Editors’ Letter: A Monument to Unmagic

As children, we build monuments to our imaginations. Colored blocks, knock-off Legos, and Big Lots versions of the coveted Barbie Dreamhouse become our first tools for constructing new realities. As we get older, we learn that time spent this way isn’t just play, but an effort in real, valuable skill-building. Tactile in nature, our hands and eyes coordinating seamlessly, driving new grooves into our brains as we reimagine the many ways to build a home from disposable parts, all the possibilities laid bare at our fingertips. At this age we make light of the raw act of creation—not yet critical of the outcome of our efforts, and instead consumed by the process. The best among us become architects. The rest of us become dreamers. 

But there is a fine line between fantasy and reality. This lesson is nothing new; from a young age we develop an understanding that where one ends surely the other begins. But later in life, this separation reveals itself to be not so clear or easy. Where reality should seem all the more identifiable in the face of adult responsibilities—bills, deadlines, life’s many earthquakes—the difference becomes blurry. Where there is no more dream house to be found, we cover the holes in the walls with fresh paint, and mistake weeds for flowers. In our best moments we exploit our tendency toward fantasy to construct a reality we can live with. 

This is an activity many of us spend our lives mastering. As former child-architects and current adult-dreamers, we learn to collage together the many disconnected parts of ourselves, the many landscapes that exist within us, and name each new beginning a fresh chapter. Find a partner who is just as broken as us, or if not, break them in all the same spots. Realize that time and space mean nothing and changing seasons are just another illusion. If reality is where we live, and fantasy is what we live for, then how we get through it must be some combination of the two. Tell ourselves everything we’re doing now will make for a good story or poem some day. Construct a reality we can live with. 

So, if in our last issue we summoned the magic of the universe, maybe now, in this one, we aim to reject the need for it entirely. What is magic if not science lacking an explanation? Maybe life isn’t about tapping into the infinite, unfettered spaces of human potential, but about gripping selfishly to what we already have. There may not be fairytales, but there are heat waves and broken bottles and greasy sex to be had in every room of whatever makeshift home we’ve built, and isn’t that enough? Perhaps the real limitlessness of life is not in the potential for magic, but in how far we are willing to go to create it for ourselves if we don’t ever find it in the wild. 

This issue covers everything but magic, and in that way, it constructs its own universe from bone and plastic and raw language, with the holy, ordinary bodies and minds we were given. In a world where hope can feel like fantasy, we hope this issue offers you something real to build your coming days with.

Erin & Lena
Editors & Co-Founders