By Melissa Sweazy, Creative Director
I read about the two cases of Covid-19 while we were sitting in a cafe in the Bywater district of New Orleans. We ate croissants with hands lathered in sanitizer, the kids already weary of mom following them around with a bottle of Purell on our vacation. We didn’t yet know about the precise dangers of close contact, of aerosols, of simply breathing, but by God, we were going to have the most sterile hands in the state of Louisiana. Italy was singing about lockdown on their balconies. New Orleans hadn’t yet recorded a single case, pretty much the single determining factor of why we were here on spring break in the first place. But now there were two people in Memphis with Covid-19 who had caught it in New Orleans. At Mardi Gras. Two weeks prior. With two days left in our trip, we were back in Memphis that evening, terrified of what we might have brought home with us (or in fairness, what we might have left behind.) The city of Memphis would collectively be sheltering in place five days later.
Our first company-wide quarantine zoom was a mixture of shock, gallows humor, and self- consciousness as we stared at each other from our respective work-from-home squares. We had our health, a mountain of conflicting news reports, and a whole lot of uncertainty on how we needed to proceed. But proceed we must. A few of us had shared John Krasinksi’s Some Good News videos, and the idea stayed with me. The world was on fire. We were scared. Maybe the least we could do was acknowledge it and share a little bit of goodness along the way.
“You’re pretty much keeping us sane.” Over zoom, Nate Reisman is talking with photographer Jamie Harmon about his brilliant photo series of Memphians stuck at home during quarantine. The interview has crashed at least once due to my crappy internet. The sound glitches, and I’ve forgotten to mute my audio as my son barges into my bedroom. But Jamie’s is a good story and ideal to kick off our new series. Nate is Running Pony’s audio engineer but better known around the office as the originator and embodiment of the Fun Committee. He was already hosting a show I produced for ingenious non-profit Welcome to Memphis that was all about showcasing the amazing things you could do in the city; it made all the sense in the world that Nate would head a show that highlighted the amazing people in it.
That’s a Win! With Nate Reisman launched in early April, and for me it’s been a bright spot in a season of fear, uncertainty, and loss. Before the pandemic, Memphis was already known as one of the most altruistic cities in the country. Every week I hear a new story confirming what I already knew to be true about this resourcefulness and generosity of spirit: A middle-schooler sewing and donating masks to workers on the frontlines. Two young artists creating an immersive installation for mental health. An entrepreneur seeing her own mental health suffer after working from home with young children and launching an online webinar dedicated to finding joy. A photographer photographing families in quarantine so that we might feel a little less alone. There is no end in sight for the pandemic, but there is no shortage of phenomenal hearts and minds working to make us all feel a little less alone. Nate and I hope to keep sharing their stories, from a distance.
