mum. “What [would] we do if somebody back home got sick and we weren’t there?” he said. At that moment, COVID-19 went from an abstract threat to a constant alarm flashing red in my head.

My mum and sister are both nurses. My mum works in a small GP clinic that caters mainly to elderly people. I called my mum and made her promise me she won’t take work in the public system. She’s not the kind of person who would sit back and watch her community suffer if there was something she could do to help. My sister works in a public hospital in regional Western Australia. She’s only 23 and she’s my baby sister. If she needs me I want to be there.

I wasn’t forced home from Denmark. I’d had many recommendations to come back, but in the end, it was me who made the final decision. They’re predicting that coronavirus cases in Australia will skyrocket. I read that they’re predicting that Australia might get as bad as Italy when winter hits. With many older relatives, staying in Denmark would’ve stopped me from getting home to see them if push came to shove. I don’t think I could forgive myself If I stayed.

As I’m writing, it’s my fourth day in quarantine. While adapting, I’ve come to process what’s happened. As short-lived my exchange was, holistically the experience was positive. I met some extraordinary people, had a pathetic attempt at learning Danish, travelled to Germany and Amsterdam and ate yummy pastries. It was an experience that’ll boost my overall character, taking from both the positive and negative.

Jacob South Klein, UK

I know I’m a hell of a lot safer here than back at home. This isn’t about me, though — my perceived feeling of safety is directly tied to the safety of my vulnerable family members. My grandad, my dad. The guilt would eat me alive if I knew I’d passed the virus on to either of them.

It’s bizarre that something so simple as being cooped up indoors by yourself can feel so alien. I’ve gone from seeing the same group of friends daily to suddenly not seeing the same people for almost two weeks. Some of them I won’t see again at all. That feels like a kick in the teeth, even though I only knew some of them for less than two months. I should have got to know them for a lot longer, and instead, it’s been taken away.

My own university has started putting pressure on me to return. I’ve told them in no uncertain terms where to stick it, for a variety of colourful reasons. The Danish are getting this right, the British are not.

“When smiles turned to tears and laughing turned to longing, I could not hug my friends. I could not touch them, and I could not comfort them. And they could not comfort me as I processed my own emotions. This is what the virus took away from us, long before anyone had to go home.”

Essays edited for length and clarity.