Letter from the editors

For many of us, 2020 is shaping up to be a year we want to forget but never can. We have endured a pandemic, participated in a reckoning of social and cultural systems, and spent a semester streaming lectures online by ourselves. This has all felt bigger than us. As we sit in our childhood bedrooms and open the window now and again for some fresh air, it is common to feel alone and uncertain.

This magazine’s theme came from that exact feeling. In a time when everything seems so out of our control, how can we push thumbtacks into this world and try to pin it down? How can we find our own access points to begin to understand what’s happening both around us and to us?

In short, how can we deconstruct what we know to be true?

A curious observation from the pieces in this issue is that most are personal essays. I have a hypothesis about this. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, considering the isolation that lockdown measures and staying home have imposed on people, we have all turned inward this year. We have become more self-reflective because the person we’ve been spending the most time with is ourselves.

To all readers and viewers, I hope you find your own access points to understand and process the past year with these pieces. Whether it be through a door, a window, or even a crack in the wall, I hope that this magazine will give you even a sliver of light.

Here’s to a new year, a vaccine, and silver linings. Enjoy.

— Stephanie Bai, Magazine Editor, and Nathalie Whitten, Creative Director