it happened....
Sometimes, life feels like it’s happening all at once. Everything hits you in a moment. And sometimes, you get an idea...all at once. Or the urge to make something. That’s what this is zine is about. In the three or so months it’s taken this zine to come together, the effects of COVID-19 have moved us to live out a massive change together, yet separately. It’s shaping how we connect, create and reach out to one another in our own (temporarily) isolated worlds. Since I wrote the above, in the beginning of May, that isolation streak has been historically broken as people take to the streets, to reunite in recognition of a systemic, white supremacist structured society. It’s not news that we live in an inequitable America. Yet, sadly, it is news that White people are doing some things (and also still no things) to recognize how Whiteness is inherent to perpetuating injustice and brutality against Black people. If this little “editor’s letter” didn’t echo the unarguable fact that Black Lives Matter it would be pointless to publish the whole zine too. 1
06/10/2020
editor’s letter This zine was never made to be a distraction from the happenings in the world. Instead, it was created as a way to collaboratively engage in them. Issue #1 is like a time capsule of the comfort and discomfort felt in those first months (March-May) of the pandemic. I hope it moves you to take action, both in creating something and for fighting to create a better something.
zine/instagram
Like anything, it takes commitment to make change, and change commits itself in time – but that time speeds up when we do things together. Do what you can every day to participate in making history rewrite itself into the equitable, accountable world that we can make it. Make phone calls, write your reps, and heck yeah – keep protesting! And, in the time in between those actions, check out some Black zines too: Dey (@deymagazine) Ashamed (@ashamedmagazine) gal-dem (@galdemzine) First Gen (@firstgenmag) Thiiird (@thiiirdmagazine) --Celia Ruley 2
THANK YOU CONTRIBUTORS for your ~contributions~ and everyone for their interest and attention. It’s the thought of eyes on this page that makes everyone stand up a little straighter and speak a little louder.
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COVER ∙ CLEO REAVEY ∙ EDIOTR/DESIGN: ∙ CELIA RULEY ∙
∙ LUCY BOLIN ∙ ∙ CATIE CLARK ∙ ∙ JAY CRILLEY ∙ ∙ ERIN CRAWFORD ∙ ∙ LENNY FARINHOLT ∙ ∙ FIONA MCMICHAEL ∙ ∙ NORI MCDUFFIE ∙ ∙ MOIRA NEVE ∙ ∙ EKKIOSA OLUMHENSE ∙ ∙ JULIA PARK ∙ ∙ SOPHIE WILSON ∙ ∙ CLARE WISLAR ∙
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Clare Wislar
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Ekkiosa Olumhense
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Sophie Wilson THE FINE LINE Based on true events in which I only clean the area of my room that can be seen through my computer. 7
Julia Park
------> flip to pg. 7 for recipe 8
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Lucy Bolin
MY BEDROOM
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Lenny Farinholt
THE BEGINNING OF HER CIRCULAR AND PERLIOUS JOURNEY 13
Moira Neve
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Nori McDuffie I chose the picture of my friend Bethlehem because in that very moment I didn’t feel like I had to perform! I mean I always feel that way around her, but in that moment it was prominent and it was just really peaceful with it being just Bethlehem & I. 18
Erin Crawford
THESE BOOTS WERE MADE FOR STOMPING 19
Fiona McMichael
COMFORT IN A HALF A ROLL OF FILM 20
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photographs and words by Celia Ruley Sunday 29 March 2020
A
tweet about how a twelve-year-old said: “well at least there will be fewer school shootings for a while”. My friends repeatedly tell me they miss school and being together. I feel the same way. I distract myself by going several days not reading the news. Feeling the burden when I read the headlines, the updates on my phone but also, when I ignore them. Assignments I can’t focus on. Grades that turn optionally pass/fail. Professors that email you that they don’t know if they can continue their courses because they have too much on their plate. No one knowing what it means or how to deal with it as we all try to cope with it. There isn’t anything else you can do. Which is the hard thing about hard things. You have to feel them before they can pass. You have to see both sides of the same coin to keep yourself steady. At least, that’s what I keep doing. Flipping right to left in bed, sweaty. Going to bed at 2AM every night because I can’t quiet my mind down. Walking up and down and around the neighborhood, like the path on Candyland, the one beloved board game you played as a kid that you got so familiar with, you can still retrace your turns from memory.
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There’s the beech tree I like to sit underneath in the woods. I’ve already gone there twice, maybe three times, since being home. Usually, I reserve it for moments of solitude, when I’m feeling at a loss. It’s a thing I’ve done since high school. Sometimes I’d bring my diary, other times I’d sit and look at how the trees had filled out or how they’d lost their leaves. Today, they are filling out. Spring. I notice someone’s carved a phone number into the tree. I know its a phone number and not some random chain of numbers because it starts with 919. That’s the North Carolina area code. If I don’t keep myself busy, I find I walk around my head too much. So I give myself projects, mainly art ones because I’ve never been good at folding all my clothes after they’re washed, putting them away. I’ve never been good about throwing away receipts because they feel like necessary memories I’ll also have thrown away. The clothes pile up on my desk chair, the books climb onto every surface. Even on top of the books on the bookshelf, perpendicular to all the rest. I haven’t read them yet. I still can’t focus well. Many people I love without work. Many people I love scared. Many people I love lonely. I want to freeze time, to stop it. For a few minutes, so we can all catch our breath. Which, in truth, is all I’ve been doing lately.
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There was one day I didn’t leave the house, not even to get the mail, I barely left my room. It reminded me of high school, where one night my friends asked me to go out and I told them “maybe” because I was in a funk, sad, depressed really. And I couldn’t leave the edge of my bed. Until my mom came in and pretty much ordered me to drive myself there, to their house. I felt lighter after but, I can’t go there now. A week from today, I will notice the little bridge that lets me cross to the beech tree has been removed. There will be a NO TRESPASSING sign added to the entrance to the woods. During one of the moments where I want to escape my head, I’ll go there and find this and turn back home with my head still in knots. I don’t have it bad, I say. And I know I don’t. As I tell myself that, its like a wet, cold slap to the face. Like when a beach towel hits you from the wind, right after you’ve dried off. It still stings, even though it was inevitable. I wish I could write painlessly about a time of solitude as, at this point, I’ve become accustomed to it. High school was a straight line with few exciting sparks. I spent what feels like most of it, alone or working, or both. Solitude is strange because it often tells you exactly what you need or want. Yet, it feels impossible to get to it. The desire to work around that feeling can get you through it, but it can’t stop you from feeling it either. 22 24
I’ve lived so many moments from inside my head. Dreams played out on a loop enough they seem real. I wonder if this time will feel the same. A string of memories composed as though they were receipts I longed to keep. It’s likely not comforting to read this. I think as I edit. But as the writer, or typer really, it makes me feel weightless in the way sitting against that beech tree does. If I can’t go stomp out to the tree, I can at least stomp the keys on my keyboard. The same way that phone number can be carved into the bark, I can carve words into an otherwise paperless page. It’s still there, but its also not in my head now. I can look at it, admire how it’s not inside me running laps. I think I want to lay in the grass. I’ve thought this for a few days. If I lie in the grass, it will cup me around my edges, even as it makes me itch. It’s an invisible kind of worry out there. Mom noticed how quiet it was because there are no airplanes in the sky anymore. That feels symbolic. An invisible threat. •
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Catie Clark
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STARGAZING
Jay Crilley
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Moira Neve 28 30
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