The following is the full editor’s note for Issue 7:
Although born a summer baby, home always looked like witches in windows, puffy jackets in the middle of downtown, noses red and runny and frozen, and powdered hot chocolate with dissolvable marshmallows to warm our insides. I find solace in a time where apparitions come out to play and the dead scratch at the ceilings of their coffins, preparing to see the moonlight again. There’s comfort in walking around, crunching leaves beneath feet, hands buried deep into coat pockets and scarves wrapped around faces four times. There’s warmth in the sound of furnaces ticking awake, lingering campfire smoke in your partner’s hair, and whiskey filling up your glass. There’s magic in this time of year: in Halloween, in Fall, in Transition.
But warmth often cools. As I grew older, the home always found in the unrelenting Midwest began to morph. The pleasant glow emanating from memories became cold with silent, empty apartments, mice found in bread bags, distance built by thoughts held instead of vocalized. Specters knocked at my door, pulling me back to memories I so badly wanted to forget. Often, I could only make out remnants of what used to draw me to this blustery season. Instead of mulled wine under blankets and comforting movies with people around, all that seemed to be left were numbed toes and half-hearted hang outs.
While it may be tempting to build a home in memories, as my friend Amy would say, change is always first perceived as loss. I’ve always been tied to nostalgia, never wanting to forget all the nourishing times, writing them down in lists, in books, in my phone, just to make sure I remember. I don’t like letting go of what I once defined as my home, my surrounding, my friends. Slowly, with many bruises and burns, I’m finally beginning to learn how to accept that this season won’t be the same every year. It won’t always be shows and costumes and vulnerability and friends. Sometimes it’ll just be time with yourself or with the person you love most. And that’s okay.
During the first year of Sobotka, I was living alone in a town full of transitional people. I’d stayed in Urbana for a job after graduating, though almost all my friends had left. Memories of house parties, late night talks, midnight grocery store runs, and climbing roofs haunted me, haunted this town. When I finally decided to move back to Chicago, I told myself that I wouldn’t be alone like that again. I began to fill every day with friends or activities or work, anything that would keep me occupied and away from my thoughts. I put my energy into people and projects, but never into myself. By keeping a safe distance from anything that was going on in my mind, I was never able to develop, learn about myself, or grow. I became stagnant.
This year, I’ve finally allowed myself to create new experiences, ones that I never imagined I’d have. This is the first time I’ve fully written the Editor’s Note, the first time I’ve ever had any of my work published and read in public, the first time I’ve ever traveled to Pittsburgh or the Smoky Mountains or Madison or experienced the inexplicable House on the Rock. By letting go of familiarity, I’ve been able to have a year of strange, scary, exciting, influential experiences. Now, I find comfort in moments where I sit in my room, no one around, and am allowed to write and read and be with my thoughts.
Instead of focusing on distance during this season, it’s become a time to dig out an understanding of what I need to not slip on that ice on my way to work or school or the bar, to take skeletons off their hangers and into the light. Though snow blizzards and cold winds can act as a comforter, tucking us far away from what’s waiting beyond the door, they also give us a space for self-reflection. This space can serve as a moment where we look back at past decisions made, where we diverged and got caught up in the thoughts of all that went wrong. Here’s where we understand how to release, move forward, and enjoy this new type of season in our lives.
Some of the pieces in this issue ruminate on softer, fuller times, while others try to find a path or new focus for the future, but most are looking for meaning, a reason, an understanding of what to do next, what is the right move in this game of Sequence.
Each time these glimpses into people’s lives flood our inbox, everything reawakens: motivation, examination of self, possibilities. The lapse in creativity, filled. Home is where we expect to feel welcomed, unafraid, comfortable. These pieces remind us that not everyone has that luxury. Some live inside themselves, questioning their actions and inactions constantly. But we can also find a peace in this turbulent place. Even if it requires changing your perspective, even when it’s extremely difficult.
As always, we hope this makes you feel human and unalone.
Kathy Klimentowski
Chicago, November 2018
Sobotka Literary Magazine 