A Note from the Editors: Issue 34

“Spendin’ nights hitchhikin’ where will I go?
I could fly home, with my eyes closed.”
-- Mac Miller, “Self Care”

2020 has been the year of stagnancy in many ways. We move from place to place with less frequency, or we have stopped moving at all. Traveling, serendipitous exchanges with strangers, and hugs from family members can only happen for the lucky few. Most of us have waded through this year as though we were wading through mud. Time has been different somehow: it moves both faster and slower. When we do move, we flit from safe bubble to bubble. We spend much more time alone, waiting for our regular lives and selves to return. 

From that aloneness, a new language has emerged. The language of care. How do we care for our grandparents who are long flights away? How do we protect the vulnerable strangers around us? How do we take care of ourselves? We are all suddenly in a long distance relationship with many of the people we love. As artists, we are missing the places and moments that make creativity flow. 

We wanted to end this year with care as a theme because we’ve seen how that word has both helped and hindered our lives as creators in 2020. We wanted to disrupt the language of care, unsettle it, and peel back its new layers of meaning. Self care can mean lighting a candle and putting on a sheet mask, going to therapy, or reflecting on yourself and your goals, but this year, we have seen self care become a destructive phrase too. Ghosting as self care. Cancel-culture as self care. Shirking responsibilities and interests to watch hours of TV or scroll through social media as self care.  

Does self care mean closing your eyes and flying away to the safety of a home in your imagination? There must be a way for us to dig deeper into our surroundings instead of trying to escape them, and that awareness is a kind of care as well. Even though the year is almost over, we want to end it with our eyes wide open. 

We hope the brilliant work in this issue and the themes that spring from it help you escape further into your reality rather than simply distracting you from it. We hope to add a footnote to the word care in your mind, and most of all, we hope you are cared for.

Love always,
Zoe & Vamika

Artwork: M(OTHER)WORK by Damaris Swass