We’ve all seen the various 2021 greetings. There was Jon Oliver’s “Fuck you 2020! Get Fucked 2020!” followed by a ginormous and very real blowing up of a 2020 structure. There was the pretty script written GIF, “Please be good, 2021!” I’ve also read statements that when midnight strikes, it doesn’t mean that all the bad of 2020 will just end, encouraging us to be patient and to continue to care for ourselves; an honest reminder that snaps us back to the reality of time as linear (philosopher's don’t at me...I’m just tryna be poetic here for my readers) and that demarcations between one moment and the next cannot contain the bad of one moment within itself. Some of us enter 2021 with open wounds from the previous year. Some of us have washed our hair (probably for the first time in weeks) of 2020, entering the new year with a hopeful stride, while some look into the new year as a void, unsure of how to move forward. 

The photos for this quarter’s cover were taken in the middle of a plowed corn field. I debated whether I should wait for the snow to take quintessential winter photos; in the snow with a pop of red lip ‘cause we all love red against the white of snow! But I wanted to be honest about the reality of my winter. For most of the Winter in the midwest, it is typically gray from the constant overcast of clouds and haze from the high humidity levels. Then there’s the winds from Lake Michigan that bring in a cold that seeps through the cracks of your outerwear regardless of how many layers you wear. So I looked out onto the wide open space before me and trekked onto an uneven muddy field and with the gray sky as my backdrop. The cold stung my hands and the wind made my eyes water. But I posed for you in the frigid cold all while donning red lips. 

Though we may yet, on uneven ground, be carrying weight from the previous year and with haze limiting our view of the days to come, I hope you’ll find little ways to make yourself feel limitless. Even if it’s the simple act of coating your lips in your favorite color. This quarter, I’ll be sharing with you the ways I’m caring for myself as I hunker down for the rest of this bleak season, from simple acts of creating coziness, to taking charge of my mental health.  Here’s to a new year where we, in our own way, continue to stride forward. 

Peace and love,

Victoria-Riza