Dear reader — there are an extraordinary number of doorways being opened to you, today, by people who would like very much for you to walk through them. Each is bright. Each is urgent. Each, at first glance, looks important.
This is not one of those doorways. This is a small room with the lights low and the door left ajar. There is a chair here, set at a slight angle to the window, the way chairs are set in rooms whose owners have understood that a view is best taken obliquely. There is a notebook beside the chair, and a candle that has clearly been lit more than once. The kettle, when you arrive, will already have been on a long while. There is no host in the room. The host is whoever sits down.
We have been writing here, off and on, since 2018 — through years of certainty and years of uncertainty, through quiet and through grief, through a long pause that taught us more than the writing ever did. We are here again because, after the pause, it became clear that the writing wanted to continue. Less brave than before. More specific. Less interested in making points and more interested in lighting small corners. We hope a few of these corners are useful to you.
Stay as long as you like. Read carefully or not at all. Light the candle. Take what is useful. Leave the rest. Come back when you remember the door is open.
