This Story Has Not Been Told

Sinthia Shabnam is a poet, policy researcher in North Carolina, and an active member and leader in her Muslim community. Sinthia opens up about how different facets of her background—coming from a Bangladeshi immigrant family, her Islamic faith, being a young woman—have impacted her aspirations to enter politics and give back to her community. She describes the current period of her life as part of her “Marvel origin story,” putting in the grind and taking the time to learn the skills to hopefully one day take political office. Something that makes Sinthia’s story so meaningful is that reflects not just Sinthia’s hopes and dreams, but those of so many young folks who might resonate with her goal of taking the things they’ve experienced in their communities, and putting them towards building a better future for us all. 

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Deb Ramos-Smiley, a celloist and middle school music teacher from Virginia shares their experiences as a queer, gender non-binary person of color. Within Deb’s story is a saga of how they learned to love themselves and truly be comfortable in their own skin. Deb talks about how arduous of a process this was, after being dragged out of the closet while they were in college, feeling unsure of whether their family would accept their queerness, and navigating their identity while working in a public school setting. They also open up about how continuously taking small steps, like gaining confidence through fitness, connecting with students over music, and finding community, helped them cultivate self-love. There’s a marked difference in how Deb speaks about the part of their life when they were grappling with their identity and sense of self. It’s as if these earlier years are like riding a bike uphill; the journey is hard, their muscles shaking and aching, lungs burning, heart pounding. And then, when they reached the top of the hill, they were able to look at the view before them as well as the path behind them, and realize they had gotten where they needed to be. I’ll also mention that Deb was awarded Teacher of the Year at their middle school, and I think as you listen to their interview, the reasons why will become pretty apparent. 

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This episode is the first of what will be an ongoing collection (The Now Times) of stories about people’s experiences during the pandemic. This collection aims to go further than the five-minute news segments or sound bytes that we get in mainstream media about COVID. The story that’s being told here is one that digs a little more deeply into each guest's feelings and thoughts. 

The guest of this episode is an ICU resident, who is in training to become a critical care physician. He's been at the frontlines of the pandemic since Spring 2020 and has asked to remain anonymous. I've given him a pseudonym (Ian), and Ian shares what it's like to still be in training and having to deal with a massive pandemic. Ian’s story wasn’t what I had expected to hear. From the get-go, he told me that he keeps his work and emotions separate, and he maintained this position. However, there were times where I wondered during the interview if Ian’s story was as clear cut as he said it was. He starts to talk about the challenges of working with the families of dying patients, how he’s told his own fiancé to let him die should he ever get as sick as his ICU patients, he questions whether he’s really saving people--including the patients technically recover from COVID. At the end of the day, or in the years after the pandemic when he's finally had time to process all that's happened, it’s Ian himself who will know the answer. 

Shahnaz Khawaja is the Assistant Director of Resilience and Recovery Strategies at UNC-Chapel Hill. Before working in mental health counseling and wellness, Shahnaz was an international model and actress and she talks about why she switched careers, as well as some of her experiences working as a therapist and wellness expert. Shahnaz shares her expertise of topics such as building resilience, practicing wellness, being kind to ourselves, and the Enneagram. She also shares the challenges she’s faced, and how she has developed healthy wellness habits throughout these adversities. The title of this episode reflects how Shahnaz describes herself in the interview: someone who confronts her fears head-on, tackling what comes at her. And also, she actually does jump out of planes. 

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Alex Stayer-Brewington is a member of the Lumbee tribe and a Presbyterian pastor. As well as being Lumbee, Alex is White (Scottish on his mom’s side) and he talks about how being White-passing and living outside the Lumbee community has led to him question how indigenous he really is. Over time, Alex realized that “you can’t really be an Indian on your own,” and has come to connect his identity back to the Lumbee community. As a politically progressive pastor, Alex also shares the questions he has around his religious views, comparing them to those of more conservative pastors'. If there’s a main theme to Alex’s interview, it’s the doubt he carries about his ideas and identity. However, this doesn't mean that Alex doesn’t know who he is or that he's uncertain about being a pastor. Rather, it leaves him open to considering new ideas, to exploring his sense of self and place in the world. Alex’s story shows that doubt doesn’t always equal shakiness or instability; sometimes, doubt is about believing. 

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"What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore and then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over, like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags, like a heavy load. Or does it explode?" (Langston Hughes, “Harlem”)  

Theresa Chu ran and owned a dog-friendly bar in Durham, North Carolina called Barley Labs. I chatted with Theresa about what it was like for her to follow her dreams and open up her small business in 2018, and then what it was like to have to close down in February 2020. Theresa recalls her time running Barley Labs as her “spectacular failure" because, despite the disappointments that came with it, running Barley Labs helped Theresa conquer one of her deepest fears: failure. A big takeaway from Theresa’s story is that failure isn’t necessarily a bad thing. After all, which is the more painful life: to take a leap, fall, and skin your knees, or to perpetually stand at the edge of a dream deferred, always wondering if you should have jumped? 

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Theresa turns the tables at the end of our interview. She asks me some questions about what it's like to be a fish out of Hawaii's waters living in North Carolina, my plans for the future, and if it's hard for me to take compliments. 

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At the very end of her interview, Erin offered some advice for people who are trying to support those who are grieving, and also shared some thoughts for those who have lost a loved one. 

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Erin Yoshida and her family learned of her dad's diagnosis with stage IV lung cancer when she was 22 back in 2017. Erin opens up about the sense of isolation that came with the grief of losing her dad at a young age, when her friends and peers could not empathize with what she was going through. She also talks about how, a year after her dad's passing, she's started to come to terms with his death and remembers the love and appreciation she has for her late father. 

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Raafe Purnsley, also known as the drag queen Stormie Daie of Durham, North Carolina's House of Coxx, opens up about what it was like to grow up queer and Black in the South. Raafe shares his childhood love of Storm (X-Men) and how as a young boy, he avoided expressing his admiration for her out of concern that he would be deemed effeminate for liking a female character. As Raafe started to explore his identity as a gay Black man, he embraced Storm as the inspiration for his drag persona and tapped into elements of his heritage and identity that he had once been afraid to access--including his love of Black hair and his first braids. 

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