Read our third issue of the 2020-21 school year.
Letter from the Editor
By Josh Joseph
So here we are. And here I am. Sitting in the Press office on the third floor of the SAC while an hours-long rainstorm continues outside.
The empty room is so quiet that I can hear the water drain from the roof through the red pipe that stretches from the ceiling to the floor. I think about putting on a record, but I don’t. I need time to think, to write this letter — the first since I became executive editor in December.
I leaf through a stack of our past issues, finding the same kind of yearning and inertia in each editor’s note. I delete sentences and retype them. I put a record on anyway, drowning out the sound of the water as the rain lightens on the window.
If you told me a year ago that I’d be here now, completely alone, devastated by a pandemic that has just passed its second peak, I would struggle to believe you. Back then, I’d always find someone here, regardless of what time or day I decided to bike over. Now, I sit here for hours at a time, slowly working out the layouts you see now to beat back the boredom. Having my fellow editors over for a meeting, even on Zoom, feels like a reunion every week.
There’s a past that hangs in the air here. Paper plates, signs, posters and extra magazines left over from the pre-pandemic era. The writing on the whiteboards has been here so long that it’s going to take more than an eraser to remove it — and someone with more determination than myself.
Ruminating on all the shit that’s piled up can be isolating, as the future in which we emerge from our socially-distant cocoons inches further and further away. Staring at it too long, I feel like the atmosphere is thinning, and all the people who brought meaning to this place have drifted out of orbit.
Yet we’re not completely alone. This magazine is a testament to the fact that despite the immense presence of COVID in our lives, we can do something together. Even in the face of the virus, our brains are still bursting at the seams with ideas — and we can put them in print. Like so many before, I’m sure this magazine will bring a smile to my face when I see it bound and printed, and I sincerely hope it does the same for you. If it does, please come to a meeting.
You might discover you belong here too.
Comments are closed.