Massive loss that left so many feeling helpless, fragile and unmoored. The ongoing fight for equity. A catch-all anxiety tied to the simple passing of time. Moments of true rest were few and far between this past year. But there were moments.
During this weird and tumultuous time, these lovely things that authors are creating have been incredibly inspiring and heartwarming to see. Enjoy!
Well, we made it through winter, Pacific NW friends. It isn't the Spring we were expecting, but nevertheless, May is here! Hopefully everyone has been able to enjoy the changing weather as much as possible. If you’ve been stuck indoors more than you prefer to be this Spring, here are some unrelated books with flowers on the cover to bring the Spring inside.
In this age of quarantine, we all have something in common. Until a few weeks ago, most of us had three separate and distinct “places” in our lives: our homes, our workplaces, and our third places – those places for, well, just about everything else. These third places are where we engage in essential social experiences, where we come together, where we meet friends, practice our hobbies, and express ourselves.
Three different activities, three different identities, built on a lifetime of habit. And for the last few weeks, they have all been reduced to one place: Our homes.
As I process these internet orders for you, I miss the interactions that might have been. I miss my coworkers, all of them. I understand how privileged I am to be working from home at this juncture. And it's hard to grapple with the guilt of being one of the lucky ones, when we are on different sides of the same coin and nothing is perfect.
April is National Poetry Month, and it fell this year on a historic moment both for having time to read and a need for the consolation and guidance of politically engaged verse. We live in interesting times: with a pandemic threatening and taking the lives of people all across the world, when our leaders and institutions have never seemed less adequate or less legitimate, the future of society itself seems to be in doubt. Now is not the time for light, or gentle, or confessional poetry of individual feelings, but for witnesses to history.