Letter from the Editors - Community Issue
Letter from the Editors - Community Issue
As I write this, I’m in the middle of wading through a monstrous pile of clothes sitting atop my bed. Yeah yeah that’s right, I’m Kondo-ing the hell out of my house. I’m not much of a bandwagon jumper but cute little Marie came along at just the right time. A good cleansing of the body and homestead had been in the back of my mind for a couple of months. So when I caught the flu right after the holidays, binging her Netflix show created a perfect storm. Now that I’ve excised all the 2018 poisons from my body, time to work the same magic on all this physical crap that’s weighing me down.
I’m clearing this space to make room—for what, I’m not exactly sure. A new job, I think. New hobbies, maybe. Some new clothes, yeah probably. One thing I know for sure is that I’m making more space for friends. Tomorrow night, I’m hosting the first of what I hope to be many Classic Movie Clubs. I’ve invited a bunch of people over - some new, some old, some I haven’t seen in ages - to watch Casablanca. I don’t exactly know where I’m going to fit them all, and I’m still not feeling 100% healthy, so I’m asking everybody to potluck. It’s a pretty damn haphazard gathering, in other words, but I’m not the least bit worried about that. All I know is that I need more people around me this year, in all manner of situations. This inaugural issue of Graceless Magazine is another way of trying that.
We can’t move forward without solid ground beneath us—we wrote that in the post announcing this Community theme. I hope these pieces, and the world we’re trying to form around them, provides you a little bit of groundwork in the new year.
Stay Graceless,
Carla
My personal word for this year is foundation. Whether I’m working on making my freelance operation sustainable, or getting my new greenhouse framed out, it’s all in the name of getting off of the sand and onto something solid and reliable.
In order to get any progress done on my various foundation activities, however, I need the communities around me. I need my IRL friends, my online friends, my family, my plants (yes, I talk to my plants okay). I need to reach out and ask for help, for challenges, for humor. And, I probably need to start widening my community circles. There’s a new local beekeeping society in my town and the first meeting is this week. Time to stop daydreaming and start doing.
I hope this issue serves as a way to appreciate the communities you’re in, and look for any new ones that you might be curious about. Everyone has something they love doing, or want to try–there’s no reason to hold off another year!
Allyson